Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Devonshire Arms, Sarah Waters seemed to get a thumbs from all, while falling short of rave reviews.  There was agreement for example that the first plot twist was both impressive and impossible to second guess.   

Mark Th felt it was a fine read, though not quite as good as Affinity.  Mark T found the plot really exciting and saw Fingersmith as a modern take on gothic authors like Wilkie Collins.  He found the love scenes convincingly erotic and also noted how well Waters had evoked the look and feel of London.  He had looked forward to each reading of the book.  Chris W enjoyed it too, but felt it was some 200 pages to long with too much in the Maud section that was repetition. His suspicion was that Waters wrote in the hope of having a film based on the novel.  He enjoyed the plot twists and the imagery of the flight from Briar and felt that there was real dramatic tension at times.  However, the ending was predictable and the plot at times unconvincing – would Sue really seem convincingly mad, he wondered?  This was echoed by Ras, who also felt that it was, on balance a good book.  For Ras the plot was unnecessarily convoluted – why not just pitch up at Briar with the letter and a good lawyer and get the loot?  He also enjoyed the imagery, atmosphere and the description.  He also questioned whether a nocturnal marriage ceremony was legal at his time.  

 Neil, having read all of SW’s oeuvre, had not re-read it for the meeting, but felt that it is a book that says long in the memory with its vivid description and imagery.  The period feel was a real strength of the book.  Steve had yet to complete, but was enjoying it thus far and contrasted it favourably with Alison Weir as a book written by a real author.  He was full of praise for the language and the rhythms of Water’s prose.  Chris B had also yet to complete, but had already noted that the surroundings and the description of familiar places in a very different time as an impressive feature. Richard had agreed with the view that character and plot were well handled (despite having gone over to the dark side of electronic readership).   

Rob had also liked the book, as well as raising questions about the male characters’ individual and collective weaknesses, and the critique of pornography possibly implied.  Here views were mixed, with some seeing Gentleman as a pivotal character in the book, some seeing the book as pointing up the dangers of pornography, while others saw it as a device that showed the upper middle classes, for all their piety, as no more moral than the residents of Lant Street.