Review | Affinity by Sarah Waters

Affinity

by Sarah Waters

My Rating: 

Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prisons more unlikely inmates – the imprisoned spiritualist – Selina Dawes. Sympathetic to the plight of this innocent-seeming girl, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions.

I read Affinity last year, it was the first Sarah Waters novel I read, and as I'm slowly making my way through her novels - I've already read Fingersmith (reviewed here!) and The Little Stranger (reviewed here!) this year - I realised I didn't actually review Affinity after I read it. Usually I wouldn't try and review a book a year after reading it, but I remember Affinity fairly well and it'll bug me if, once I've caught up with Waters' currently published novels, I've reviewed all but one.

Plus now is the perfect time of year to talk about Affinity; subjects like imprisonment and spiritualism make for fitting themes as Halloween approaches!

If there's one thing I love about the way Sarah Waters writes, it's the way she shrouds her stories with atmosphere. I don't only read Waters' books, I fall into them and I'm always left thinking about them afterwards. I've mentioned in a previous review how much I love her books because her characters feel like real people, like I might bump into them on the street even though they live in a different time, and Affinity is no different.

After the death of her beloved father, Margaret Prior has fallen into a depression and has even attempted to take her own life and no one is sure how to help her. In the 19th century clinical depression, or 'melancholia', was still misunderstood - if ever acknowledged at all - and so Margaret makes the decision to visit the lady's wing of Millbank Prison. This is a pastime that many upper class ladies did, and could afford to do, to 'give something back'. And, of course, to set an example to the prisoners and their fellow ladies.

All Margaret needs to do is talk to these women, to listen to their stories and maybe even give some advice, but she is not allowed to pass on letters or gifts or help them in anything but a metaphorical way. One of the inmates Margaret meets is Selina Dawes, a spiritualist who has been imprisoned after one of her seances led to the assault of one woman and the death of another, and over the course of the novel Margaret finds herself increasingly drawn to Selina.

For any of you who don't already know, Sarah Waters primarily writes LGBT* fiction - five of her six novels include LGBT* protagonists - and I loved how Margaret's sexuality was handled. She's a woman who feels so stifled by the expectations of the 19th century society she lives in, and is so desperate to break free, but she doesn't feel brave enough to break free alone. She's the kind of protagonist who'll break your heart.

Waters' descriptions of Millbank are exquisite; in some ways she reminds me of Daphne du Maurier, for her detail when it comes to her settings makes the prison come alive and swallow you whole in the same way Manderley does in Rebecca. Millbank, of course, has the benefit of having been a real place, but not in our lifetime; the building was demolished in 1903.

The entire atmosphere of Affinity is perfect for the story it's telling. It's a gloomy, melancholic and uneasy book; Waters plays around with the idea of spiritualism, lets you wonder whether Selina is really gifted, if she really can see and speak to spirits, or if it's all just a sham. I also love that, by the end of the novel, we have an answer. This may be more personal preference than anything else, but endings in which the author says 'and now you decide for yourself!' have always frustrated me - you're the author, you tell me how it ends!

I really enjoyed Affinity, but it's not my favourite of Waters' novels and I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with this one despite the fact that I did start with this one and really love her novels. I haven't read all of her books yet, but there seems to be a general consensus that this is the gloomiest of her novels and, as such, reading this one first might give the impression that the majority of her work is glum when it isn't at all. This woman was born to write, and she's a fantastic novelist.

However, for those of you intimidated by larger books starting with Affinity might work best for you because I'm fairly certain this is the shortest of her novels, but don't let yourself be put off by her chunkier work; it's easy to fly through this lady's novels.

If you haven't checked out Sarah Waters' work, I can't recommend her enough!

Classics & Contemporaries | Victorian Vampires

Happy Halloween!

This month in Classics & Contemporaries we're going to explore  a section of the spooky genre that is Victorian Gothic, one of my personal favourites. I did an entire module on Victorian Gothic at university and I loved it, so I've been looking forward to this installment!

When it comes to Victorian Gothic there are some very famous pieces of literature; Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights just to name a few. Today, however, I've opted to explore some of the lesser known, but equally fabulous, pieces of Victorian Gothic fiction out there.

So today we're going to look at some vampire stories, and neither of them are Dracula!

First published in 1871 (that's right - before Dracula!), J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla tells the story of Laura, a young girl who lives in Styria with her retired, widowed father, who has been looking forward to a visit from Bertha Rheinfeldt, the niece of her father's friend. Her father receives a letter from his friend, General Spielsdorf, informing the two of them that Bertha has died under mysterious circumstances which he will soon discuss with Laura's father in more detail.

Disappointed that she will have no companion, Laura's prayers are answered when a carriage accident outside their home leaves a young girl, around Laura's age, in their care. The girl introduces herself as Carmilla, and she and Laura immediately bond when the two of them recognise each other from a strange dream they both claim to have had during their childhood.

Carmilla and Laura grow intimately close, but as the months wear on it is clear there is more to Carmilla than meets the eye.

First thing's first: Carmilla is more of a novella than a novel, my edition is only 108 pages long, so whether you feel intimidated by classics or not I highly recommend giving it a try, especially at this time of year. It's one of my favourite classics, and has one of the most exquisite last lines of any story ever. I love it!

There are plenty of reasons to read Carmilla; it's a pre-Dracula example of vampirism in literature, and when it comes to monsters in literature the Victorian era is possibly the best era to start your exploration; because of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Victorian society was terrified by the prospect of devolution. If people really had evolved from apes, did that mean they could revert back to an animalistic state? Was devolution responsible for criminals, homosexuals and over-ambitious women?

Carmilla is beautifully written and utterly haunting, and the relationship between Carmilla and Laura is both fascinating and tragic.

But if you don't feel ready to tackle any 19th century fiction just yet, there's a piece of historical fiction that's perfect for this time of year!

First published in 1999, Sarah Waters' Affinity tells the story of Margaret Prior, a woman who is recovering from a suicide attempt following the death of her beloved father. She decides to volunteer at the nearby women's prison, Millbank, as part of her rehabilitive charity work, where she works as a companion to the inmates. She speaks with them, listens to their stories and their troubles, and is discouraged from growing close to any of them.

One woman in particular, however, intrigues her. Selina Dawes claims to be a spiritualist who has found herself in prison after one of her séances led to the death of one woman and the deep disturbance of another. Though Margaret is initially sceptical of Selina's claims, she slowly becomes enamoured by this mysterious, enchanting woman.

But is Selina all that she appears to be?

Obviously there are many differences between Carmilla and Affinity, the most obvious being that there are no vampires in Affinity! But there are many similarities between them. They are both beautifully written, both claustrophobic and gothic, and both set in the 19th century. I have mentioned Sarah Waters in Classics & Contemporaries before - here! - as an author well known for her LGBT historical fiction, and Affinity is no different. Margaret and Seline's sexuality is not shied away from at all throughout the novel; in fact if you're a lover of historical fiction who would like to see more LGBT characters in the books you read I highly recommend giving her work a try if you haven't already. The majority of Waters' novels include LGBT characters in lead roles, perhaps her most famous works being Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet.

Similarly, if you'd like to see more LGBT characters in your classics then Carmilla is the ideal book for you! It's often described as 'the lesbian vampire story', though whether or not that description is true is debatable; there are certainly elements of the homoerotic throughout the text, but I would be surprised if Le Fanu himself meant it as an LGBT text.

All the same, if Affinity interests you then there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy Carmilla!

Next we have an even shorter and even lesser known 19th century vampire story...

Robert Louis Stevenson is no stranger to the Victorian Gothic genre. He is perhaps most famous for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island, but during his life he also wrote many short stories, and many of those short stories were spooky and included elements of the gothic and fantastical.

Olalla is one such story. First published in 1885, Olalla tells the story of a nameless English soldier who is recovering from his injuries received in the Peninsular War. Still weak, his doctor advises him to stay with a once noble Spanish family, consisting of a mother and her two children: her son, Felipe, and her mysterious daughter, Olalla.

Our narrator feels welcome and comfortable in his temporary home, although he believes his hostess and her son to be slothful and dim-witted, but something seems odd. Though he hears of Olalla he does not see her, and each night when he goes to sleep he hears wild noises as though he were staying in a mad house.

When he finally meets Olalla he discovers that, unlike her mother and brother, she is extraordinarily intelligent and the two of them fall deeply in love with one another. He wishes to take her away from her home, but when he cuts his wrist on some glass while trying to orchestrate their escape, Olalla's family have an incredibly strong reaction to his blood...

Olalla is a very interesting piece of gothic fiction in that it is still being debated as to whether or not it is a vampire story or a werewolf story, for there are strong cases for both. After all, it wasn't only vampires that were popular in Victorian Gothic fiction - werewolves, ghosts and monsters were also very popular!

Just as Carmilla explores the idea of devolution, in Olalla we have an idea common in Victorian vampire fiction: fallen noble families with bad blood. In Olalla it is implied that Olalla's mother and brother, and indeed Olalla herself, are the way they are because they are the product of years and years of inbreeding. This idea of tainted nobility can also be seen in Dracula, the most famous vampire story in history, and it can even be seen in more modern incarnations of the vampire story such as Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque's American Vampire graphic novel series, where a new breed of vampire is able to survive beneath the sun and threatens the existence of vampires who are stuck in their bourgeoisie-esque ways.

But for a 21st century recommendation, I've turned to YA!

Sarah Beth Durst's Drink, Slay, Love is a fun standalone about 16 year old Pearl, a classic vampire - she's allergic to the sun, loves blood and really quite evil - who is stabbed through the heart by a unicorn. Naturally, her family, who just so happen to be the vampire mafia, think she's been attacked by a vampire hunter - because unicorns don't exist! - but what really shocks them, and Pearl, is that she's suddenly able to withstand the sun. In fact, she's slowly becoming less and less vampiric.

Never to waste an opportunity, especially with the Vampire King coming to visit, Pearl's family decide to make use of her new 'talents' and send her to high school. Why? For dinner, of course. But can Pearl really feed her family, and the King, her newfound friends when she's slowly starting to develop a conscience? And does she really have a choice? Because if she doesn't offer up her classmates, she's dead meat anyway...

Drink, Slay, Love is nothing like its 19th century fear-mongering ancestors, but there's certainly elements of the early vampires within the story even when they are being parodied. Like Olalla, Drink, Slay, Love plays on this idea of old, intimidating families who are as threatening to each other as they are to outsiders.

Obviously there are more differences than similarities here - there's a unicorn, for heaven's sake! - but if you enjoy this brilliantly bizarre and self-aware novel, then I don't see why you won't enjoy a 19th century short story.

As always, I hope this has been an interesting installment of Classics & Contemporaries! Happy Halloween!

Jess Suggests | Halloween Reads!

Halloween is on its way, so it's time to crack open the spooky and creepy reads on our shelves. Here are just five books I recommend reading at this time of the year!

Carmilla

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Living a lonely existence in a remote schloss in Styria, on the border of Austria and Hungary, Laura and her father play host to an unexpected guest, the beautiful young Carmilla. Her arrival is closely followed by an outbreak of unexplained deaths in the area, while the young women's growing friendship coincides with a series of nightmares and mysterious nocturnal visitations, and a gradual downward spiral in Laura's health. A chilling tale of the un-dead, Carmilla is a beautifully written example of the gothic genre. Believed to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece 'Dracula', written over twenty years later, Carmilla stands out as an all-time horror classic.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

'All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil'

Published as a shilling shocker, Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with damnable young man Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil.

The Silence of the Lambs

by Thomas Harris

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname-Buffalo Bill-is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter-Hannibal the Cannibal-who is kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Dr. Lecter is a former psychiatrist with a grisly history, unusual tastes, and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of The Silence of the Lambs-and ingenious, masterfully written book and an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.

Affinity

by Sarah Waters

"Now you know why you are drawn to me – why your flesh comes creeping to mine, and what it comes for. Let it creep."

From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? By the time it all begins to matter, you'll find yourself desperately wanting to believe in magic.

Set in and around the women’'s prison at Milbank in the 1870s, Affinity is an eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing literary mystery and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale.

Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prisons more unlikely inmates – the imprisoned spiritualist – Selina Dawes. Sympathetic to the plight of this innocent-seeming girl, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions.

The Haunting of Hill House

by Shirley Jackson

Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and light-hearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable noises and self-closing doors, but Hill House is gathering its powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own...

What are you reading this month?

What's Up Wednesday! | 02/04/14

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for writers and readers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

At the moment I'm reading a collection of John Donne's poetry - he's always been one of my favourite poets - and I'm reading my first Sarah Waters novel! I mentioned Fingersmith in my 2014 Booket List as the Historical Fiction novel I'd like to read most this year, but before jumping into that one I'm reading Affinity.

I'm also taking part in the Hogwarts House Reading Challenge over on tumblr, and because I'm a Ravenclaw I have to try and complete these challenges over the course of April!

This week the challenge is to read a book with a blue cover, so I think I'm going to pick up Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book; it's the littlest book of his that I own and I'd love to finally cross it off my TBR list.

What I'm Writing

It's day 2 of Camp NaNoWriMo and I've already made some changes. Because I'm rubbish.

As I mentioned in my post on Friday I wanted to work on a 20,000 word prequel novella to my current WIP, and while an entire novella is something I really want to work on, just the thought of working on another full-length piece, when I haven't got everything figured out for my novel just yet, had me wanting to bang my head against a wall. Add to that that I only got home from a very busy, very exhausting term at university on Sunday, and that I just want to relax this April, and you might be able to understand why the entire 20,000 words is no longer a possibility.

So instead I've set myself a new goal of 15,000 words, and I'd love to use those 15,000 words to write a small selection of Historical Fiction short stories, most of which I can turn into parts of the novella some time in the future!

One other short story I'd like to work on this month is a 5,000 word Beauty and the Beast retelling! Eggplant Literary Productions are looking for poetry and fiction submissions until 30th of April for Spellbound & Spindles, a pair of anthologies containing retellings of fairy tales which feature POC, LGBT and disabled characters, as well non-Western European and non-North American settings. 

So I'm still going to be busy writing away over April, just not as busy as I initially thought - I need a break!

What Inspires Me Right Now

Yesterday I was surrounded by Historical Fiction and Historical Dramas. As I mentioned above I'm reading Sarah Waters' Affinity, and then I watched The Awakening, a spooky film set in the 1920s, and then last night I watched the first episode of the new Channel 4 drama New Worlds, which is set in England and America during the 17th century.


As someone who enjoys writing Historical Fiction it's a lot of fun to experience it in so many different forms, and so many different eras! I'm rather picky when it comes to TV shows - the only shows I regularly watch are Game of Thrones and Hannibal - but I think I'll watch more of New Worlds; I particularly enjoyed the storyline that took place in Massachusetts and starred Alice Englert (Lena Duchannes from Beautiful Creatures) and Joe Dempsie (Gendry from Game of Thrones).


Are any of you watching New Worlds?

What Else I've Been Up To

On Sunday my parents picked me up from uni and we made the five hour drive down to South Wales. It's so nice to be back home, in my bigger bed and just be pampered for a few weeks - I was so tired after this term that my first night back home I slept for eleven hours! Then on Monday I got my hair cut which I was so looking forward to; I love having long hair, but it had gotten to the point where it was all dry and split and horrid, and now it's a lot healthier and lighter and just nicer.

Last week I had a meeting with another tutor who made me feel a lot more confident about my prospective PhD thesis, so now I can start looking into what I'd like to write about in much more detail and start making a list of prospective universities. I already have two I'd definitely like to check out and a possible third, but I'd like at least four or five.

That same day I also found out that I'm going to become an auntie for the fourth time this October! For so long my sister kept saying she wasn't going to have any more children - she already has a little boy and a little girl - but I had a feeling she'd have at least one more. Now I have to see if, nearer the time, I can guess correctly what the baby's going to be. So far whenever my sisters or one of our cousins has had a baby I've always guessed the sex correctly. Maybe this year I should start making bets...

What's new with you?