Fingersmith

Sarah Waters is, I believe, a great author. I have just finished a third book by her. Fingersmith. Set in London, the use of the city is brilliant (she perfects this use of the Capital in a later book of hers The Night Watch) and the storyline is pacy, quick and clever.

The story is in three parts, and follows the fates of two girls, one a Londoner born into a house of thieves in Borough (Susan), and the other a rich little country girl shut up in a strange and lonely country estate, with her elderly abusive uncle (Maud). They are brought together as a result of a moneymaking plot, that turns out to be so much cleverer than your average "rob the rich" story.

Strangely, the first two parts tell the same story, and so run the risk of being repetitive and a little boring. But one is through one girl's eyes, the second part from the other's perspective. And the second part turns the first so wonderfully on it's head, you almost forget that the events you are reading you already know, have already read and passed judgement on; so altered are they when seen from Maud's angle, the story is practically a new one.

Susan's London is grim. From the language they use around the kitchen table, to the dining habits (pigs head and gin), and even the smells and heat of the place. Within the house is a brazier that is always warmed up, and the heat of the kitchen, alongside the constant dirt and fog of London is constantly apparent. Every other word among the thieves is innuendo, and the joking in their kitchen is beyond crude - "cunt" and "fuck" feature heavily in their late night conversations. The house is a channel for stolen goods, farmed babies, and refuge from the law. It also offers a prime view of the hanging scaffold.

Briar House in the country is the other way around. Rather than the crowded, stifling appearance of London, Briar House is barren and cold. It is always grey, lifeless and abandoned, and the silence is oppressive. Instead of people being mashed together, they are kept apart. A brass finger on the floor of the library prevents people coming too far into the room, come night time one can wander the house unnoticed and unchecked, Maud's fashions are outdated, she can neither dance nor play cards so shut away from real life is the estate.

Yet the more you read the more you come to respect the honesty and openness of London. Yes it is vulgar and crude, but the secrets that are hidden there are anticipated. The thieves are thieves, the murderers are murderers. It is the dark secrets hidden at Briar that are more sinister. The Uncle's vast collection of pornography, and his obsession with his young niece reading it to him. The past of madness and madhouses, all hushed and hidden, and the cruel punishments lavished on Maud when she first comes to Briar.

It is a novel that turns on its head, and proves that as a reader, one's predispositions and initial judgements can be as distant from the truth as the characters themselves.

In comparison with her other books, the feelings of displacement and malevolence, and the powerlessness of women when faced with the diagnosis of "madness" is similar to that in The Little Stranger. The use of London is reminiscent of Blitzed London in the Night Watch, and the theme of lesbianism is apparent in all three (although The Little Stranger the least so?) But these parallels aside, the characters, settings and plot stand alone. Fingersmith is a clever and interesting book, portraying a terrifying and yet intriguing picture of Victorian London, Victorian thieves and madhouses, while keeping the veil of secrecy over the scandals occuring in the higher echelons of society.