Fingersmith: 300 Pages of Plot in 600 Pages of Print

In which a girl is stuck in a house, in a room, and she is very unhappy about it for several hundred pages.

All right, I know that title is a bit harsh right out the gate, but work with me, here. Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith is an epic period piece about a sinister plot told from the dual perspectives of the two young women ensnared in it.

I flew through the first 150 pages on the edge of my seat, but it took me approximately seven millennia to get through the second half. (No screen concentration issues here: I held the print book the whole time, with that glorious “used bookstore” smell.)

What I loved about Fingersmith: The characters, the worldbuilding, the (initial) plot. The first plot twist knocked me sideways — and I knew there would be a massive plot twist, so I was looking out for it the whole time, but still got completely backhanded. That was awesome.

What I didn’t love about Fingersmith: It went on forever.

**Spoilers ahead!!**

(But I won’t explicitly spoil “the big one.”)

General thoughts: I still like period pieces, but not 600-page period pieces

The first part of Fingersmith is told from the perspective of Sue Trinder, a hard-bred London girl working with the sinister thief “Gentleman” to swindle a wealthy seventeen-year-old girl named Maud Lilly.

The plot? Seduce Maud into falling in love with Gentleman and eloping with him in order for Gentleman to secure Maud’s significant fortune, then land her in an insane asylum while Sue and Gentleman frolic into the forest with Maud’s money.

As Sue tells us in the first few pages, this is absolutely not what happens.

It’s clear from the get-go that Gentleman’s plot is not going to work out the way we think it is, but the plot twist came out of left field in the perfect way — all those juicy tidbits you noticed and then ignored in the preceding pages suddenly making so much sense — shocking me into sitting up in bed as I literally said, “AHA!” out loud like an 1800s-era detective who just solved a case.

After that, the perspective switches, and we hear Maud’s side of the story.

Her version of events was fascinating and compelling, with tons of additional information about characters and scenes we missed the first time around brought into clear (and creepy) focus.

But where Fingersmith fell on its face after that was the next 200 or so pages — in which very little happens at all except one of the main characters complaining and begging to be “let go.”

(Again, keeping my mouth shut about the spoilers there, but suffice to say there’s a solid 50 pages in which the same four characters have the same conversation over and over and over again, in the same setting, with no additional information shared beyond a random side character occasionally getting slapped. I’m not kidding.)

At that point, additional plot twists came into play, and maybe it was because I’d been so impressed by the first slap-in-the-face twist that I found the rest to be convoluted and played out.

It felt like Waters had gone from this incredible, in-your-face mystery, to suddenly repeating the same things over and over (we know how dirty this one house is and we know how miserable this one character is), so that when we finally receive some new information, it loses all of the “omg” factor it was supposed to have.

(In my defense, the remaining plot twists also felt like they could have been pulled right out of the Bridgerton books. Tired literary tropes that made me roll my eyes after the SHEER MASTERY of the first half of the book.)

From the middle of the second “part” of the story, it was a slog to the finish line. I am known to consume 600-page books in a sitting or two, and this one quite literally took me six or seven days to get through.

I just got bored.

Let’s talk about the things Fingersmith did right.

First of all, the setting.

The worldbuilding was fantastic and intricate, focusing on a seedy version of Victorian London that felt realistic, gross, dangerous, and sensual in all the right ways.

Waters’s descriptive language placed me right where I needed to be, and even simple scene descriptions sometimes added to character personas (i.e. a character who is painted as naïve and inexperienced noting that the sludge following a boat’s gas exhaust painted the Thames with its “proper colors”, compared to the clear blue water of the country).

On that note, another win: the characters.

Waters’s protagonists (and antagonists) were vibrant and lifelike, multifaceted in excellent ways (THAT FIRST PLOT TWIST!!).

Her dialogue added to the general ~vibe~ of this smutty Victorian England we got to see, so different from the society ladies and frilly dresses we’re used to in period pieces.

And finally — I’ll call out that truly perfect plot twist one last time before I move on, because I’m still extremely impressed by the way Waters finagled it.

The exact right amount of information dusting, the perfect little nods to something-not-quite-right, and the clincher at the last possible second where you only realize what’s happening as the characters do. Incredibly well done.

Now, on to the failures.

In true “compliment sandwich” critique style, I do have to say that Fingersmith is an excellent book.

For someone who is not usually into period pieces like this, I got right into the world without having to suspend too much of my own disbelief. But where Fingersmith failed for me was in its length — particularly in the latter two-thirds of the book.

Fingersmith is a 600-page novel with 300 pages of plot.

So many repetitive conversations, observations about gloves, and inner monologues that just rehashed information we’d already been given (sometimes several times over) could have been cut out with little or no impact to the story.

The first third of the book goes by at breakneck speed, and then everything slows to a crawl.

I found it so difficult to keep coming back to the book, because by the time I started to find critical information again, I was so bored of Maud’s helplessness (sorry, Maud) that I just couldn’t find it in myself to empathize with her anymore.

I think, if I weren’t reading the book for this project, I might have walked away from it completely and not finished it until several years later.

Closing thoughts: I’m kind of being a dick about period pieces, but I can’t help it

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was worth my time to read it, and that initial plot twist will stick with me for a long time.

I just wish it was shorter, and focused more on the action instead of the introspection (especially in that critical bit toward the middle, when you’ve got the reader’s adrenaline pumping and you need to do something so you don’t lose them completely).

While I was fighting my way through the last hundred pages of Fingersmith, I started eyeing the pile of books I have planned for the rest of April, and even stacked them in order of length. Period pieces always make me feel like I need a YA or short-form palate cleanser.

So naturally, I picked I’ll Give You The Sun, and ripped my heart into several thousand pieces all over again.

More on that in my next post. ;-)

Til next time,
Maggie