Affinity by Sarah Waters Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.51 You Save: $7.49 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.25 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Affinity
Book Review: Mediums and madness
Summary: 5 Stars
I first met Sarah Waters work in Fingersmith, her very Dickensian novel, and one that I adored. Affinity is even better.
Margaret Prior is a young upper-class Victorian woman. Following her recovery from a suicide attempt, she engages in the "good work" of a prison visitor to the women's prison at Millbank. There, she is drawn to Selina Dawes, a medium who has been convicted of assault following a séance that ended with her mentor dead and a young woman traumatized.
The book is told in two alternating stories: that of Selina, telling of the events leading to the fateful night, and that of Margaret, beginning as she starts her prison visits. Gradually, we learn a great deal about Margaret. Her father was a scholar of Renaissance art, she his amanuensis. Her intellectual leanings made her feel a bit out of place from the rest of her family, and her father's death hit her hard. The loss of the long longed-for trip to Italy is compounded by the fact that her about-to-be-married sister is to honeymoon there, and her socially conforming mother cannot provide the sympathy or empathy she needs. All the more so because yet another loss cannot be spoken of. How can she reveal that she and her brother's wife were once, it seems, more than friends? Her inner thoughts, her psychology, unfold.
Selina is not opened to us so much. Her story is more of action. "This is what happened, this is what I learned, this is what I did." Not so much of "this is what I thought", "this is how I feel". Miss Selina Dawes, medium, becomes aware of her spiritualist powers, is taken up by the community and learns how to use those powers, becomes the protegée of the wealthy Mrs. Brink and ends up in prison. Selina comes to us more through Margaret's reaction to her than through herself.
Waters' descriptive abilities are extraordinary. Her limning of the physical and psychological constraints of Millbank prison are dead on. And this book contains what may be one of the creepiest passages of writing I have ever read. Margaret has gone to a spiritualist society, where she has seen moulds of human parts, including one which is supposed to be the hand of Dawes' spirit guide, Peter Quick. She imagines that hand coming to visit Selina in prison. "It would be silent, dark and very still; the shelves of moulds, however, might not lie still. The wax might ripple. The lips upon the spirit-face might twitch, and the eyelids roll; the dimple upon the baby's arm would grow deeper as the arm unfolded -- so I saw it now, in Selina's cell, as I stepped form her and shuddered. The swollen fingers of Peter Quick's fist -- I saw, them, I saw them! -- were uncurling, and flexing. Now the hand was inching its way cross the shelf, the fingers drawing the palm over the wood. Now they were parting the cabinet doors -- they left smears upon the glass."
Note the name: Peter Quick. That's no accident. Affinity's ambivalence over the question of "ghosts or madness", its exploration of psychological control, of possession, of power relationships, owes a good deal to Henry James The Turn of the Screw.
This is a stunning novel. And the end will rip you up.
Book Review: Much better than Tipping the Velvet & Fingersmith
Summary: 3 Stars
I have now read all three of Waters novels, and I would say this is the best. It was hard to get into it and I almost didn't bother to continue, but I slogged through and by the second half I looked forward to nightly reading. The ending was a great surprise, and I was left with my heart pounding and unable to sleep. The style of narrative is annoying in the beginning, but the rhythm soon makes itself clear. Worth the effort for a Victorian style novel. A similar theme of betrayal runs throughout the three books, but with enough variation to make it worth reading.Book Review: My summer read (2006)
Summary: 5 Stars
This story is so very intriguing that I felt like I was right there in Millbank prison with Selina Dawes. Sarah Waters' description of how horrid a Victorian 'gaol' actually was is chilling and yet when you really think on it, it was probably even more terrible than that. I can only imagine what it was like to totally 'lose it' and be meanly shuffled off to 'the darks' bound in a Victorian version of the straight jacket. Also the supernatural factor of this story is amazing and one gets a taste of Peter Quick. What a great taste it is. This book is a MUST if you enjoyed The Alienist by Caleb Carr.Book Review: Not as good as Fingersmith
Summary: 3 Stars
I like Sarah Waters -- her writing is lovely and her characters are well-developed and interesting. Her ability to evoke 19th century England is fine and she sets the mood, often dark and eerie, rather well. This is a good book, and, like Fingersmith, contains a twist. It's not as interesting as Fingersmith, however; the story isn't as compelling, nor are the characters, and the twist isn't that surprising (the twist in Fingersmith literally made me yelp!). It is a tad slow as well. It's worth the read, but if read after Fingersmith this may disappoint a bit.Book Review: Obsession, Deception & Addiction!
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm struck by a few similar elements in Affinity and The Turn of the Screw. Sexual repression as it contributed to the female characters' malaise is the clearest.
Given Sarah Waters's great scholarship, the choice of Peter Quick's name was surely not coincidental but meant as a nod to Henry James's Peter Quint. Once tipped off, it's a short step to begin doubting the credibility, if not the sanity of the main female character. Why as yet haven't any reviewers commented here on the steady and generous intake of opium (laudanum) and chloral hydrate (a hypnotic) that Miss Prior was accustomed to consuming? While she was most certainly blinded with love for Selina Dawes, her huge drug habit surely further distorted her perceptions and judgment about that lady.
Though it could have been shorter and tighter, you can read this story on political, social and psychological levels. What is not ambiguous, however, is the ending. The scam is very real.
Common threads running through Sarah Waters's first 3 books (haven't read the most recent yet) are betrayal and the abuse of power, woven into very different and clever entertainments.