Affinity By Sarah Waters

Pas de spoilers:
Roman fabuleux! J’ai eu du mal à rentrer dedans, l’écriture en forme de “journal” est un peu déconcertante au début car le contexte n’y est pas présenté dès le départ, mais la suite du roman est extraordinaire! Les personnages sont décrits avec beaucoup de profondeur, d’émotions. Ms Prior, est attachante, et bouleversante de sensibilité. L’auteur réussit à nous plonger dans l’histoire, l’immersion est totale, Le suspense est insoutenable jusqu’à la fin…que je ne qualifierai pas pour ne rien gâcher aux futurs lecteurs.
Cette lecture m’a bouleversée pendant des jours après la fin du roman, ce qui est très rare pour moi. Acheter ce roman les yeux fermés! Très bonne lecture à tous 🙂

When I finally learned how to read at the late ago of seven I stopped seeing words as a series of letters and started seeing pictures instead. Not just the picture one word projected or one sentence, but the whole book. I started reading books as though they were movies and so learned to read faster because I was so immersed in the atmosphere of the book.

Atmosphere has always been the most important part of the book to me. If I can’t really believe my surroundings while I’m reading then the book just isn’t worth finishing.

From the very first page of this book I heard creepy piano music, saw dim lights that were almost depressing and a lot of the color gray. This may not seem like an atmosphere you’d want to spend 350+ pages in, but it fit the story so well that I was just lost in the book. The author’s power of description was perfect and made reading this book a true experience.

“Affinity” is told in two parts, a narrative in diary form set about a year in the past from the main story from the point of view of Selina Dawes, a young spiritualist in 1870’s London arrested for assault and fraud and a diary by Margaret Prior a wealthy spinster who has become a lady visitor at a prison to take her mind off some mystery shrouded event in her life.. The two alternate-Selina with extremely vague and short entries that leave you wondering if she has spiritual powers or is just a clever fraud and Michelle detailing everything that happens in her unhappy home life and her obsessive visits to Milbank prison. The two together bring forth at atmosphere of grayness, misunderstanding and silence, weather imposed by prison guards or polite society. Truly they do so seem to have an affinity to them.

But as the book progresses and we learn more of Selina and Margaret strange things start to happen. Items disappear from Margaret’s bedroom and Selina says that the sprits took them-and on top of that she knows things Margaret could have never told her. A sort of link develops between the two leading to their final plan and the revelation that changes everything.

I liked this book a lot and was very surprised by the turns and twists its story took. That atmosphere as I’ve said was excellent and really did its job of transporting the reader into the story. But for some reason the story didn’t call out to me so while I did like this book I didn’t love it.

Four stars

This mesmerizing story with its authentic characters is just a special kind of book: you cannot stop reading before it is is finished. The beginning is dark and nebulous and you dont really know what the writer wants to tell you. After a few pages the story sees a unanticipated acceleration which opens windows to different stories you would not have imagined. For me: a good choice to spend my precious spare time.

The affinity takes a while to build.

The story is a series of journal entries made by the two protagonists – one chronicling the life of Margaret Prior, a lady and the other, the life of Selina Dawes, a young spiritual medium.

Margaret’s entries are in real-time. She pours into her book her secrets and her heart. She’s a troubled woman who seeks to gain a new interest in life.

Selina’s entries predate her incarceration at Millbank Penitentiary. They give us a glimpse of her life as a spiritual medium and her petty transactions, gifts, as she refers to them.

Margaret visits the women’s wards as a Lady Visitor. It is during one such visit that she comes across the infamous Dawes. Her interest in the vilified girl is piqued by several visits to the grim prison. And there begins our tale of spirits, love, and yearning.

The book is slow to set the stage, unlike Fingersmith which captured my fancy right from the start. The book is grim, grimmer than Grimm! It nearly put me off but I persisted and wow, was I rewarded.

Even though, I guessed the end and suspected the right things, the book still managed to rattle me. Sarah Waters works her magic through the pages, ensnaring us, (albeit a bit later in my case,) and resurrecting before us the cold Victorian London and the dreary Millbank prison.

This book was worth the patience it demanded and its climax makes up for much of the slow pace in the beginning. Another Awesome from Sarah Waters. ‘