A U G U S T 2 1 , 2 0 0 6
Finished reading The Crimson Petal and the White and, when I was done with the last page of that 895 page book, I did something I rarely do when I finish a book. I yelled, "what the fuck?!" threw the book at a wall, and spent the next few days ranting to Ross about the ending. "What the hell kind of ending was that? Who ends a book like that? What was the point?!" I kept bellering, waving the bricklike tome around in the air until Ross, worried that I was going to use it as a projectile again or go lay in traffic to protest the ending, threatended to take the book away from me. Which shut me up, because I wasn't going to be parted from this novel.
Initially, I kept thinking, 'well, that sucked,' and debated whether reading Crimson Petal had been worth it, but then I came to my senses. Books that suck don't elicit such a passionate response when you finish them. Books that suck don't leave you so emotionally invested in the characters that your entire mood is dictated by what happens in the story. And, as I well know but sometimes have a hard time adhering to, just because a book ends in an unexpected way or in a manner that offers no "closure," it doesn't mean the book sucks. Granted, that may well mean the author has a wicked sense of humour and chuckles every time he hears his book being catapulted towards a wall, but an author can still be good even when he gets a perverse thrill out of whipping happily ever after right out from under you.
Not that I have a problem with untidy endings, god only knows how many books I've read and loved that fit the messy ending bill, but I wasn't expecting it from this book. Granted, one of the most frequent things you'll hear said about Crimson Petal is that it's a very Dickens-esque Victorian novel, and if you're familiar with Dickens or Victorian lit you know that happy schmappy isn't a common theme in that genre, but I was still caught off guard. I went into the book thinking of it as pop fiction because, while its setting and theme may be Victorian, it was written in 2002 and it's a wildy successful best seller and obviously modern day author + popular book = pop fiction. Or at least that was the conclusion of my literary snobbery. But that's the danger of snobbery, it's often flat out wrong, and if I hadn't been walking round with my head stuck up my arse, telling my colon about how much I love Dostoevsky, I might have seen this ending coming or been better prepared for the fact that, egads, I was actually going to have to think about this book.
Of course, this ranting may leave you wondering what Crimson Petal is about and what was so dastardly about the ending, but I don't like to give a story away, in case people want to read it. The basic gist of it - this is printed on the back cover, so it's not revealing much - is that it's the story of Sugar, a 19 year old prostitute in 1870s London, and what happens when a wealthy, high society married man falls for her. And while the setting is the Victorian era and there are plenty of uptight characters, the story itself is anything but conservative or prudish. And as for the comparisons to Charles Dickens, I can see that. It's kind of like what Dickens would have written if he'd been a foul mouthed sex addict on steroids. In fact, there's so much sex and profanity that some people might be offended by it. So if you can't deal with the word cunt or accounts of post coital drip, this book may not be for you.
And in the end, after having some time to think and stew over the book, not to mention throw it a few more times, I'm still aggitated by how it ended but, overall, I have to say that I loved the book. I gobbled it up like a tasty treat and it left me wondering around in a contemplative haze, which is exactly what I love a book to be - yummy and thought provoking. That and it makes a handy shotput.
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