Tipping The Velvet

Tipping the Velvet

Sarah Waters

My rating: ***

If any Sarah Waters fans are reading, just know that this review will hurt me more than it hurts you.

I know I’m meant to like Tipping the Velvet. It’s a book about a woman’s sexual liberation, her journey into the previously unknown desires of her subconscious.
The main Character, Nancy, was an oyster girl from Whitstable and was such a clichéd example of a ‘good girl’ I nearly cried. She shares a bed with her sister, helps her mother in the kitchen is the ugly duckling of her family. Nancy and her sister are regular visitors to the local theatre, where they enjoy a whole host of entertainments.

One evening however, she sets eyes on a male impersonator, Kitty Butler. Miss Butler wanders around stage dressed as a man, and sings songs from the perspective of men. It’s funny because she’s a woman, and women aren’t men, and she’s pretending to be a man. Yeah. After meeting Kitty back stage in her dressing room, Nancy begins her whirlwind adventure, of sexual discovery, and the journey to London where fame and fortune awaits.

After that however, not a lot happens. We follow Nancy through the brief ups and the overly prolonged downs of her new life. The main characters goals in life are purely sexual, she lacks the depth of feeling and emotion it would take for me to truly fall in love with her. Nancy herself is a shallow, meaningless character who has no other purpose in the book than to provide sex scenes, but Waters has written it so well I feel genuine dislike towards the page.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Sarah Waters. I read her book “Finger Smith” recently, and it was hands down one of the best things I have ever picked up. I believe that Waters writing skill is evident throughout Tipping the Velvet, but the lack of story really lets the book down.