FICTION: Lazy, unhappy William Rackham, weary of his ailing wife and constitutionally half-hearted about life in general, could not be bothered to stir himself sufficiently to inject some energy into the family perfume and fine soap firm. He could be rich, he should be happy - but never mind.
Whatever resources he can summon are expended in lamenting the debauched young man about town he once was, and the aspiring writer he still wants to be.
This all changes when he finally sees something he wants - Sugar, an unusual young whore possessed of an intellect daring enough to complement her excitingly vast repertoire of sexual tricks. The pair seem kindred spirits, doomed lovers at the non-existent mercy of Victorian society, never mind William's hypocrisy. But Michel Faber's dazzling, labyrinthine novel is far more than a tale of star-crossed romance.
More cautionary tale than morality play, The Crimson Petal and the White is sustained by comic genius, clever detail, inspired characterisation and a fluid, stylish feel for language with an assured nod to period. As historical fiction it convinces in all the ways that Sarah Waters's sleazy Booker runner-up, Fingersmith, fails. Unlike Waters, who clearly felt lesbian sex would compensate for her lack of period detail, Faber has created a sprawling, uneasy 19th-century London of dark alleys and big houses in which the poor and the rich battle it out. Prostitution is the major theme. In the marketplace of sex , hardened women can put a price on every service or self- humiliation they can offer to braying men who view them as objects of sportive prey.
The sexual banter, and subsequent barter, are all fairly horrible, yet Faber places the social history above the cliché. Thanks to the tongue-in-cheek tone of his relentlessly cheerful, traditional omniscient narrator, the story races along, avoiding the didactic or heavy morality. Be warned: once you start reading it, you will be trapped. Irresistible and funny, it is vivid, atmospheric and authentic with a feel for clutter, and smells, and the way situations in life tend to unravel. It begs to be read aloud; readers and listeners are bound to have immense fun with this very human yarn about what happens just when you begin to think you've got what you want . . .
Part of the novel's success is that its narrative tone remains engagingly neutral. Moral outrage, at least not at its most obvious, is not Faber's intention. Instead he has set out to place an assortment of ordinary misfits in contrasting circumstances within contact of each other. After that, he more or less stands back and allows develop what will. And develop it does; this is quite a plot. He does not so much send up the conventions of the Victorian novel as allow various elements come together in a lively free-for-all. Smutty music hall entertainment, guilt-crazed religion, filthy poverty, female sexual humiliation, melodrama, the brash face of the Victorian age facing the future, duty as burden and the various faces of sex at its most desperate dominate the stage.
Sugar (19), the victim of her brothel-keeper mother's business sense, is neither saint nor cardboard heroine. She is not even a conventional beauty. Aside from her flat chest and wild orange hair, she suffers from an unsightly skin disease. And then there is her husky voice, the legacy of having once almost had her throat cut. But she is willing: no sexual request is too weird and, above all, she always performs it with a smile. Faber makes her likeable, if also shrewd enough to be believable. In her spare time she is writing a gory epic in which most of the rotten men are slowly cut to pieces by a female narrator.
On realising exactly what her sexual compliance has won her, she roams her little empire, a flat of her own, sobbing "I'm free", before "dashing from room to room again, but this time more badly behaved: not girlish, not squealing in musical delight, but rampaging like a gutter infant, grunting and crying in ugly jubilation, 'It's all mine! It's all for me!'"
Her story and her character alone could carry the novel, except that there is so much more besides. Some of that rich excess includes her lover, William Rackham. Inspired by his new love, he reinvents himself and becomes the personification of the Victorian entrepreneur, has his hair cut and cultivates a beard. Running parallel to his transformation is the ongoing madness of his eccentric wife, the beautiful and bizarre Agnes, whom Williams fears has come to hate him. She does not hate but she certainly fears him, and it is on this small fact that much of Faber's huge novel pivots. Even more intriguing is that far from being a lovely, bedridden lunatic and social embarrassment, Agnes is an important central narrative focus.
Although selfish, William is not a complete cad, at least not initially. He even experiences habitual remorse for the unpredictable wreck his wife has become. A disastrous attempt at a rare shared breakfast makes him ask himself: "Is it really her fault that she turned against his love, began to treat him as if he were a brute, turned him, finally, into a brute?"
He reaches fondly across the table. "Abruptly, Agnes's arm begins to shake with mechanical vehemence . . . with a retching cry, she falls to the floor. Or sinks to the carpet, if you will. Whatever way she gets there, she lands without a thump, and her glassy blue eyes are open."
In contrast to a wife who faints on contact, Rackham, in Sugar, finds a sexual partner of limitless imagination who also likes him. Her friendship is soon so important to him that he secures her services entirely for himself. Soon after this deal is struck, he takes another step, that of moving her to a place of her own. So far, so wonderful, at least for him - Sugar,meanwhile, spends long nights alone, waiting for his visits. At other times, she stalks the Rackhams as they act out their public roles.
While William is experiencing financial and sexual fulfilment, his brother Henry suffers the twin torments of religious guilt and sexual frustration as the object of his love, Mrs Fox, a do-gooder intent on reforming the fallen women of London, contracts TB and seems set for a tragic demise. Fate decides otherwise. Henry's trials add further texture to the various sub-plots. None of the characters, however minor, are merely token. This immensely entertaining romp is far more deliberately conceived than one might suspect.
Yet Faber is confident enough to allow ambiguities space to develop. Is Agnes alive or dead? There are no ambiguities in store for Sugar, destined to spend hours reading the wife's discarded diaries. As soon as William moves her into his household as governess to his daughter, Sophie, in whom Agnes has no interest, Sugar's future is decided.
For all the fun and the many brilliant comic setpieces, including William's mounting cartoon-like exasperation, there is the darker side. The story exposes sex at its most desperate. Faber presents it as a diversion for men. But for women, it is a more serious, life-determining gamble - offering potential salvation or ruination.
Aspiration and ambition, hope and betrayal, the desire to belong, the need to escape and just about every other human emotion imaginable compete for consideration in this seriously witty bravura performance.
• Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
The Crimson Petal and the White. By Michel Faber. Canongate, 835pp. £17.99
