Crimson Petal

[Frimblypoo]

Chris O'Dowd's todger! I can't watch the IT crowd in the same way again!

MrsvWoolf - if you read the book of short stories that Michael Faber wrote called The Apple that are all related to characters in the book you will find out as one of them is about William about 10 years later. There are a few about Sugar when she lived at Mrs Castaway's, one about the ladies maid Clara (very strange) and one about Sophie as a grown up.

Does anyone know why Sugar kept scratching her skin, is it in the book? Did she have a disease? Does it say in the book, she had to wear gloves to hide it on the series

She has a skin condition.

I wonder why Faber gave her a skin condition? Wasn't sure what it signified when I read the book. Probably something dead clever that I'm too thick to work out!

edam, yes I was wondering that. It seemed rather odd, considering it came to nothing - before I knew it was a skin condition, I thought that there was something more to it that would be revealed in time.

I have just had the book through...can't wait to start it.
I was a bit let down by the ending last week......
I love Leonard Cohen too!!!!!

Would have thought everybody had a skin condition of some sort in those days, esp someone who had skin contact with so many people. If she'd inherited her 'work' mattress it would have almost certainly have had mites or she could have a sensitivity to flea bites. She will no doubt have been treating it with something radioactive or highly astringent too.

That's the practical viewpoint, but I was harking back and wishing I could recall something of the semiotics and post-modernism and stuff I studied for my degree, so many years ago I've completely forgotten what it was all about. I bet Roland Barthes would have had something to say about Sugar's eczema or whatever it was.

Makes her a painted lady haha.
Just started the book, it's psoriasis and icthyosis so not contagious. Does it improve at all through the book at any key plot point perhaps? Do Rackham's lavender products help? Or are there any male characters old enough to be her dad who scratch a lot as it could be inherited LOL?

The Rackhams products make it worse and as William becomes difficult she starts to run out of Creme Jeunesse and can't really ask for more. At the start she uses "Bear's Grease" which works wonders but she does not know where to buy it in the posher areas.

Maybe it's a reminder that the great levellers in life (disease, mortality) stay with you regardless of your social standing.

Maybe it's symbolic of Sugar's "layered" personality...she has to slough off her "old skin" several times during the story: prostitute to mistress to governess to free woman.

Intrigued about The Apple now! I 'just' have to read Crimson Petal and then I can start ...

I read the book years ago and The Apple when it was published.

My take on it was that Sugar knew that Sophie wasn't going to be loved if she stayed in the house and she took her off because she could offer more love and affection than anyone in the Rackham household.

The constant references to 'somewhere warm' and to Australia and 'New Zealand led me to think that they disappeared off there.

I also thought that Agnes found her convent and was looked after.

The Apple makes reference to them being in Australia/NZ (read it years ago) and I liked the fact that it all led to one of them being a suffragette. I think it's quite a feminist novel really - giving a voice to women and showing their plight; how dependent they were upon men financially whether they were a mistress or a wife.

Although Agnes was mad, it does make you wonder how mad she was before she was being repeatedly sexually assaulted by her doctor with the acquiescence of her husband. That kind of treatment wouldn't help.

I thought that there was a reference in the book (casting my mind back years) to Mr Rackham getting together with Lady Whatshername and her telling him to politely keep his hands off her - or something like that. So he turned out to get his comeuppance in the form of a wife who had also married him for position/money and didn't want any physical contact. I may be misremembering this though!