TIPPING THE VELVET TOO FAR. (Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Date:	02/10/06 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easily readable.

Disadvantages: Uncomfortably detailed.

I have bought every book that Sarah Waters ever published based on my experience of her exquisitely detailed book “Affinity”, in which her written style was clear, and detail amazingly real. This book is more well known since it has been televised, although having just read it, I can only assume that the program could never actually be true to the book, unless it is on at an adult only time, since it's attention to detail is such that it proved a disturbing read.

The book tells the story of Nan King, who works in her family Oyster restaurant in Whitstable at the turn of the 19th Century to 20th Century. She is a likeable character at first, and has acquired the skills of cooking oysters to perfection, and is proud of her family's achievement in the art of cuisine. Life takes a turn for the young lady, when she finds herself awed by the local Music Hall, and particularly the singing and stage presence of Kitty Butler. From the written word, you can imagine the awe, and the excitement that the young girl experiences, in a world that takes her away from the mundane to a world that holds all kinds of possibilities that she had never imagined before.

Having befriended Kitty, and having introduced her to her family, life takes on a new adventure when she goes to the city to work as Kitty's dresser, although unbeknown to her, this produces stirrings within the young girl that lead her to a life of strangeness, although to give away a lot more than this would be to ruin the story for those who want to make the discovery themselves.

It's a story of relationships, and Nan's progress through the formative young adult years, her need to earn her living, her friends and indeed her enemies, wrapped up a little too much in detail of events, rather than the emotion that makes the character who she is. Here, I feel that Waters failed because, by the end of the book, I really had very little feeling for the heroine at all, as what was missing from the dialogue was the very detail that makes Sarah Waters' other books so detailed, and here, I feel she failed.

The writing style here is bolder than Affinity which to me seems a shame. For example, in Affinity, the story dealt with friendship between two women, and what Sarah Waters achieved was a wonderful balance of reality based on the trust placed between two people, whose lives cross by complete chance and that detailed the way in which women can become close, trusting friends. I loved Affinity. It was the best book I have read for a long time, and the cleverness of the writer sparkled. In her book, Fingersmith, Sarah Waters also dealt with lesbianism in a way that is acceptable to any reader, girls thrown together by circumstance, and the scenarios both believeable and enchanting, with a very strong storyline that made the book feel like you were taking the choice chocolates from a good quality box. It was subtle and had substance. It was clever in that the story was so well founded.

In “The Night Watch”, which was my third read of Sarah Waters, she began to lose appeal, since the storyline was so weak and bitty that it actually made me cringe, and described lesbian relationships in war-torn England. I wasn't keen on this book at all which to my mind is the weakest of Sarah Waters' books.

On beginning the story “Tipping the Velvet”, I suppose I was forewarned about her lesbian tendencies although as stated, in other books, the subject matter was dealt with in a beautiful manner, and I expected similar treatment in this book. I am not easily shocked although I have to admit to having cringed in places and even felt the necessity to hide the cover of the book in places whilst I was reading it on the train. It gets too graphic. It takes the reader into the darker side of sex, not just in a lesbian relationship, but in one where a young lady dresses as a man, and acts out terrible sexual acts both with men and women. Having read her better works, I really am curious as to what she will write next, though would prefer it to be in the style of Affinity and Fingersmith, rather than the seemingly self indulgent lesbian detail that graced the pages of this particular book.

If you are in the slightest squeamish about women being attracted to other women, avoid this book like the plague, although it is well written and acclaimed, and has a story to tell. Certainly, this is not a book that I would read again, and although much more commercially successful than Affinity, seems to rely upon the shock factor, rather than writing skill, for its popularity. I much prefer the aspects of Affinity which go much further than any of her other books in being intimate rather than indulging in pornography. The subtleties of the differences between pornography and intimacy are so much clearer in Affinity than they are in this book, the ending of which seemed rather mundane and certainly nowhere near as clever and detailed as both Affinity and Fingersmith. Perhaps the written subject matter was too close to home for the lady, though by revealing detail in such a manner, made this book too disturbing, and incredible in places, almost giving the notion that at that epoch in British history there were actually more lesbians around than normal people, which to me seemed over stated and inaccurate.

Sarah Waters is a writer worth reading. Her attention to detail is superb, though this book is not the best of the bunch. If you have a choice, and have not read Waters work, you will not be disappointed with Affinity nor Fingersmith, though perhaps reading this book first will disappoint you enough to miss out on one of the best writers of today, which would be a loss.



Paperback: 472 pages
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd (4 Mar 1999)
Language English
ISBN: 1860495249


Available new on Amazon at 6.39 GBP or second hand at 2.60 GBP and in this instance, I would opt for the second hand version, or advise a reader to borrow the book.

Rachel

Summary: Not the best of her work or a place to begin to evaluate Sarah Waters.