The Crimson Petal and the White

Has anyone else read this? I'm reading it now, about 150 pages in, and I LOVE it. Yes, it's very adult (go away kids), but the writing is just fantastic - it's so original - I can't remember reading anything else written in the past 100 years that was written quite like it.

As I said, I'm only 150 pages in, so please don't put any spoilers, but I was just wondering if anyone else has read it.

My favorite quote so far: as Rackham and his sick wife suffer through a horribly strained breakfast together (the first in weeks) the narrator gives a sentence about Agnes spreading some mushrooms on her toast in a slight pattern. Then: "Small morsels of time are consumed, while an undigestible future remains." I mean, who WRITES like that any more???

---

I loved worshipped and adored this book. For such a massive book, not a great deal happens, but it's so exquisitely written I didn't care, I devoured every page. Gorgeous.

---

I thought it was a bore. A big fat crashing bore. It establishes a series of characters and then keeps telling me the same things about them for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I got sick of waiting for something to happen. Any self-respecting Victorian novelist would have done in about 50 pages what it takes Michel Faber about 400 pages to do in Crimson Petal.

If you want to read a big old book set in Victorian England, read some Anthony Trollope or Dickens instead. They're faster, funnier, and considerably less BORING, than Michel Faber.

---