That is a wonderfully eloquent intro to Ms Waters work, Amanda. I am rubbish at writing intro posts, lol.. but now that we got the ball rolling, I am looking forward to the discussions we'll have in here.
I have spent many entertaining hours reading Sarah’s books and I’ve fallen for her characters every time.
Affinity may not be as popular as Fingersmith or Tipping the Velvet but I enjoyed it immensely and was very much affected by it. It was such a sad depressing story, with a heartwrenchingly twisted ending as you know, but I got so into it I could not put it down. The story reads to me like a rather dark, yet sensuous poem. I thought going back and forth between Selena and Margaret’s journals in the past and present was brilliant. I loved putting the pieces together as I went along. It will be hard to read again, especially knowing how things unfold and how it ends, but I still can’t wait to get into it when we get to it.
I feel I’ve had a fuller experience of
Tipping the Velvet and
FingerSmith thanks to the TV adaptations that put faces to the characters I enjoyed reading about so much. When I first watched Fingersmith, it was after I had seen Tipping the Velvet more than 10 times already. I liked it but I didn’t get as emotionally involved in it as I did with TTV. Then I bought the Fingersmith novel over a month ago actually, and started reading; I couldn’t put it down. When I was done reading, I went back and watched the movie and loved it even more than I imagined. I have watched it several times since and still get engrossed in Maud and Susan and how their love grew. I do think that the Fingersmith TV adaptation was truer to its novel than Tipping the Velvet was to its own novel, but I have been able to find a common place where Nan and Kitty and Flo from the novel & movie come together and mesh rather nicely.
The Night Watch was the one out of Sarah’s books that seemed to have a thoroughly different tone/voice to it. I was intrigued by the layout of the book, how she started at the present day and ended in the past. I enjoyed it a lot though not with the same intensity as FingerSmith, TTV and even Affinity.
I read an article that stated that Affinity and The Night Watch will be adapted to TV movies this year or so. I am keeping an eye out for updates on that front (& for Sarah’s next book, of course)
Okay, as you said, we’ll start with Tipping the Velvet. I think I’ll have to go and reread major portions, if not all of the book as well.