Fingersmith

Title: Fingersmith
Author: Sarah Waters
Published: 2002 by Virago (this reprint from 2009)
Genre: Historical crime fiction
Pages: 548


I totally agree with one of the comments on the back: "There are always novels you envy people for not having read yet, for the pleasure they still have to come. Well, this is one." I saw the BBC movie made from the book a few years ago (was blown away by that already!), and so took my time before getting to read Fingersmith, in the hope that I would have forgotten most of it already.

Not bloody likely! This shit's unforgettable. Sarah Waters indeed is my favourite author these days. Well, her and Chuck Palahniuk. I really do wish I had read the book before seeing the movie, because now I knew the bigger twists and expected them.

It's the 1860's in London, and young fingersmith (=thief) Susan Trinder, who has lived her whole life among thieves and baby farmers, is seduced into a plot by one of her fellow thieves, a man known as the Gentleman. The plot is to insert her into the home of an old scholar and especially his young niece, to become her maid. Gentleman's plan is to marry the niece, who is to inherit a lot of money once she marries. He intends to put her in an asylum long before that, and Susan is to help him.

Of course things don't go quite like that, but it's very hard to say anything more without spoiling it. And there's a lot of it. Twists of plot that leave the reader breathless, believable characters you like and dislike, and a thoroughly illustrated Victorian England in all its dirt. The 500+ pages seemed endless at first, but they were over far too soon. I read most of them in three sittings, because once I picked up the book to read a little, I always ended reading one or two hundred pages. Now, I think I might watch the movie again. It was quite good as well. (((EDIT: Mmmmyeah, good, but doesn't reach the level of the book. Remembered it was better.)))


"You are waiting for me to start my story. Perhaps I was waiting, then. But my story had already started - I was only like you, and didn't know it."

Two book memes!

The book that’s been on your shelves the longest.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. It’s the first book I ever bought myself, and while I’ve had other books since before it, it’s the one that’s still in the shelf, and is not going anywhere.

A book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time).

Most of them. Rereading something, or sometimes just looking at a book I’ve read, I remember when and where I’ve read it. But something special… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. They opened the bookstore at seven in the morning the Saturday that came out, and I was pretty much first in line, maybe the fourth to get it. It was a nice, warm summer’s morning, so I went to read it in a park, then a café, and then the seaside while watching the Tall Ships’ Race ships leave. People were asking whether anyone had died in the book yet. Then I locked myself home, closed the windows from the noise of the festival going on outside, and read the rest of it.

But yeah, I remember where and who I’ve gotten or bought all my books, so they all remind me of something specific: themselves. X)

A book you acquired in some interesting way.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I was on interrail through half of Europe in 2004, and had picked up two used books in Amsterdam, one of the first stops we made. One of them didn’t really interest me at all. When we got to Prague, our last proper stop before heading home, I spotted Angela’s Ashes in the hostel’s common room’s shelf. I remembered liking the movie a lot, so I picked it up and read a little of it. Then I went to the guy minding the hostel reception and asked whether I could leave the book I didn’t like and take AA with me, since it didn’t really belong to anyone, someone had just left it at the hostel, like the other books as well. He seemed a little confused at the thought, or my English, but eventually I got AA and spent the train ride from Prague to Berlin reading it, whilst heavily hung over. (Drinking beer, wine, Jägermeister and absinthe within one day: BAD idea.)

The book that’s been with you to the most places.

…I could say the above here, since it traveled with me through half of Europe. But maybe I could think of another one. Ooh, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, which I bought on the above trip, once I got to Berlin. I think I had it with me a year or so later when I went to Berlin again, and from there to Milan.

The most recent addition to your shelves.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I’ve seen the BBC movie of it, and liked it, and since I really like her other books, I bought it as well, and maybe will get to read it soon…ish. Little Stranger, also by Waters, is also quite new in my shelves and waiting to be read.

Your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next.

Just finished reading Martin Millar’s Lux the Poet, for the second time within a few months. I’m in the middle of Try by Dennis Cooper, which is… quite disturbing. I’ve been ‘reading’ it for over a month now, and am near halfway through, but it sometimes seems a little too deviated to read. And I’m not queasy, I like watching Takeshi Miike’s movies for kicks…

There are two shelves’ worth of books waiting to be read for the first time, and another shelf of books I’d like to reread. I don’t know which one will be next. Wish I did!

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ABC Book Meme

For this meme, you list a favorite book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. If you don’t have a book for a letter (such as Z or X) than you can substitute a favorite book that simply has that letter in the title (ex. The Lost City of Z or Hot Six by Janet Evanovich). However, you can only do this a maximum of 3 times. (Z, X, and Q. But not Z, X, Q, and V.) Books can be of any genre from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to textbooks.

A: Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
B: the Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
C: the Caterer by Lint and Sienkel, a VERY weird comic
D: Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
E: Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi by Johanna Sinisalo
F: the Fetch by Robert Holdstock
G: the Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar*
H: Harry Potter series (they all begin Harry Potter and…) by J. K. Rowling
I: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
J: the Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin
K: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
L: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
M: Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
N: the Neverending Story by Michael Ende
O: On the Banks of Lethe by James L. Grant
P: Porno by Irvine Welsh
Q: Classic Queen by Mick Rock, a photo book
R: Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
S: Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
T: Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
U: Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius by Michael Moorcock (aka the Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century)
V: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. A graphic novel, that counts, right?
W: the Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
X: Lux the Poet by Martin Millar
Y: Yami no Matsuei by Yoko Matsushita. So it’s a comic… series.
Z: Suzy, Led Zeppelin and me by Martin Millar. Two Z’s for the price of one!

* Haven’t actually read Good Fairies… yet, but couldn’t think of anything else starting with G, and already used the three substitutes on the more difficult letters. But if it’s near as good as the other Millar’s I’ve read, it’ll go on this list.

From Hell

Title: From Hell
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Eddie Campbell
Published: Originally 1989, this edition is from 2006, by Top Shelf
Genre: Crime noir/horror
Pages: Very many.


From Hell, being a melodrama in sixteen parts, is quite possibly my favourite comic book/graphic novel. Ever. I've read it again and again, about once a year. Sometimes more often. It's a fictional take on the famous and thus far unsolved Jack the Ripper murders in London on the autumn of 1888. And after so many years, it's not likely they will be solved, is it?

From Hell takes the popular theory that the Ripper was the royal doctor, Sir William Gull, and that the murders were ordered by Queen Victoria herself, and runs with it. It's a look into the mind of a serial killer, one convinced that he's not just following orders from his Queen, but also the will of his creator. That by killing these women, he's achieving something. Delivering the twentieth century. Underneath the fictional plot, it's full of history of London, of the whole human race, and the struggle between man and woman. Moore's story drags the reader into its swirls, deeper and deeper into a London long gone, brought to life by Campbell's black and white illustrations every bit as dark as the story. It's hell of a scary one.

Being fictional, From Hell also has a long appendix gathering in detail all the true (or not so true) facts that Moore based his writing on: numerous books and studies and theories on the identity of Jack the Ripper, and what the hell really made him go on a murderous spree. Not much is for sure: even the number of his victims isn't 100% certain. Nevertheless, the first appendix sheds a lot of light to the subject, as does the second one, Dance of the gull catchers, a 24-page comic summing up the search for the killer.

"There never was a Jack the Ripper. Mary Kelly was just an unusually determided suicide. Why don't we leave it there?"

The quote is about as plausible as many of the theories. But until (if ever) the truth comes out, people are going to be wondering about the true identity of the Ripper. And From Hell is a pretty good gateway into the mystery.


From Hell is to blame for starting my own interest in the murders, and into the minds of serial killers. So when I've had the chance to go to London, I've made sure to visit Jack's hunting grounds and even gone on a few organised Jack the Ripper walks. Great fun, especially when the evening is starting to grow dark around you. Above's a picture of a building that's supposedly exactly the same as where the last victim, Mary Kelly, lived and was brutally mutilated in. Apparently, some guides actually claim it's the real one. Annnnnd I could go on and on, but this hasn't really got anything to do with the graphic novel anymore. Well, maybe something fancy about fact and fiction and their relation, myth and truth, but I'm too hung over to make with the fancy words.

Go read From Hell.

Lux the Poet (again)

Re-read Lux the Poet just now. Original report here.

One thing I forgot to mention last time was the cute tie-in with Milk, sulphate and Alby Starvation. It's just a tiny thing you won't even realize if you haven't read it. And I think there's another one with Millar's Lonely werewolf girl, but I can't be sure of that since I haven't read it yet.

Lux still rocks, and I can imagine re-reading this later on as well.