09 December 2013

Review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Trade paperback, 548 pages
Published 2012 (originally 2002)

Acquired September 2013
Read October 2013
Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters

I was amazed to the extent to which this felt like an actual Victorian novel-- it was straight out of Wilkie Collins. Multiple first-person narrators, a convoluted will, double identities, triple identities, amazing twists. I was utterly engrossed throughout. A lot has been made of the homosexual relationship, and it is indeed beautiful, but I was also very intrigued by how the female asylum, that perennial "off-stage" threat in Victorian fiction, was brought right into the center of the narrative here. Chilling, harrowing, gorgeous.

No comments:

Post a Comment