Customer Reviews

Affinity

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have read "Tipping the Velvet", you know that Sarah Waters is a talented author. In that first novel, we discovered a lesbian author able to put up some good sex scenes. So, maybe she was a great lesbian author, maybe she was a good author of erotic books (not pornographic, by the way). But can she be more than that?

I was so anxious to know for sure, that I bought "Affinity" from Amazon.co.uk in January 2001 (Sarah Waters being a english author, I was right thinking that she would be published in U.K. before being published in U.S.A.). I was not disapointed.

Although my english is not that good, I fully appreciated this novel. "Affinity" is not an erotic novel. There is love, but not sex, and the fact that the love is between two women is not the main feature. I don't want to make a complete résumé because I think it is difficult to do so without spoiling the pleasure you'll have reading it until the end.

Let's just say that this novel is about a sad young woman who desperately need to be loved, who is desperately ready to believe in love and who thinks that she had find it while visiting a prison in London, in 1874. This is not a funny or a "feeling-good" book. But Sarah Waters knows how to make you feel, smell, taste and see the life of a woman who would have live 125 years ago.

Now I know: Sarah Waters is a great author. Don't read "Affinity" because you think that it is a sex book (it is not). Don't read it because you think Sarah Waters is a lesbian. Read it because it is a great book. The best I've read in a long time. Believe me, I'll wait for her next book.

Waters successfully brings the Victorian era to life in this story of an emotionally vulnerable "spinster",Margaret Prior, who attempts to overcome the losses of loved ones by taking up charitable social work with the women of Millbank prison in London. Her relationship with Selina Dawes, a spiritualist imprisoned for fraud and assault, progresses from mere fascination to blind passion, and the reader is pulled along with her in her quest for love and purpose in a world which has deprived her of the opportunity to achieve either. The cold, damp and dreary setting of London and Millbank Prison is a fitting backdrop to this story of Margaret, who much like the women to whom she ministers, is herself imprisoned and nearly destroyed by the repressive social structures of her day. The book is written mostly as excerpts from Margaret's diary. Interspersed among these are brief excerpts from the diary of Selina Dawes, the spiritualist. This technique works brilliantly, because it creates more of a challenge for the reader to distinguish between the inner reality of the characters and the objective reality of the story. It also makes the ending much more dramatic. Read it, by all means. It's a bit of a slow go at first, but the build up is necessary to the progression of the story.

Wow!
What a story!
The writing is excellent. I could feel the dampness of the Victorian prison. I could visualize the dank, thick, stone walls which housed the prisoners.
Here's a story of spirits and psychic mediums.
Margaret takes on the volunteer work of a Lady Visitor of the women's prison. She is quite obsessed with the place and takes her duties seriously.
Margaret meets and is very intrgued by Selena Dawes, a woman in prison for fraud. Margaret has tender feelings in her heart for the unfair, brutal treatment of Selena and the other women imprisoned.
This is a very good book telling a very different type of story.
The ending of this story is a breath taking surprise!
I recommend reading this book, but it is not a light read. It will make you think and it's a terrific book to discuss with others.
This is an eye opener of a story.
Outstanding writing!

Affinity has to be one of the most amazing books I have ever read. I don't come across very many books that I consider literary classics, but this one definitely fits that catagory.

Set in Victorian England in the 1800's, the book gives a very clear insight into life in those times, especially life for women who remain unmarried. It also gives a look into spiritualism, and the conditions of women's prisons.

The book moves at a leisurely pace and lulls the reader into thinking not much is really happening, but like a river with a still, dark surface, there are undercurrents beneath.

The author is a master of language and writing technique. She skillfully layers the story, and when you reach the conclusion, you will be both stunned and yet see how very logically it all comes together like the perfectly fitting pieces of a puzzle.

Reading this book was like riding a smooth roller coaster. It told you a beautiful story and gave you a punch in the end that would make Saki smile. This story can be read on several levels, like many readers have discovered. I don't however, consider it to be "lesbian" fiction. It is purely about passion and goes beyond gender, like Selena's spirit friends. The story is quite simple really, Selena Dawes is in prison for fraud and assault. When she was free she used to be a spiritualist and had a control spirit, Peter Quick, who hurt a young girl. Margaret Prior is a visitor to the prison, a lady who talks to the prisoners to make them "better", to teach them how to be a lady like her. Margaret falls in love with Selena, but a conspiracy is already brewing and Margaret is the perfect pawn for Selena and her key to freedom beyond the dreary prison walls. The story is a mystery, a one-sided romance, a love triangle, a passionate depiction of the Victorian world seen from the prison walls. By the end of the story, the reader gets the feeling, that Selena took Margaret's identity, while Margaret became a prisoner herself. Amazingly written, this story demands attention, respect and complete loyalty. I couldn't stop reading it and I couldn't find flaws with it, I was swept away into a strange world, where the people are caught in strange dealings, but the emotions are the same as yours and mine. A worthy read.

This book will disappoint if the reader is expecting a lesbian novel. Though female characters are attracted to other female characters -- after all, the main setting is a women's prison -- there are no moments of lesbian love-making or other conventions of the typical lesbian novel. (To say more is to give too much of the plot away.)

But it is a wonderful novel showcasing the incredible skills of its author Sarah Waters. You can read _Affinity_ on so many levels. You can read it for its intriguing plot with its O. Henry conclusion. You can read it as a treatise on 19th century prisons or as a history of Spiritualism in England. If you like 19th c. English novels, you can enjoy _Affinity_ for its faithful emulation of that form. (But remember that the pace will be slow; give yourself 100 pages or so to get into the novel.)

Waters' first novel, _Tipping_the_Velvet_, was enjoyed at its deepest level by any reader with some knowledge of the conventions of the picaresque novel and a scat dictionary handy. The same sort of thing is true of _Affinity_. For example, the two books Margaret reads to her mother are not accidental choices. (Think about the theme of Dickens' _Little_Dorrit_). The name of Selina's "spirit control" is too close to the "Peter Quint" of _The_Turn_of_the_Screw_ to be coincidence. Finding the little secrets that Waters sprinkles through her novels are a large part of the joy of reading them.

I'm struck by a few similar elements in Affinity and The Turn of the Screw. Sexual repression as it contributed to the female characters' malaise is the clearest.

Given Sarah Waters's great scholarship, the choice of Peter Quick's name was surely not coincidental but meant as a nod to Henry James's Peter Quint. Once tipped off, it's a short step to begin doubting the credibility, if not the sanity of the main female character. Why as yet haven't any reviewers commented here on the steady and generous intake of opium (laudanum) and chloral hydrate (a hypnotic) that Miss Prior was accustomed to consuming? While she was most certainly blinded with love for Selina Dawes, her huge drug habit surely further distorted her perceptions and judgment about that lady.

Though it could have been shorter and tighter, you can read this story on political, social and psychological levels. What is not ambiguous, however, is the ending. The scam is very real.

Common threads running through Sarah Waters's first 3 books (haven't read the most recent yet) are betrayal and the abuse of power, woven into very different and clever entertainments.

AFFINITY by Sarah Waters

After reading Sarah Waters' wonderfully written book FINGERSMITH, I had to get a hold of her other two novels TIPPING THE VELVET and AFFINITY. As with FINGERSMITH, I came away from AFFINITY with a very satisfied feeling of having read yet another great book. AFFINITY is a complex story set in Victorian England about a young woman, Margaret Prior, who has been suffering from bouts of depression and loneliness. She has just suffered from a breakdown shortly after her father's death, and because of a suicide attempt, her mother, with the hopes of making a full recovery keeps her secluded in the house and administered with medications.

When it is suggested that Margaret visit the local woman's gaol (prison) as a form of therapy, she agrees and begins her frequent visits. She is known as a "lady visitor", one of many that come to the prisons to read and talk to the prisoners as a form of goodwill and charity. Soon she finds herself meeting and conversing with the various women that are being held in this gaol. She meets women from all walks of life and sees the horrible conditions in which they now live. And then she meets Selina Dawes. Margaret takes extra notice of this quiet sad woman. The reader immediately knows that she finds Selina special, and soon she becomes obsessed with the prisoner, and her story. It is all she can think of day and night. It becomes her life.

Selina Dawes is a medium, who is able to talk to the dead and perform acts of the paranormal. She is in prison due to the death of a friend of hers, Mrs. Brink, who allowed Selina to live with her as she helped Mrs. Brink contact the netherworld. Mrs. Brink died during one of Selina's paranormal sessions, and is being charged for assault and fraud. Learning about Selina's "crime", Margaret is in total sympathy with Selina and knows that Selina is in prison for a crime she did not commit, and soon the two become close.

The viewpoints of both women are seen through the journals of each of them respectively. Selina's journal-entries lead to the day of the supposed crime, while Margaret's journal takes us through the present story. And, as the book becomes more and more complicated, the journals begin to reveal more and more secret thoughts of these two women. The ending, as with FINGERSMITH, will totally shock the reader. Sarah Waters is the master of the double-twisted plot device, and although the story started on a slow note, the pace of the book picked up and did not let up until the very last page. Beautifully written with subtle undertones of lesbianism, this reviewer highly recommends AFFINITY.

Sarah Waters' Affinity is a beautiful novel. The author captures a time with tremondous skill and evokes a atmosphere, both Gothic and Victorian, until it is practically dripping from the page. Her real skill is in providing a story that is as absorbing as the atmosphere swirling around it. This woman visitor, Margaret Prior, to the women's ward of Millbank prison provides a character and a narrative voice to carry the reader through both the chill of cold horror and the warmth of her erotic tinglings with equal skill. The spiritualist prisoner she meets in prison, Selina Dawes, is a wonderful and original fictional creation that will haunt the reader as much as it does the lady visitor. A fine read.

"Affinity" is a very good book, but not as much a tour de force as Waters' other two, "Tipping the Velvet" and "Fingersmith," both of which are broader in plot development and richer in detail. The two historical wells from which Waters draws material for "Affinity," namely, the women's prison system in Victorian England and the Spiritualist movement of the same period, are by definition specific and limited. Where "Tipping.." and "Fingersmith" are epic in scope as well as overflowing with strong characterizations, "Affinity" is a close, intimate, psychological portrait of a few individuals brought together in oppressive, stifling circumstances. By definition, "Affinity" is not a book which fills the reader with large, grand emotions and ideas. But it is, like its counterparts, an artfully written piece of English historical fiction, impeccably well-researched and sensitive to the issues of gender and class that inform all of Ms. Waters' work. It also contains other elements that will be familiar to Ms. Waters' readers - lesbian themes, either overt or implied; plot twists (here, a particularly juicy and unexpected ending); the juxtaposition of dual narratives; explorations of good and evil; and the alienation of women in patriarchal society - all held together by evocative descriptions that nail the reader visually and viscerally to the spot and hold you there. The descriptions of prison life are harrowing, tragic, gripping, brutal, and, unfortunately, based on hard research. This alone makes for a devastating and intense read.

"Affinity" starts slowly, and tried my patience for about the first 100 pages. I offer this comment to encourage the potential reader to stick with the book, because it will improve. I ended up reading the last 250 pages in one sitting, having been completely taken in. Once you fully enter the world of the two narrators, you will need to know how it turns out, and it will not be what you expected. Given the fact that Ms. Waters is such an exceptionally fine writer, when I say that "Affinity" is not the best of her works, still, it is a first-class piece of fiction nonetheless. (And, by the way, if you are expecting to be titillated by lesbian erotica or pornography, you have most definitely come to the wrong place.) Recommended.