Gut Symmetries

Description

The highwire artist of the English novel redraws the romantic triangle for the post-Einsteinian universe, where gender is as elastic as matter, and any accurate Grand Unified Theory (GUT) must encompass desire alongside electromagnetism and gravity.

One starry night on a boat in the mid-Atlantic, Alice, a brilliant English theoretical physicist, begins an affair with Jove, her remorselessly seductive American counterpart. But Jove is married. When Alice confronts his wife, Stella, she swiftly falls in love with her, with consequences that are by turns horrifying, comic, and arousing. Vaulting from Liverpool to New York, from alchemy to string theory, and from the spirit to the flesh, Gut Symmetries is a thrillingly original novel by England's most flamboyantly gifted young writer.

"Winterson is unmatched among contemporary writers in her ability to conjure up new-world wonder...A beautiful, stirring and brilliant story."--Times Literary Supplement

"Dazzling for [its] intelligence and inventiveness...[Winterson] is possessed of a masterly command of the language and a truly pliant imagination."--Elle

"One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers."--San Francisco Chronicle

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Physics seems to have become the new language of love in the 1990s, and Jeanette Winterson is not the first writer to make a major character a physicist. Jonathan Lethem mined similar territory earlier this year in his delightful book, As She Climbed Across the Table, and now Winterson enters the lists with not one, but two physicists populating the pages of her equally wonderful book, Gut Symmetries. If you think about it, physics does make a good metaphor for love, encompassing as it does the principles of attraction, the exchange of energy, and unification. At the center of this meditation on "the intelligence of the universe" and "the stupidity of humankind" are Jove, a married physicist; Alice, a single physicist who becomes his mistress; and Stella, Jove's wife and later, Alice's lover. They meet on the QE2 and from there the three participants in the story take turns telling their versions of it.

Gut Symmetries is a collage of memories, snippets of scientific theory, meditations on abstract concepts like truth, and the events surrounding Jove, Alice, and Stella's affair. This is a book that demands your attention, jumping as it does from one seemingly tangential topic to another; but whereas physics still seeks a grand unification theory (GUT) to explain how everything in the universe fits together, Winterson actually finds one of her own in this satisfyingly complete fictional world.

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Customer Reviews

Good service. Long wait.
The book arrived a little later than the last projected date (given a two week berth, that was pretty long to wait), but when it arrived it was in good shape and exactly in the condition I expected.

2009-05-30 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Post-modern, complex, beautiful, worth the effort.
An affair. Two women. A man. Love disrobed and exposed to its multiplicitous passions, pains, and controlled recklessness. "What kind of woman goes to bed with another woman's husband? Answer: a worm? That might explain my invertebrate state." Reading Jeannette Winterson is like picking up a broken mirror, looking in it, cutting your hands, then marvelling at how beautifully red our blood can be. Gut Symmetries is a complex work. At times you may become disoriented. You may be uncertain who's speaking. It's worth staying with it until the pieces come back together. Even when disoriented you will find a character's self-reflection cutting beautiful and deep. "I am not afraid of feeling but I am afraid of feeling unthinkingly. I don't want to drown. My head is my heart's lifebelt." Handle it as a broken mirror -- piece by piece. Savor it one sentence at a time.

2007-02-28 (Michigan) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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somewhat ok
I am trying to finish it. There are few philosophical remarks that I enjoyed.

2005-09-19 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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Gut Symmetries
This book changed my view on what great literature can be. Previously I thought plot drove the reader to keep going - reading this I was driven forward by the beauty of the words that Winterson uses, sometimes not understanding, or paying attention to the action, often reading several times to revel in the flavours of her prose. I looked with regret at the dwindling number of pages as I approached the end, wanting to stay longer in the drunken, passionate language of this wonderful book.

2004-04-07 (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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The quantum uncertainties of love and life
The title of Winterson's novel is a triple pun, referring to the twin themes of animal instinct and modern physics (Grand Unified Theory), and--in a bizarre plot twist--human innards. Most of the narrative is presented from the perspectives of two women: Stella, a poet married to a Princeton physicist, and Alice, a younger physicist who has an affair first with Stella's husband and then with Stella herself.

Presented nonlinearly, it's one of Winterson's more challenging novels, a scrapbook weaving scientific metaphors and cabalistic mysticism with the tangled associations of three generations of three different families. "I know I am a fool, trying to make connections out of scraps. . . . Am I vain enough to assume you will understand me? No. So I go on puzzling over new joints for words, hoping that this time, one piece will slide smooth against the next." Still, a thematically satisfying, often surprising plot emerges from the accumulated snippets of poetry, witticism, and musing. Even though the book's focus is certainly not its plot, all the bits and pieces eventually tie together in satisfying and unexpected ways.

If the novel has a shortcoming, it would be the sacrifice of characterization for thematic unity and postmodern cleverness. It's difficult at times to distinguish the two women (surprising in a novel by Winterson) and their family histories, and one is often forced to seek textual clues in order to determine whether the present narrator is the Jewish poet or the British scientist. Occasionally, however, emotions (and especially humor) surface above the ponderous rumination--for example, the "gut"-wrenching chapter in which Stella finds out about her husband's affair and conducts a physics experiment as conceived by an enraged poet: "If I drop a CD player and a lap top out of the same window at the same time which one will hit the ground first?"

"Gut Symmetries" rewards the persistent reader with memorable passages on love and physics, guilt and energy, poetry and mysticism. It's a novel many will want to reread for the Wildean wordplay and the Joycean artistry.

2003-12-10 (Brooklyn, NY) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 4

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Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles (Myths, The)

Product Details

• Accustom: New
• ISBN13: 9781841957999
• Notes: BUY WITH Certitude, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and overhaul to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

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Customer Reviews

A delightful and very moving account of a myth
I love this short, beautifully written book. Like the others in the Canongate Myths series it is a re-telling of a popular myth in this case Atlas who was forced to bear the weight of the world on his back and Heracles, a boorish thug who lives through violence and destruction: "I was a bit of a braggart in my youth: killed everything, shagged what was left, ate the rest".

Heracles tricks Atlas into performing part of the last of the 12 labors to which he has been sentenced by telling Atlas he will bear the weight of the world for him, then convinces the trusting and honorable Titan to resume his burden.

The story is brought forward all the way to the space age--the late 1950s of Sputnik satellites--and given an ending that is forced, contrived and at the same time completely enthralling. It could melt the coldest of hearts.

2010-08-24 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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No plot, no story. Great for hipsters, junk for everyone else.
I picked up this book randomly at the library, without having heard anything about it. The concept seemed interesting. I never would've thought how pointless this book would turn out to be.

The plot is a threadbare account of Atlas holding up the universe while his buddy Heracles masturbates and kills people. Insert some pointless drivel about an orphan in the modern world, mix with some "stylish" writing gimmicks (such as repeating the phrase, "I want to tell the story again") and you have Weight.

I haven't read the other reviews of this book yet, but I'm awed that it has such a high star-rating. My guess is that people will give the usual hipster garbage reasons, like, "Oh, you just don't GET IT." Sorry, but I'm too clever for that line. This books sucks, the end.

2010-07-01 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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Excellent modern reinterpretation
I bought this some time ago and let it languish on my to-read shelf for several years. I finally read it and regretted not having done so earlier. This is a wonderful psychological exploration built around the Atlas-Hercules story, but really tied to the author's own experiences in making hard choices. Something to read again and again...

2010-04-17 (Philadelphia, PA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Yes,.... The story needed to be retold!
Jeanette tells us she has written this book because it is a story that neeeds to be retold. She was right.
About 1/2 of the books in the myth series by Canondale are very good, and it has been a delight to hear these tales retold. Weight is one of the best of the series. I felt deeply moved by reading this story. This was the first of Winterson's books I read, but not to be the last.

2009-10-01 (Anchorage Alaska) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The all and powerful
Back to the time when the world was led by the all powerful gods of Olympus there was a titan named Atlas. Atlas was one of the greatest titans there ever were because he was the son of lord Poseidon a god and Gia a titan. There was also a man who was as strong as to lions his name was Heracles son of Zeus. Atlas and Heracles were really good friends because they were a lot alike. But the thing that they both have most in common was despising a goddess named Hera. Both Atlas and Heracles wanted to kill Hera so they started to make a plan.
Even though they've tried and tried to find a way to kill Hera they just couldn't because of her powers and her looks. But they knew that they cant live there lives unless Hera dies. So they thought of ways to kill her. Then Atlas remembered that she has a magical tree that grows golden apples which holds her powers and other great powers as well. What I like about this book is the fact that it says the true story of both Atlas and Heracles. I really didn't have any dislikes for this book because it was well put together.

2009-01-26 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The Passion

Product Details

• Contingency: New
• Notes: BUY WITH Courage, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and checking to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• ISBN13: 9780802135223

Description

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In 1985 Jeanette Winterson won the Whitbread Award for best first fiction for the semi-autobiographical Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, an often wry exploration of lesbian possibility bumping up against evangelical fanaticism. She was 25. Two years later, The Passion, her third novel, appeared, the fantastical tale of Henri--Napoleon's cook--and Villanelle, a Venetian gondolier's daughter who has webbed feet (previously an all-male attribute), works as a croupier, picks pockets, cross-dresses, and literally loses her heart to a beautiful woman. Written in a lyrical and jolting combination of fairy tale diction and rhythm and the staccato, the book would be a risky proposition in lesser hands. Winterson has said that she wanted to look at people's need to worship and examine what happens to young men in militaristic societies. The question was, how to do so without being polemical and didactic? Only she could have come up with such an exquisite answer. In the end, Henri, incarcerated on an island of madmen, becomes aware that his passion, "even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else."

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Customer Reviews

quick read, mythic quality
I do not read novels too frequently, and even less so after being disappointed by a string of hyped novels recently (Secret Life Of Bees, Water for Elephants, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--the latter two were good until the last disappointing pages where the stories weren't tied up satisfactorily).

In any case, I asked my friend to recommend me a novel that was smart, well written and had an actual structured story that I would like and be able to finish. He gave me this. It fit the bill and I loved it -- imaginative story, beautifully written. You don't get a sense she is writing just to fill pages; the prose is so well edited. The story is set during the Napoleonic wars and in Venice during that time. For a relatively short novel, it does what all good narratives do in that it is ambitious enough to encompass and articulate the grand range of human emotions and experiences common to us all. In this case her primary subject is, well, Passion.

Caveat: she throws in a healthy dose of magical realism which lends the story a sort of mythic quality, but if you're averse to that, steer clear.

Great book, quick read, highly recommended.

2010-03-07 (NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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I've Read Better Cereal Boxes
Call me old fashioned. If you write a book that uses a real historical backdrop -- here, Napoleon's Europe -- you should keep it real. The first section (of four) deals with Henri, a new French recruit. Winterson uses spare language to paint a convincing and fast-paced picture of military life at the beginning of the 19th century fairly well, except for a slightly clumsy "foreshadowing event." The second section, set in Venice, told thru the eyes of streetwise Villanelle, hints at supernatural events but -- who knows? -- maybe it's all in her mind, like the slimy, algae-covered soothsayer with a crown of rats she paddles by from time to time. It could happen...I suppose.

But the 3rd and 4th sections get a little "out to lunch." It's nearly 8 years later. Henri meets up with Villanelle (now an officers' whore) near Moscow during Bonaparte's Russian debacle. They desert. Henri (not so) slowly falls in love with Villanelle. But, alas, Villanelle lost her heart (literally lost her heart) to a married Venetian woman years before.

A short book. Well written in sections but a failure on its plot devices. And the end is hideously overwritten. We get it, Ms. Winterson, there's no need for a sledge hammer.

2009-10-02 | Grouchy Old Fart (GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Just Short of Marvelous
The prose is quite lovely, she obviously has a gift with the language that I envy. The story itself is not really the point. It only exists to drive the characters from one jewel of insight to the next. Normally I hate "concept books" like that, but either I am getting older and wiser, or this book is that good. One thing that helps is she does not fall into the trap that many authors do when writing concept focused novels in making her characters utterly unlikable. It really doesn't matter how illuminating your prose is if it is coming from the mouths of characters the reader cannot relate to. The characters are likable, even if the main characters who trade narration speak with the same "voice". The voice is so lovely, you forgive them for that just as you forgive the author the lift from T.S. Elliot.

It kinda falls short of true, "Wow!" though. I think that part of that is the fact that like many writers, she has fallen into the trap of over processing emotion in order to make it beautiful. In doing so she looses emotion's raw edge. She becomes detached from it. When the characters talk about love and passion and pain you understand it, but you don't feel it. It's beautiful, but not evocative.

Something else I realized that bothered me about this book. The author keeps referring to how happy country people are because they are "simple" with simple lives. Being raised in a township of less than a thousand people, I can honestly say that that is not the case. Just because one does not work in an office and change jobs every three years that does not mean their lives are more "simple". I can tell you that all the facets of human relationships are just as prevelant in the rural areas as they are in town. The only difference is the older generations don't talk about it the way city folk do. I can also point to the fact that while many of the older generation (born at the beginning of the 20th century) may not have had beyond a 9th grade education, most of them continued to read and educate themselves their entire lives. Some of them are more well read than people that claim to be among the literati. The only difference is they have not a professor telling them how to interpret what they read, so often you end up having some very interesting discussions with them.

So maybe the author should not be trying to speak for country people and the beauty of their "simple lives" because I think I can guarantee as far back as the 19th century, they probably were not that simple. It actually kind of smacks of the "noble savage" condescension.

But still, worth a read even if that isn't your sort of thing. This was really not my sort of thing, but I am glad I read it.

2009-08-20 (NC, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Beautiful prose, tragic yet lovely story
I will be reading Winterson's other novels after reading The Passion. It's an excellent novel, written in a beautiful, sometimes languid, sometimes magical style that makes the reader re-read sentences for the pleasure of the poetry of her words. I was a bit disappointed with the ending of the novel but only because the beginning is so stunning.

2009-07-31 (New York, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A highwayscribery "Book Report"
Three readings of this slim tome in the past ten years do not yield a conclusion that each time it gets better, but it certainly holds up well.

This story of a peasant boy who cooks chickens for Napolean and the cross-dressing card dealer in a Venice, Italy casino is blessed with sparing touches of magical realism, informative research about the time and place(s) that are woven into the author's poetic prose, and a brand of contemplation about life's meanings and mysteries that cannot be taught.

"This morning I smell the oats and I see a little boy watching his reflection in a copper pot he's polished. His father comes in and laughs and offers him his shaving mirror instead. But in the pot he can see all the distortions of his face. He sees many possible faces and so he sees what he might become."

Of Venice, the card dealer Villanelle observes, "This is the city of uncertainty, where routes and faces look alike and are not. Death will be like that. We will forever be recognizing people we have never met.

But darkness and death are not the same.

The one is temporary, the other is not."

The story is rich in such passages and even when they may not ring true, the music seems always pleasing.

"The heart is so easily mocked, believing that the sun can rise twice or that roses bloom because we want them to."

I often recommend "The Passion" to nonfiction readers who say they can't stick with literature, because it is of the highest kind, but taxes only as much as you let it.

Villanelle's dealer's perspective may say it all. "You play, you win. You play, you lose. You play."

2009-04-20 | the highway scribe (Los Angeles, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Lighthousekeeping

Description

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Customer Reviews

Dark for a lighthouse
Jeanette Winterson is a gifted author and this is a very artistic novel but I found it too dark for my taste.

2010-06-29 | Optimist (Florida) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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I've heard it all before
I'm a huge fan of Jeanette Winterson. I consider her one of my few favorite writers, and I own almost all her books. Some of them I consider classics (Oranges,The Passion, Sexing the Cherry) but not this one. Not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just that I've heard it all before it seems. All the same things are there almost like they have been collected up from other books, put in a blenderm, and printed. Characters names are repeated (Silver and Dark were also characters names in another book); and many of the same themes and metaphors (story telling, balancing acts, towers, orphans etc), as such it's tantamount to a facsimile of better novels she has written in the past. It did not engage me, and I did not finish it more than half way through. To be honest, I enjoyed her lesser-known young adults novel "Tanglewreck" more, because it was superior in originality. It's good to remember "the rock from whence ye are hewn, the pit from whence ye are digged" (point in case: reprised in this book from the earlier Sexing the Cherry ) but it's also good to know when you are simply rehashing. It's time to freshen up a bit, and that said, I simply wouldn't at all reccomend this as an introduction to the work of a brilliant writer.

2008-08-20 | GreenEggsAndZam (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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Jeanette Winterson at her best?
Who is to say what Winterson's best is? She is a brilliant author with a facility for words, and an imagination that always surprises and delights. The title is, of course, part of her humor and takes us into a wonderful world.

2007-11-29 | The Scot (Evanston, IL USA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Storytelling as Story
Jeanette Winterson never ceases to speak to the very core of me. Lighthousekeeping is a novel that reminds me of her first, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, but completely unique in its own way.

Lighthousekeeping follows the story of orphan Silver as she moves from place to place, first to a lighthouse after her mother dies, from the lighthouse to a hotel, from the hotel to Capri, and from there to places that might only exist in her imagination. Silver is mentored by Pew, the old lighthousekeeper who tells her that stories are light and the only way to make sense of the world, to truly see. The notion of storytelling is at the center of this sweet, moving, and poetic novel.

Jeanette Winterson uses Lighthousekeeping as a playground for the notions of storytelling, light and dark, of personal history and factual history, of the way humans view themselves and their pasts, of the way others view them, of the way others perceive history, fictional and factual, and by the end of the book, she has even included the reader in her journey as a lover of stories. It is a beautiful and engaging and quite simply moved me to tears.

If you are looking for a linear, plot-driven novel, you may be disappointed. The beauty of this novel is in the patterning, the attention to language and theme and the notion of storytelling as a story in itself.

2007-03-10 | Optimist | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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FINDING A JOB WITH MEANING
Silver, the girlchild of an unwed mother and a seaman grows up on the seacliffs overlooking the fishing town of Salts in a house perched so precariously that all the furniture has to be nailed down and Silver and her mother have to rope themselves together to keep from falling to their deaths. Even their dog evolves deformed legs to navigate the steeply leaning floor! When her mother dies in an accident, Silver is apprenticed to an old lighthousekeeper named Pew, and begins to learn not only the beauty of this simple but important job, but also a little of the history of the family that built it. What follows are interlocking and parallel narratives of Silver's urge to find the meaning of her life and that of Babel Dark, friend of Darwin and Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived a double life while serving as the town's clergyman.

Lighthousekeeping is a nice book that recalls not only classic literature but also allows Winterson to use her penchant for creating half-real neverlands that somehow find solid ground in the real world. Many aspects of this novel are fairytale-like and the interweaving of historical personages and the connection of names to Treasure Island lend it an even more dream-like quality that recalls poetry more than prose. In some of Winterson's other works, her pseudo-gravitas is invested too much in the lyrical nature of her words to the detriment of the storytelling. But Lighthousekeeping is a rousing success. A good book.

2006-08-05 | www.sesho.libsyn.com (Pasadena, TX USA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 4

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Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780679768203
• Fitness: New
• Notes: BUY WITH Courage, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and repair to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

In ten interconnected essays, the author of Art & Lies explores the active role of art in the modern world, offering writings on painting, modernism, autobiography, style, the future of fiction, Virginia Woolf, and her own relationship to her work. Reprint. 15,000 first printing. NYT.

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Customer Reviews

OK essays but:
As pep talks and education for beginning artists, I think the demeanor has a feeling of anger and singular religiousity. Most of the ideas presented have been written about or alluded to numerous times in art criticism; nothing wrong with re-itterating them, but the tone is what bothered me. I prefer to not work from a position of anger and rightousness. Although it is difficult to do. In the Umberto Eco interview, Paris Review #185,he talked about two kinds of art he didn't like; that which is better than his and he wish he had done it, and that which is worse than his.
Based on Ms. Winterson's writing, I doubt if she is a very fun person to be around (just guessing for what it's worth, but she only wants to be judged by her work, sorry).

2009-03-07 | 40255 Hwy 101 (Cloverdale,Oregon USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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As always, with Winterson, a lucious delight
To quote Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):
"If I read a book
and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me,
I know *that* is poetry.
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
I know *that* is poetry.
These are the only ways I know it.
Is there any other way?" [Emphasis added]

Ah ... Jeannette Winterson ... I know *that* is poetry.

2007-10-13 | Psych/Bio Nerd, with a bent towards memoir (USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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oh, jeannette
remember all those years ago when i first read sexing the cherry, and i couldn't beleive such loveliness could happen? and then the passion. i couldn't speak for days. i just couldn't. what was there left to say? remember? remember how i couldn't read anything for months? i do. and still i roll this one around in my mouth, too. still delicious. still amazing. still it bashes me upside the everything and causes my heart to shake.

2007-07-10 (maine) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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i still not receive this item, i have wait for a month already!!
i still not receive this item, i have wait for a month already!!

2006-08-10 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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A Good Start...
Jeanette Winterson, writes in a very lucid manner on a topic that can quickly become an extremely nebulous and splintered subject. She begins with a story of her travels to Amsterdam, where she is haunted by a painting in a window. This never happened to her before, as Winterson was always a wordsmith. The unexpected discovery-the idea that a painting has the power to touch her so deeply and so powerfully-troubles her deeply and she cowers initially, as if she saw a ghost.

This anecdote serves to create the tone of the book, an intense and honest meditation into art and art making. Winterson, weaves us through her meditation through a very readable style and by using very general terms. She simultaneously addresses the novice, to those well versed in the concepts of art history and theory of art criticism. I say this because the questions, what is art?, what is the fuction of art?, why practice art?, are basic questions that can be addressed by all levels of understanding-and it is those questions Winterson addresses. Though she begins with visual art she reverts to her expertise in the form of literature. But, the concepts are easily translated into the other art forms.

However, in her opinions of what is beauty and what is art, Winterson can seem a bit idealistic in her views of art and art making. She professes to be a little out of sync with current society(her confession)-which could be taken as a person who revers the past and therefore is a bit 'old school' in her approach to the topic, however, she does not pretend to be a final authority on the topic either.

But,the 'beauty' of this book is it can be a starting point and a gentle guide for the novice into the ongoing conversation of art and art history as well as an eloquent reminder of fundemental concepts in a splintered conversation of art theory and criticsm.

2000-10-31 (Chicago, IL) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 4

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Written on the Body

Product Details

• Notes: BUY WITH Faith, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and waiting to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• ISBN13: 9780679744474
• Condition: New

Description

The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. "At once a love story and a philosophical meditation."--New York Times Book Review.

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Customer Reviews

amazing
It was in perfect condition, arrived in a timely fashion, and saved me a lot on a hard to find novel .

2010-08-20 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Worst book i ever read
This book doesn't make it as poetry, does not make it as a good romance novel, does not make it as a good memoir, and fails miserably as an example of an alternative lifestyle of lesbianism.

2010-07-22 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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got what i needed but not great.
I needed this for a class so i wasn't too concerned with how it was, but there were notes written in the book and i tihnk i remember this copy being described as in pretty good condition.

2009-10-18 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Outstanding
The author has phenomenal powers of description and lyrical phraseology. Her prose is thought-provoking and I highly recommend this book to anyone who values more than a story but the beauty of language.

2009-06-09 (St. Louis, MO) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Almost makes it
I want to begin by saying that I really enjoy Jeanette Winterson's writing style. I adore how she rarely describes much of the setting, instead relying on a wealth of illustrative metaphors to set the scene. Her narratives often take a conversational style, sometimes addressing the listener directly or asking her if she believes what the narrator is telling her. I especially like these last bits in Written On The Body, as the protagonist is so unsure and requires validation that she rarely recieves from her married lovers. Except one.

The problem is that sometimes you get too much Winterson and not enough novel. I realize that in a novel so steeped in sensual romanticism perception is everything, but this one really let me down in spots. Specifically, the amorphous beginning. I couldn't even get a grip on what was happening until Inge showed up about 11-12 pages in. Since the novel is only about 180 pages long, that's a significant chunk.

I also could've skipped the 4 middle sections ("Cells, Tissues, Systems and Cavities," "Skin," "Skeleton," and "Special Senses") entirely and not felt like I missed anything at all. That's another 26 pages where I wasn't really enjoying myself.

The novel lacks any real sense of resolution. I admire Winterson for not tacking on something trite to lift the reader's spirit or make her feel like she learned something, but I still want to walk away with something in exchange for my time. I want more than just a series of perceptions; I want the whole journey. Written on the Body took me half the way there.

As a final note, I didn't read the jacket until the end, and I sheepishly realize that any ambiguity of the protagonist's gender slipped right on by me. My fault for jumping to conclusions; I knew Winterson as the author of "Oranges are not the Only Fruit" and that "Written on the Body" is semi-autobiographical.

However, I went back and skimmed certain parts and I feel confident that it makes the most sense with the narrator as a female. No self-respecting terrorist/feminist would try to take down the patriarchy with a male assitant and not at least comment on the irony, for one. And what kind of adult male wears a Mickey Mouse one-piece as underwear?

Four stars for Winterson herself, two for the holes in her story. Average it out to three, and that feels right to me.

2009-06-04 (Grand Rapids, MI) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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