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Loading... Affinityby Sarah Waters
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Book_Junkie | Jul 4, 2009 |   This book took me longer to finish than Fingersmith because I wasn't quite as interested in the characters until the very end, when Waters pulled some of the same "oh-ho, nobody is who you think they are!" tricks she did in Fingersmith, at which point I liked it much better. :D The book, aside from having a central lesbian love theme (that wasn't as explicitly physical as in FS), dealt with the Spiritualist movement in the 19th century (as well as prison conditions, obviously). There is also some medicinal use of laudanum, which left me confused at the end as to whether the characters (at least Margaret) really believed in the spirits or it was an effect of the opium as several times she said she took some to make the bond between her and Selina stronger or some such. Indeed, there was a question at the end as to whether or not "Peter Quick" ever really existed, or if Selina really did believe he existed... basically, the more I think about it, the more I'm not certain I really know what happened or that I understand the characters' relationships as well as I thought I did. Which I suppose is Waters' trademark, leaving you confused and requiring a reread to better understand it. Overall, I did enjoy the book, albeit not nearly as much as Fingersmith. (  )harumph | Jun 30, 2009 | There is no lying that Sarah Waters is an amazing writer. However the story line of this novel was so slow. You never felt like you were going anywhere and when you did get to the point is was disappointing. The authors ability to place in the locations of her novels is nothing but amazing but with a terriable story line to back it up this was a real disappointment. (  )ehough75 | Apr 21, 2009 | 1  This book started very slow and it was only at the urging of a good friend that I continued reading it. I'm grateful for the push because by Part Two of this book, I found it impossible to put down. It is the story of Margaret and Selina--a proper, but very sad, lady of wealth and education; and a spiritual medium. Taking place in Victorian England, this book is similar only in location and era to her first book "Tipping the Velvet"--which is a very good thing. There are lesbian undertones to this book, but as much of the action takes place in a women's prison, it is not forced or unexpected, and actually gives the book much of its tension. Margaret, suffering from the physical loss of her father and the emotional loss of her 'friend', begins visiting a local women's prison as a kind of social service--to inspire the lowly criminals to repent. There, she meets Selina Dawes, a notorious medium who was imprisoned after a client of hers died under mysterious conditions. It is Margaret who seems to gain improvement from her visits, and this starts the series of events that make this book both expected and heartbreaking. ( )daykeeper | Mar 31, 2009 | Margaret Prior is a spinster grieving for her dead father. She becomes a “Lady Visitor” at Millbank Prison where she meets Selina Dawes. Selina is in Millbank for fraud and assault. She claims to be a spiritual medium who receives gifts from the spirits. She is a lovely young women and Margaret grows overly fond of her. Margaret’s family become concerned about her health; they think she spends too much time at the penitentiary. Her fondness becomes obsession as she begins to believe that her and Selina have a special “affinity” and are bound together forever, but is Selina the sweet lovely creature she appears to be or could it be that the fraud and assault charges are justified? Most of the story is told through Margaret’s journal entries. Every once in awhile an entry from Selina’s journal is added. Margaret is a very sensitive and intelligent woman. Selina may be in a physical prison, but Margaret is in a figurative one. She is imprisoned by family obligations and societal norms. This is the women’s true “affinity.” (  )craso | Mar 27, 2009 | 0.038 seconds to build listing
Amazon.com (ISBN 186049692X, Paperback)Affinity is a tale of power and possession that Henry James himself might admire. In her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters explored secrets and longing--capping off this lesbian romp with a utopian-socialist vision. Her intricate follow-up is just as sensual but infinitely darker, its moral more difficult to descry. Its stylistic and psychological rewards, however, are visible at every turn, the author's persuasive imagination matched by her gift for storytelling.In late September 1874, Margaret Prior makes her way through the pentagons of London's Millbank Prison, a place of fearful symmetry and endless corridors. This plain woman on the verge of 30 has come to comfort those behind bars, several of whom Waters brings to instant, sad life. And our Lady Visitor plans to take her role dead seriously, having recovered from two years of nervous indolence in her family's Chelsea house. One person, however, makes her job a passion. Opening an inspection slit (or "eye" as these devices are known), Margaret hears "a perfect sigh, like a sigh in a story." Peering inward, she's confronted by the most erotic of visions--a woman turned toward the sun, caressing her cheek with a forbidden violet: "As I watched, she put the flower to her lips, and breathed upon it, and the purple of the petals gave a quiver and seemed to glow..." Selina Dawes may indeed have the face of a Crivelli angel, but this medium is in for fraud and assault, her last session having gone very badly indeed. Suffice it to say that the first full encounter between these two very different women is enthralling. "You think spiritualism a kind of fancy," Selina riddles. "Doesn't it seem to you, now you are here, that anything might be real, since Millbank is?" And soon enough Margaret receives several viable signs of the supernatural: a locket disappears from her room, flowers mysteriously appear, and her dazzling friend knows everything about her. Strangest of all, Selina seems to love her. As Margaret records her weekly prison forays, her own past comes into focus, notably her plans to travel to Italy with her first love (who is now her sister-in-law). But her current journal, she convinces herself, is to be very different from her last one, which "took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take." Meanwhile, Waters offers a narrative two-for-one, placing Margaret's diary cheek by jowl with Selina's chronicle of her pre-Millbank existence. This dispassionate, staccato record initially suggests that we can separate truth from desire. Or can we? What Waters's haunting creation leaves us with is a more painful reality--that knowledge and belief are entirely different things. --Kerry Fried (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:00 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Sarah Waters is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. The story drew me in slowly, but surely. The main narrator is Miss Prior, and the book is interspersed with short accounts of events leading up to the incident which led to Selina's imprisonment; these parts are narrated by Selina herself. Miss Prior has herself suffered a great loss, and illness and depression are part of her recent past. As much as she helps Selina cope with prison life, Selina helps her to cope with her own life, living with her stifling mother.
The story unfolds beautifully at a pace slow pace, which nevertheless does not fail to hold the reader's attention. The ending was a genuine surprise, and one which I could not have predicted - here I could not help but to feel what Miss Prior felt. It is was a pleasure to be genuinely shocked by a story's conclusion.
As always, Sarah Waters captures the atmosphere and surroundings of 1870s London, and the setting is brought to life through her words. This book doesn't have the Dickensian feel of Fingersmith, nor the bawdy sauciness of Tipping the Velvet (both of which books I thoroughly enjoyed), but is rather more subtle. It works beautifully and is further evidence to show what a talented writer Waters is. I found myself wanting to keep reading, as I was eager to know what would happen next.
I would recommend this book very highly - I don't think you will be disapppinted! (