Aan het eind van de 19e eeuw wordt een jong meisje verliefd op een zangeres en volgt haar naar Londen.

Book 171.
Tipping The Velvet.
Sarah Waters.
Well along with Night Watch I really didn't like this one... We also at the time watched it on TV and I remember disliking it with a passion!
4/10 ( )

Despite living, eating and breathing oysters while helping with her family's business in Whitstable, Nancy revels in taking the train with her sister in their precious spare time to Canterbury, to experience live music and comedy performances. On one such occasion she becomes absolutely entranced by a young woman performing as a man, and returns to see Kitty Butler again and again, until Kitty one night takes notice of her and invites Nancy to become her dresser.

This entire book was a complete surprise to me, as I had selected it based off a suggestion for the Read Harder category "a book about drag or queer artistry" and hadn't so much as read the back cover. It also ticked the box for historical fiction, which is always welcome. It reads a bit as though it might be based on a real historical figure, bit I haven't seen any evidence that this was the case. It was a dramatic, enlightening peek into a 19th-century subculture I'd never previously read anything about. ( )

This is Waters's first novel, and I found it by far the weakest, not surprisingly. This book is more like a lesbian variation on the sort of story Hollinghurst writes about gay men. It is a romance-oriented novel about a young woman, Nancy, who falls in love with a cross-dressing 'masher', a young woman entertainer who takes her along to London as an assistant. After a careful love affair, the entertainer, Kitty, marries a man and Nancy goes off on a binge in a seedy part of London dressed as a boy, and working the streets as a 'renter', a boy who gives hand-jobs to men for coin. After a while of this, and after a year spent as a kept woman, she lands herself in the home of an old acquaintance. They fall in love, and she at last has herself a safe, loving home to settle down in. It's a nice, happy ending, and a very Dickens-like adventure, an exploration of life in the underbelly of London for a gay woman. As such, this was a decent novel, and the sex scenes do not take over the book the way Hollinghurst's do, but on the whole I prefer Waters's later, better developed novels. ( )

The best descriptions of the tortures of love I've ever read. The plot got a bit loopy at times, but the prose was always a pleasure. ( )

I would recommend this book to anyone but I loathe 19th century settings. This book is amazing but honestly just not what I'm into. If you want cutesy lesbians who dress as boys and do sex work and are multifaceted and fall in love etc. it for you.

I wish I could give this book zero stars. I loathed it, which is disappointing because it’s been on my list for such a long time. The reviews are mostly praising, so why did I hate it? The author uses 300 words when ten would suffice. I was halfway through before I realized I was still waiting for it to start. Not one of the characters was the least bit likable. The subject matter appealed to me, but MY GAWD, the execution was terrible. I suspect its good reviews are similar to how “CATS” became the most popular musical ever: people were embarrassed at how much $$/time they spent on tickets/reading that they feel they HAVE to rave about it. I’ve seen the litter box that is “CATS,” and now I’ve read a book with a fascinating topic, told in the worst possible way. I have zero raves for either. ( )

"Being in love, you know......it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her."

'Tipping the Velvet' is a coming of age novel that follows the life of Nancy Astley, a young oyster girl living in Whitstable with her family who enjoys trips to the local music hall. When one night Nancy sees Kitty Butler, a male impersonator, perform, she falls hard for her. So when Kitty invites Nancy to join her in London as her personal dresser, Nancy quickly accepts. For a while, the two live an idyllic life but when Kitty betrays her, Nancy descends into the seedy underworld of London lesbians and the budding Socialist movement. It’s a journey that ultimately brings Nancy out of other people’s shadows and into her own spotlight.

There is a lot of sex in this novel. Nancy is a very sexual woman and her time with Diana, a woman who has hired her as a sort of in-house prostitute, is particularly explicit but Waters succeeds in never making it feel too gratuitous.

There are echoes of Charles Dickens about this novel and like him Waters brings Victorian London to life, as both a boy and a woman. We visit the heights of elegance and the depths of poverty but more impressively Waters explores differing aspects of Victorian womanhood; the rich but abusive Diana, the socialist Florence to the various women that Nancy encounters along the way. In fact there are only three male characters who have any real bearing on the story.

Waters also explores the spectrum of female homosexuality. Kitty is a fiercely closeted woman who marries a man just to prove that she’s not some “tom”, a Victorian slur for a lesbian. Alice, Nancy's sister, is disgusted that Nancy is in love another woman and disowns her, Diana and her circle of friends seem to view their homosexuality as a sort of refined choice, rather than a state of being. When Nancy finally finds true love, it’s with Florence, a woman who is comfortable with her identity as a lesbian.

Yes, it's very sexual and I must admit that there were a few occasions when I would have liked to have seen it toned down a little, but Nancy is a likeable character and the story, as it explores what it means to be a woman, especially a gay woman, during the Victorian age, is very well written. As a first novel it's quite a feat. ( )

The likeable first-person narrator in Sarah Waters's debut novel is Nan Astley, whom we first meet as a rather shy, eighteen-year-old "oyster girl" in Whitstable. She becomes infatuated with Kitty Butler, a visiting male impersonator at the local theatre. An unlikely friendship develops and Nan and Kitty are soon on their way to London together. The novel charts Nan's coming of age (and "coming out") in the lesbian communities of late 19th century London.

I started this book after having read all Waters's other novels except "The Paying Guests" (which I read concurrently - watch this space for my review...) In the light of Waters's later works, I don't consider "Tipping the Velvet" as one of her very best books. As a picaresque novel, it lacks the tight plotting of [b:Fingersmith|45162|Fingersmith|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327879025s/45162.jpg|1014113]. Nor does it have the ambitious narrative structure of [b:The Night Watch|550720|The Night Watch|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394331077s/550720.jpg|134485] or the tantalising ambiguities of [b:The Little Stranger|6065182|The Little Stranger|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348922866s/6065182.jpg|5769396].

That said, it is easy to understand why critics were so enthusiastic about this novel when it was first published. Here was a new, exciting author with a surprising eye for detail and a talent for sumptuous descriptions of a bygone age. Here was an author who confidently evoked the Victorian era without resorting to rosy nostalgia or gaslight clichés. Here was an author who was evidently well-versed in the 19th century literary canon but equally knowledgeable about the naughtier writers of the period (Waters had researched 19th century pornography as part of her doctoral studies and the title is a term taken from Victorian sexual slang). Indeed, "Tipping the Velvet" sometimes feels like the book that Dickens or Collins might have written but would have never dared publish.

A rollicking debut, then, and a good place to start exploring Waters' world. In my view however, her later books are better, albeit less transgressive. ( )

I fully read the book after watching the mini-series based on this book, which was very uncharacteristic of me. In my defence, I wasn’t aware of the book until I had already heard of the series and was way too impatient and really wanted to watch it first.
Somebody at university had told me that they thought the book was ‘too pornographic’. I’ll come back to that comment later, but I do remember thinking ‘Wow, what a prude’ at first, because I didn’t think it could be that bad.
I remember that one of my fist thoughts about the mini-series was that it was miles ahead of its time with its depiction of queer characters. I mean, there’s actual sex between two women happening, and considering that the series was out in 2002 that was a big deal.
But what is it about, you might be asking?
Well.
Tipping the Velvet is the story of Nancy, a young girl from Whitstable, a small fishing village in England. Her family owns an oyster house and she has spent her entire life so far working there. She knows more about oysters than she knows about anything else. But she also loves the theatre. Nancy’s sister is seeing a boy who works at the theatre and he often gets them free tickets to see shows. One particular show involves a cross-dressing woman named Kitty Butler, and Nancy falls in love. In a feverish move that only people falling in love for the first time would do, Nancy moves away with Kitty as her personal assistant, falling more and more in love with her, and eventually becoming a cross-dresser herself.
The story, while it can be seen as a story about first love and how it breaks your heart and how you come back from the pain of it, to me read more as a story of self-discovery. Nancy finds herself, finds out what she’s good at and learns how to make it work for herself. She falls in love, and in doing so starts to understand more about herself. She goes through the hardships of life and through the pain of leaving home and losing touch with your family and even through the confusion of leaving the quiet countryside for the city where everything feels so much larger and quicker.
Nancy’s story is so well told and well written. It’s a first-person story, and the way that Waters uses Nancy’s experiences to colour the way she sees things around her is so beautifully done. Nancy leaves no stone untouched, and she feels like a very reliable and safe narrator to listen to. Rarely do you feel, as you are reading, that Nancy is trying to trick you into believing a story that she is exaggerating or making up.
Which is what makes the sex scenes all the more jarring.
Before reading the book, as mentioned before, I did think that maybe whoever passed that comment was being rather prudish. After reading the book for myself, though, I can safely say that they were right.
While I don’t consider myself prudish, I do understand that sometimes ‘too much’ is a thing. And in this book’s case, it is ‘too much detail’. I really don’t need to know every single detail in Nancy’s sex life, but for some reason I can’t stop reading. But really, the whole thing reads as very well-written porn in some instances, which can make some readers uncomfortable (as it did for me).
All in all, I give this book a solider 4/5. The historical accuracy is all there, as is the clever innuendos and brilliant narration. Like I said, could have done without all the unnecessary sex scenes, but hey, to each their own. It’s a good book anyway.
( )

I had a lot of fun with this book and enjoyed how easy it was to read. The story was engaging and I couldn't put it down easily; I'd read for an hour and completely lose track of time--I've missed that. It was sprawling and reminded me of all the good part of The Crimson Petal and the White (which if you remembered I hated) but with a character whose emotional development actually mattered to me and seemed so much more authentic.

For some reason or another Water's writing sort of tired me in the beginning (the comparisons to Dicken's are correct--both for the good and bad), but the more I read the more her writing seemed to flow for me. I also had a problem with the ending, which I found uncomfortably ambiguous due to some of the character's personalities not really speaking to me and one of the characters (in my opinion) fatal flaws just glaring in any "happy ending" we're supposed to get. It pains me to say this, but I liked the ending in the 2002 mini-series adaption so much better.

Go find a copy of the series right now--very cheesy but has so much heart I didn't totally feel in the novel... ( )

Been wanting to read this for ages. It was worth the wait. ( )

Doing a re-listen.

I still very much enjoy this book. Even though Nancy is mostly super selfish and naive through nearly all of it. Florence makes up for it all. ( )

Still love the third part the best, the second part the least, and want to slap Kitty often. :-) ( )

Sometimes I get the urge to revisit Nancy and Florence. Every re-read is the same: I dread the middle portion of the book but enjoy the first part and love the final part enough to keep going. I don't know why I can't just give myself permission to skip to the parts I want, but I can't.

The end makes it all worthwhile. ( )

Em uma pequena cidade litorânea da Inglaterra, Nancy Astley se distrai do fatigante trabalho no restaurante da família assistindo aos espetáculos do Canterbury Place todos os sábados com a irmã, Alice. Mas a frivolidade alegre com que acompanha as músicas e aplaude os números termina quando, travestida de homem, Kitty Butler sobe ao palco pela primeira vez. Depois disso, impelida por uma estranha fascinação, Nancy passa a ir ao teatro todas as noites. Logo é notada pela atriz e se torna sua camareira, iniciando com ela uma delicada relação na qual desejo e cautela se mesclam na rotina de apressadas trocas de roupa e velada intimidade. Assim, quando Kitty é convidada para se apresentar em outro teatro, Nancy não hesita em abandonar sua casa e tomar um trem para longe de tudo o que lhe é familiar. O que a espera do outro lado dos trilhos é o frenético mundo teatral da Londres vitoriana, e uma vida que jamais teria imaginado para si mesma. Morando juntas em uma casa cheia de artistas, elas se tornam amantes, e logo Nancy troca os bastidores pela ribalta. Rebatizada como Nan King, ela não poderia desejar mais: o sucesso, o assédio e o amor parecem inalteráveis. Mas seu mundo desmorona quando Kitty decide se casar com um homem, lançando-a em uma existência solitária e libertina, na qual ela testará os limites do erotismo e lutará para reencontrar o amor. Ambientado na Londres do final do século XIX, Toque de veludo expõe corajosa e febrilmente as subversões políticas, sociais e sexuais de mulheres que ousaram seguir os próprios desejos.

The likeable first-person narrator in Sarah Waters's debut novel is Nan Astley, whom we first meet as a rather shy, eighteen-year-old "oyster girl" in Whitstable. She becomes infatuated with Kitty Butler, a visiting male impersonator at the local theatre. An unlikely friendship develops and Nan and Kitty are soon on their way to London together. The novel charts Nan's coming of age (and "coming out") in the lesbian communities of late 19th century London.

I started this book after having read all Waters's other novels except "The Paying Guests" (which I read concurrently - watch this space for my review...) In the light of Waters's later works, I don't consider "Tipping the Velvet" as one of her very best books. As a picaresque novel, it lacks the tight plotting of [b:Fingersmith|45162|Fingersmith|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327879025s/45162.jpg|1014113]. Nor does it have the ambitious narrative structure of [b:The Night Watch|550720|The Night Watch|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394331077s/550720.jpg|134485] or the tantalising ambiguities of [b:The Little Stranger|6065182|The Little Stranger|Sarah Waters|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348922866s/6065182.jpg|5769396].

That said, it is easy to understand why critics were so enthusiastic about this novel when it was first published. Here was a new, exciting author with a surprising eye for detail and a talent for sumptuous descriptions of a bygone age. Here was an author who confidently evoked the Victorian era without resorting to rosy nostalgia or gaslight clichés. Here was an author who was evidently well-versed in the 19th century literary canon but equally knowledgeable about the naughtier writers of the period (Waters had researched 19th century pornography as part of her doctoral studies and the title is a term taken from Victorian sexual slang). Indeed, "Tipping the Velvet" sometimes feels like the book that Dickens or Collins might have written but would have never dared publish.

A rollicking debut, then, and a good place to start exploring Waters' world. In my view however, her later books are better, albeit less transgressive. ( )

I experienced the curious situation where I didn't care for many of the characters (until closer to the end), but I wanted to find out what happened to Nancy, so I stuck with it. It was a little clunky at times, but I chalk that up to being Waters' first book. The atmosphere was lush enough that I'm interested in seeing how she developed her style in subsequent novels. ( )

In Tipping the Velvet, oyster girl, Nan King, falls in love with Kitty Butler, a girl playing a boy in a music hall act. Nan is swept away to London where the two perform together and carry on a covert love affair, The two are desperately in love but too afraid of being discovered to last. Abandoned by Kitty, Nan finds herself alone in gritty Victorian London with nothing but a broken heart and a trunk full of male clothes from the act. As a boy, Nan works the streets. At loose ends, she takes up with all manner of characters, and the story reveals the dirty underbelly of Victorian London as Nan embarks on a number of troubling sexual "adventures." This book, too, is the richest of historical portrayals and Nan is a remarkable character. Her story from its beginnings with a sweet and exciting love affair to her search for love and belonging in all the wrong places and on to the redemption that seemed unreachable but perhaps is not, is totally compelling. ( )

A fabulous romp through Victorian London's sapphic world. All about a young girl who grows up with her family's Whistable oyster restaurant and is entranced by the music halls. All about how our first loves are more about finding ourselves as much as finding our life partners. Nancy is a wonderful heroine, she is innocent and unknowing at the start of the story, falls in love with the theatre as much as Kitty and follows her to London. She meets the depraved rich on one hand and the socialist unionist movement on the other and finds her own way. This is the first Sarah Waters book that I've read, it won't be the last.
The slang term 'Tipping the Velvet' has a meaning that was quite unexpected. ( )

I spent all of Thanksgiving weekend avoiding this book. I made it 250 pages in and just don't want to finish it. Time to move on. ( )

Sarah Waters' writing is masterful; I loved the way she used bold, startling foreshadowing in one sentence, only to immediately bury it in mundane narration in the next so that, as a reader, I almost but not quite, forgot about it. The idea that something big and important was looming was always in the back of my mind and would have kept me reading even if the story had not been enjoyable.

Overall, I think this was a 3.5-star book for me. For the writing alone, it would have been 5-stars, but I felt the story was a very familiar one; the lesbian angle kept it just fresh enough that it wasn't boring, but the narrative followed a quite predictable path. I've read essentially the same story several times, only from a heterosexual viewpoint. The predictability made the second and third acts a little less exciting for me.

The story is at its strongest during Nancy's theater years when lively and full of details about life backstage; Nancy's character feels the most alive in the early pages. When Nancy leaves the theater (not a spoiler, since her theater career hasn't even begun when the reader is told it will brief) the story was at times unpleasant to read because Nancy was, often, unlikeable, but I do think that made her character very real. As someone who undoubtedly has been unlikeable at times, I felt I could see myself growing and struggling in Nancy.

My advice to prospective readers is to give it a chance; if Nancy's character hooks you in the beginning, you'll enjoy the rest of her tale. Along the way, take note of the author's skill with words and know it will turn out alright in the end. ( )

I haven't watched the series or read other similar books as a historical - Victorian London - or gendered. Nancy, the main protagonist is annoyingly selfish, Kitty was not fully developed as a character and the writing is self-indulgent in parts. But it's lively, layered and written in such an absorbing way I couldn't put it down. ( )

p...ause? at page 115
i wiiiish you weren't written in this styyyyle it's really tough to reeead

This was a very different sort of historical fiction than I’m used to and I liked it all the better for it. It’s finely written with an ear to character voice and the time period, but it’s plain-spoken, not overwrought, and Nancy doesn’t spend a lot of time on details that don’t matter to the story. It’s enough to know she’s walking a foggy street. She doesn’t mention the muck or the smell or who she’s walking past. Waters has clearly done all the research, but she doesn’t care if you know it, and I wish more people followed her lead.

I also really liked seeing queer Victorian London, and that Waters wove the story to take us through all its facets without making it heavy-handed. I liked that this was a very positive queer London too! That yes, there were homophobes and bad situations and people who take advantage of others, but at the same time, the message is that queer people have always been, they’ve always found ways to exist in society, that they’ve always found acceptance and family and each other, and that the struggles queer people face now were faced in the past and if they succeeded, we can too. (Or at least, that’s what I took away from it.) Even if it’s not 100% in the historical record, it’s 100% believable and nice to see.

Nancy’s an interesting person too, with a wide-eyed but knowing way of looking at the world, and I enjoyed following her through her story and growth, even through the parts I knew weren’t going to end well. I was at least as caught up in what happened to her as I was seeing Victorian London in all its queerness. She’s real, and her partners are real, and everyone else is believable, and as fleshed out as they need to be for their roles in the story. There were some other elements of her narration that I also liked, but I think to mention them here would spoil the effect.

I also enjoyed all the little moments where Waters puns on “queer” and where she peppers historical queer people and literature into the background. There’s a library at one point where every author is gay, and I think there’s mention of “poor Oscar” at one point without context, that kind of thing.

I wasn’t sucked into the story to the point of needing to go back to the book as soon as possible, which is one of the bars I have for what is a great read, but this was solidly good and I absolutely plan to read more of Waters’ books in the future. She’s got a great style, and there’s definitely a reason this one in particular keeps getting talked about.

To bear in mind: Contains homelessness, poverty, unequal and abusive relationships, internal and external homophobia, historical slurs including towards a Black man, attempted and actual sexual assault. Survival sex work, if that’s going to bring back bad memories. Some pretty explicit sex scenes, if you’re reading in public.

7.5/10 ( )