Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Before I delve into the what of it, may I remark on the why of it. Why focus on this for a Sunday Spotlight - and before I've even finished it - because I am finding it awesome, truly amazing work that I am consuming in a consciously slow manner in an effort to draw out the experience. Now then, the what of it from our friends at GoodReads:
In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.
And one from Winterson's website:
Sexing the Cherry celebrates the power of the imagination as it playfully juggles with our perception of history and reality. It is a story about love and sex; lies and truths; and twelve dancing princesses who lived happily ever after, but not with their husbands.
Typically I prefer my own summary, but I find that what I focus on in the novel seems to be not what others highlight and what I am getting out of it offshoots of the interpretations of others. All of this is why I am loving this experimental and eccentric work. The writing is gorgeous, magical even, but it is also chaotic. Winterson's non-linear, ambiguous narrative which beautifully blurs the line between the world and the mind, the past and the future, fascinates the reader into falling into the world of the story for long stretches of time.
Side Note: Way back in 2010, Ana over at things mean a lot posted a mini-review of this novella, and I said I really needed to pick it up since I'd had it on the shelves for quite some time. Six years later, I finally am reading it. In other words, WIN.
Side Side Note: The title is really deceptive. This book is, more than likely, not at all at all what you think it's about.
I don't know; I've heard so much about this book but I kind of tend to avoid magical realism because I can never figure out what's going on!
ReplyDeleteI admit that sometimes I like not knowing what's going on. :)
DeleteMy cousin, a sophomore engineering major, is taking an intro to modern fiction class this semester, and this was on his reading list. I haven't read it, but the thoughts he had on it were pretty amusing to me :)
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly an interesting and many-faceted read.
DeleteI remember my sister -- before she was my sister, when we were just starting to be friends -- reading this in early middle school, and I thought, She is so, so cool, she just reads books with "sex" in the title and doesn't even care. :p
ReplyDeleteTo my sorrow, I grew up into a person who doesn't care for Jeannette Winterson. ALAS. There are moments of such beauty in her writing, but I don't care for the choppiness and chaos in her books. Maybe I'd like her better as a short story writer or essayist? And maybe a book is just too long-form for me?
This may be the first Winterson novel I've read; although I am, admittedly, unsure. It is certainly a chaotic book.
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