Fingersmith

Name: Fingersmith
ISBN: 9787208142923

萨拉·沃特斯 / 阿朗Shanghai People's Publishing House · ChinaApr 2018

4.3

Word count: 356K words
Chapters: 23
ISBN: 9787208142923

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Summary

Fingersmith was adapted by the BBC into the acclaimed television series Tipping the Velvet. It tells the story of a great country house on the outskirts of London, where Mr. Lilly lives with his niece Maud. A man of savage temper, he keeps Maud shut away all day in the library, cataloguing and reading aloud from his collection. The poor girl has never once set foot outside the estate and lives a life of unrelenting gloom. Then a stranger bursts in and brings life to Maud's long-parched heart: Rivers, who has come to teach her drawing—but whose true identity is that of a thief. Hearing that Maud has a fortune of forty thousand pounds, he hatches a scheme to marry her and take the money. To ensure success, Rivers recruits Sue, a girl from his own den of thieves, and arranges for her to become Maud's personal maid. Step by step the plan unfolds as Rivers hoped, but soon it takes a sharp turn—nothing is as simple as Sue imagined, and a grand conspiracy years in the making awaits them all, with a truth like a thunderbolt about to break. A Gothic suspense novel of twist upon twist, a work of pure literature brimming with nineteenth-century curiosities, and a woman's writing alive with lived experience. The conspiracy is vast, yet hope stirs; the deception is tangled, yet desire is abundant.

Editor's review

Fingersmith is the third novel by the British writer Sarah Waters and the crowning achievement of her Victorian trilogy. Nominated for numerous literary awards, it has set a distinctive benchmark in historical fiction and suspense through its intricate narrative structure, its profound evocation of Victorian society, and its complex portrayal of character psychology. The book employs a distinctive dual first-person narrative, alternating between two women of wholly different origins, classes, and fates—Susan, raised in a thieves' den and carefully planted as a maid in a wealthy household, and Maud, a lady raised in a closed great house and longing to escape—to weave a vast web of lies, betrayal, conspiracy, and reversal. On the surface it is a story of fraud and intrigue, but at its core it is a deep exploration of gender, class, desire, and the authentic self. Waters's touch is delicate and cool: she does not merely reconstruct the shell of an era (the workhouse, the madhouse, the library, the back streets of London) but interrogates beneath that shell how power relations shape and distort human nature. The book's bold yet restrained depiction of female desire was especially precious and powerful in its historical context. As an editor, I believe the value of this book far exceeds that of a "story of reversals." It invites the reader, after every shift in perspective, to re-examine everything previously established, to relish the intellectual pleasure of narrative artifice, and, more deeply, to feel the pathos and strength of two women struggling for subjectivity and true feeling under the shackles of their age. This is a literary work worth reading again and again, one that yields new details and new insights each time.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who love literature set in the Victorian era and relish immersive historical atmosphere
Fiction lovers drawn to intricate narrative structure, multiple reversals, and psychological suspense
Readers interested in feminist literature and questions of gender and class
Deep readers who appreciate nuanced characterization and complex human nature

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light entertainment and fast-paced plotting; this book demands patience and reflection
Readers who wholly reject any depiction of same-sex love or the darker sides of human nature

Reading tips

While reading the first half, note the subtle differences between Susan's and Maud's accounts of the same events or details; these are the key seeds for understanding the later reversals.
Pay some attention to the descriptions of Victorian objects and places (such as the library and the asylum); they are not mere background but important elements that drive the plot and serve as metaphors for the characters' fates.
After finishing the first ending, try skimming the book again from the start; you will be astonished at the author's intricate design and gain a wholly different, deeper understanding of the characters' motives and emotions.

About the publisher

Shanghai People's Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

Shanghai People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher whose list focuses on academic monographs and general-interest titles in philosophy, social sciences, politics and law, economics and management, and history. Among its books are Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties History in the Chinese Dynastic History series; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in foreign literature; the Wenjing Classical Translation Illustrated Edition of The Complete Greek Tragedies of Euripides; and works of social theory such as Max Weber's Economy and Society and Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Its authors include Wang Zhongluo, J.R.R. Tolkien, Luo Niansheng, and Zhou Zuoren.

版权信息
第一部
1
2
3
4
5
6
第二部
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
第三部
14
15
16
17
说明
致谢

FAQ

How does this book compare with the BBC adaptation Tipping the Velvet?

The series is an excellent adaptation that captures the story's central suspense and emotional arc. But the novel is superior in the depth of its psychological portraiture, the richness of its period detail, and the intricacy of its narrative structure—especially the immersion and subversion created by the dual first-person interior monologues, an experience the screen can hardly replicate. Read the book first, then watch the series.

Is this purely a lesbian novel?

To classify it simply as a lesbian novel is reductive. Love and desire between women are a major driving force and one of the core themes, but the book's scope extends far beyond that. It is, more broadly, a serious literary work about deception and truth, oppression and resistance, fate and choice, and it probes deeply how social structures in a particular historical period shape and define individual identity and relationships.

Do the narrative reversals feel contrived or implausible?

Sarah Waters's brilliance lies in grounding every reversal in solid characterization and rigorously laid plotting. When the truth is revealed, the reader, amid the shock, finds on looking back a wealth of subtly planted details that support it; the characters' motives are reinterpreted and prove entirely plausible, even deepening the reader's sympathy for them rather than leaving a sense of having been tricked.

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About the author

萨拉·沃特斯 Author

Sarah Waters is a contemporary British novelist whose work appears in Chinese reading circles as foreign literature and social fiction. Four of her books are included here: Fingersmith, The Night Watch, Affinity, and Tipping the Velvet. Though varied in subject, these four share a close attention to human relationships and period atmosphere: Fingersmith is set in the Victorian era and revolves around deception, desire, and class; The Night Watch turns to war and the postwar years, writing about ordinary people's emotions and choices amid historical change; Affinity and Tipping the Velvet touch on questions of mind, body, and gender. Waters often uses historical settings to carry modern concerns; her plots are intricate yet controlled, and her characters' inner lives are finely drawn, giving the books both readability and room for discussion. Public information about her life, education, and awards is limited, so no inferences are made here; her achievement as a writer is chiefly shown in the breadth of subject matter and narrative skill displayed in these works.

阿朗 Author

Alang is an author about whom limited public information is available. Two works can currently be confirmed: The Finger-Smith and Night Watch. In book classification, these two works are often placed under foreign literature and social fiction, suggesting that the author's attention is directed not at a small private world of personal emotion but at broader social realities and the human condition. The title The Finger-Smith carries connotations of craft and mechanism, while Night Watch points to guarding and waiting; both hint that the narratives may unfold around secrets, responsibility, and subtle relationships between characters. On the available evidence, Alang's writing tends to carry social issues through concrete situations, presenting the ethical dilemmas and pressures of life that characters face as the plot develops. Since dates of birth and death, nationality, and an English name are not clearly recorded, the author's personal history and creative background cannot yet be described in detail. Readers wishing to know this author may begin with these two works and consider their narrative orientation at the intersection of foreign literature and social fiction.