The Raw Power of Knowlege

    You might wonder as you read Crimson Petal and the White after a disorienting gritty and real reading experience, how such a wickedly earnest, beautiful and harsh book ended up in your hands in the first place. Deep in the underbelly of London we find the raw un-glorified population of church lane in a poor area of London. Our character Caroline is witty and child-like when she hasn't slipped into the almost mechanical persona she uses to struggle through life.

    You see, to get around church lane, you need your wits a sharp blade and a way to merge with the pulsating activity of the street, to blend in and most of all to slip away into the shadows.

    Prostitution.

    I won't tiptoe around it,  I'll put it blatantly.

    Generally we don't associate prostitutes with being powerful creatures. Many prostitutes are brutally forced into the trade and sold as sex slaves all across the world. The less extreme is of course the choice of the profession and life itself.  But Caroline (we all know now that she is in fact a prostitute) has a dainty, graceful lady-like charm and slovenly appeal to her. Not only does she use this to reel in her prospective customers but she dances daintily across their lives, planting ideas influencing the old, the rich and the powerful men without even realizing the power she is wielding.

    The tables turn almost every time Caroline is with a man, the degrading filthy work gives way to conversation and jokes. A lot of the time she sees more into their lives, past present and feelings than their wives and children do in a lifetime.

    The most surprising aspect of the power is not her potential to wield it but what comes from knowing someone wholly, some of their most intimate details only heard by someone looking for them. Her job was to please the men, to know them, Caroline held the key to her customers lives and their secrets and their emotions even when she was too naive to know how tightly she could reign them in.