The Crimson Petal and the White

I liked the fact she was so scabby.

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed The Courage Consort and The Hundred and Ninety Nine Steps a lot more, though. He certainly writes fine sentences.

After "Under The Skin" I'm a bit wary of MF's capacity for clunky metaphor, and the end of "TCPATW" goes a bit that way. I think he manages to carry it off without too much clunk this time.

Also, worst sentence in a reviewers lexicon: "[xXx] could give Cheever, Nabokov, Fitzgerald, [etc.] a run for their money at writing the perfect sentence"?

I have no intention of reading this book until it becomes a paperback, it is large.

David: the copy I read was a paperback, I wouldn't fancy hefting a copy of the hardback around.

I think Faber's intent was to write a Victorian novel using all the information it was not possible for Victorian-era writers to reference, whether through a lack of knowledge about what those poxy sores were, or for reasons of social propriety. He does really well with researching the area of St Giles (a 10-minute walk from my flat) and the (often hypocritical) social mores of the time. What isn't so satisfying is some of the clunkier bits of dialogue, but it's nowhere near as bad as Morley made out.

Under The Skin is still a bazillion times more phenomenal, though.

His writing in Under the Skin IS concise, not a superfluous word in the volume.

I'm interested in why suzy thought UTS was phenomenal, I struggled my way through it after Amliss Vess appeared, zZz.

so this was turned into a miniseries. which I spent 4 hours watching. ending was so annoying. I do eventually want to go back and read the novel but am already wary of the ending. (Under the Skin was similarly annoying).