Sarah Waters
So begins another year of reading, hopefully one as successful as the past two have been, both in terms of quantity and quality. Thankfully, Tipping the Velvet proved to be an excellent and successful beginning, an excellent and absorbing read that kept me intrigued despite its flaws. It is nice to finally encounter a book featuring lesbians and their relationships that doesn't trivialize them or throw them in as an afterthought. The book is an excellent use of lesbianism in serious, literary fiction, and that in itself is quite an accomplishment. Indeed, the best aspect of Tipping the Velvet is its impeccable sense of setting- turn-of-the-century England (particularly London) is incredibly vivid and real, and the characters who populate it seem believable and well-suited to their time period. One would think that a teeming underground of lesbians in the 1890s is unlikely and too influenced by modern standards, but I found most of its quirks and characters intensely believable; it helps that Waters places her lesbian characters into clusters, who of course would all know each other and create circles for other lesbians to move within. London itself is remarkably rendered and absolutely comes alive, perhaps even more so because I've been there but certainly becauase of Waters's sense of time and place and, of course, literary skill.
What is more interesting is that Tipping the Velvet, though incredibly specific to its time and place, is more of a character study than a period piece. It is, at heart, the story of a selfish young girl learning what love, and more specifically love for women, means. Nancy herself is very three-dimensional; though I greatly enjoyed the book, I'm still not sure I'm entirely fond of her. Nevertheless, she is intriguing and it is interesting to see how she becomes alternately resourceful (when out of luck) or content and lazy (when privileged). It is easy to judge her prior complacency and her helplessness when she is cast out of her heavens, but she is reacting fairly to her circumstances. Additionally, it is thrilling to watch her come into her own as she plays with conventional notions of gender through her appearance. Waters does her readers a great service by refusing to make Nancy a great and flawless heroine; her humanity prevents the book from becoming trivialized and allows its focus on lesbianism to be taken seriously and the book to be read by those outside of this small , expected audience. It is too bad, then, that its plot often feels contrived and becomes, by the end, quite predictable. Each section of the book ends quite similarly, and there are many occasions when the foreshadowing is a bit thick. The climax amusingly recalls the end of The Jungle with its unabashed, but firmly setting-specific, socialist rhetoric.
There are a few problems with Tipping the Velvet, but overall it is a strong book and an interesting alternative vision of the turn-of-the-century world often recalled in modern art. The book's depiction of the music-hall life and streets of busy, bustling London are astounding and vivid, as are the characters. The novel deals quite interestingly with an aspect of life largely untouched by serious works of fiction and is frank, but not condescending, in its depiction of lesbianism and the effects it has on both lesbians and those around them. Waters uses her supporting cast to explore various means of dealing with same-sex attraction and raises issues of shame and the idea of coming out without being disingenuous to her story or seeming trite. Many timeless issues that arise with not only same-sex attraction and relationships, but also through ideas about gender presentation, are present in the novel and form an undercurrent that are appreciated by those in the know without being condescending to those who prefer more traditional partners. Nancy is a convincing and lively narrator, despite the character flaws exposed by the narrative, and though there are issues with the overarching plot, individual sections and encounters are handled deftly. Tipping the Velvet lacks a little in its overall execution, but in the minutiae is proves itself addictive and quite revealing, an original and spellbinding look at turn-of-the-century London seen through the eyes of an under-utilized minority.
Grade: A-
What is more interesting is that Tipping the Velvet, though incredibly specific to its time and place, is more of a character study than a period piece. It is, at heart, the story of a selfish young girl learning what love, and more specifically love for women, means. Nancy herself is very three-dimensional; though I greatly enjoyed the book, I'm still not sure I'm entirely fond of her. Nevertheless, she is intriguing and it is interesting to see how she becomes alternately resourceful (when out of luck) or content and lazy (when privileged). It is easy to judge her prior complacency and her helplessness when she is cast out of her heavens, but she is reacting fairly to her circumstances. Additionally, it is thrilling to watch her come into her own as she plays with conventional notions of gender through her appearance. Waters does her readers a great service by refusing to make Nancy a great and flawless heroine; her humanity prevents the book from becoming trivialized and allows its focus on lesbianism to be taken seriously and the book to be read by those outside of this small , expected audience. It is too bad, then, that its plot often feels contrived and becomes, by the end, quite predictable. Each section of the book ends quite similarly, and there are many occasions when the foreshadowing is a bit thick. The climax amusingly recalls the end of The Jungle with its unabashed, but firmly setting-specific, socialist rhetoric.
There are a few problems with Tipping the Velvet, but overall it is a strong book and an interesting alternative vision of the turn-of-the-century world often recalled in modern art. The book's depiction of the music-hall life and streets of busy, bustling London are astounding and vivid, as are the characters. The novel deals quite interestingly with an aspect of life largely untouched by serious works of fiction and is frank, but not condescending, in its depiction of lesbianism and the effects it has on both lesbians and those around them. Waters uses her supporting cast to explore various means of dealing with same-sex attraction and raises issues of shame and the idea of coming out without being disingenuous to her story or seeming trite. Many timeless issues that arise with not only same-sex attraction and relationships, but also through ideas about gender presentation, are present in the novel and form an undercurrent that are appreciated by those in the know without being condescending to those who prefer more traditional partners. Nancy is a convincing and lively narrator, despite the character flaws exposed by the narrative, and though there are issues with the overarching plot, individual sections and encounters are handled deftly. Tipping the Velvet lacks a little in its overall execution, but in the minutiae is proves itself addictive and quite revealing, an original and spellbinding look at turn-of-the-century London seen through the eyes of an under-utilized minority.
Grade: A-
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