Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 3/5 Stars Sometimes when I have seen the movie version of a book first, I run out the same day and find a copy of the book. Sometimes I even go read books for movies coming out even if I have no desire to see the movie, just in case I ACCIDENTALLY see the movie. I am not saying it’s sane; it’s just what I do. With this one, I saw the movie a few years back and I think I […]
Our bodies, our selves.
Years and years ago, my beloved theory professor and mentor at my MA institution recommended Jeanette Winterson, and most specifically, Written on the Body, if I wanted to better grasp queer theory and literature. I found a copy at Goodwill but have not opened it until now, and now I regret only the many years that I did not absorb this amazing and beautifully-written text. This novel is written in a nonlinear fashion by an author whose gender is never specified. This author discusses past […]
Passion, Obsession and Napoleon
Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion is a novel about passions, obsessions, and madness. Using her characters, history, and geography, Winterson examines how passion develops among “lukewarm people” and how it can bleed over into debilitating obsession and the loss of self. Some can find their way back from it, […]
The Daylight Gate is Dark
Jeanette Winterson’s work is known for postmodernist lyrical prose. She has never flinched away from darkness and gore, exploring various aspects of being human, and the human past. However, this novella is not lyrical; there is no beauty in the writing to alleviate the heaviness in the lives of the characters. It’s not that the writing is poor, only that it is straightforward. In this piece historical fiction, Winterson weaves the aftermath of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot into the 1612 Pendle witch trials, with brief […]
“It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.”
Disclaimer: I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I am not intimmately familiar with either Jeanette Winterson or The Winter’s Tale, but I was intrigued behind the idea of the Hogarth Shakespeare collection and was able to read this through NetGalley. Obviously, The Gap of Time modernizes Shakespeare’s work, changing the setting, some character names, and other superficial details, but retaining the driving themes of the original (the summary of which is included in the beginning of Winterson’s story, for […]
“and a weak mailed fist / Clenched ignorant against the sky!”
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is harsh and beautiful and sad. It’s based on autobiography, and tells of a young Jeanette growing up in a tiny town in the North of England. The claustrophobia of the town is strongly evoked–it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else, everyone has a place and is expected to stay in it, and any attempts to hide or move or change must be carried out under severe scrutiny by neighbours, friends and family and probably followed […]