Search - The Crimson Petal and the White

I really enjoyed this novel. I prefer longer books because you really get wrapped up the story lines and the characters. The book is based around a very likable and understandable character named Sugar. It’s very easy to comprehend where Sugar is coming from and why she makes the choices she does. The back of the book is a bit misleading because it says she climbs the ranks of society which made it sound Evita-esque, which isn’t the case. The narrative is refreshingly different and it pulls you along through the story and you get to be in the heads of most of the characters at one point or another. I expected it to be much more graphic than it was from what others have said, but in my opinion it’s not very graphic at all. Normally I like a neat and tidy story ending to sum things up, but somehow the way this novel ended seemed very fitting.

A fascinating peek inside English upper crust and the 'lower' crust. Set in the early 1800s (I think), it's the story of an intelligent whore and the man who is so captivated by her, he loses himself.

The pictures of her life on the street and his, spent navigating the murky waters of his wife's bizarre beharior, is rather Dickensian.

The title, which immediately sets a contrast, kept me guessing all the way through. Which character is the Crimson Petal and which is the White? Faber continually shifts the characterizations so that the reader is always guessing.

Would I read this book again? I loved it, but probably not. The reason? The major effect of this book is the mystery inherent in the title. Now that I've read it and know the ending the enigma is solved for me.

If you can stomach through sexually explicit scenes and language, you'll find a delightful read. This will explore themes of religion, social stratification, cleanliness and family. The characters are vividly portrayed.

This is a real page turner. It"s about the life of ptostitutes during the Victorian age. The book follows the life of Sugar who rises into society. Her mother is a madam who taught her the ways of pleasing men from the early age of nine. This book is full of love romance and lots of sex.it's over 900 pages of pure entertainment. I hated to see the end coming. I loved this book.

The Crimson Petal and the White whisks readers on a journey through the filthiest parts of urban Victorian London and on to the cleanest suburbs. Farber uses a refreshing style, regularly reminding the reader that she is, in fact, reading a novel, and that her views of the story are necessarily constrained--by who is doing the telling.

The story follows Sugar, a 19-year-old prostitute, and her involvement with William Rackham, the heir to a cosmetics company. Their relationship evolves throughout the narrative, complicated by William's wife Agnes and her adamant grip on Catholicism. A parallel story is that of Henry Rackham, William's older brother, who grapples with the decision to enter the clergy. Henry is faithful, devout and rarely doubtful--only when it comes to his all-too-human love for Mrs. Fox, a young, vibrant, active widow.

The story lines swirl and mix with each other. Every wonderfully multidimensional character changes, grows, questions him- or herself. Many of them bump into each other, sometimes without knowing just how importantly they figure in each other's lives.

The Crimson Petal and the White, as its title suggests, is a study in thematic opposites: masculine and feminine roles, love and lust, madness and sanity, victims and survivors, earthly death and immortality, cleanliness and filth, right choices and wrong. At heart, it is a novel of how love (real or manufactured, familial or romantic) shapes the choices we make, and ultimately, our lives. How love may become the key to our immortality. How love can build us up and break us down. How true love for others begins with a sincere love of the self. How love can sustain us or drain us dry.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves excellent literary fiction, who is willing to read something a unconventional (and lengthy--but really, I wanted to keep reading!) and who enjoys good literature as art. I am so thoroughly taken by this book that I can't wait to get my hands on others by Michael Farber.

I could never quite get into this book. From the very beginning, my interest was barely piqued, but I stuck with it for as long as I could (which was pretty long considering the book's 900 pages) but eventually boredom and regret over how much time I was wasting with this book kicked in and I quit without even finishing it... I just could not bring myself to care about any of these characters and their day-to-day lives. Most of them I felt had very few endearing qualities. You may feel completely differently about it though!