Thank you Plum-crazy! This has been on my wishlist for quite a while. If I'm completely honest I can't remember the circumstances which led to me adding it, but looking at the first paragraph, ("It was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept his chefs working round the clock") it looks very fun and interesting.

Edit: Oh, looks like I forgot to journal this after reading. It was a peculiar and whimsical love story which I liked very much.

Released at the meetup.

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I love Jeanette Winterson's books and this is actually one I don't have/haven't read!!!
Thanks you

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson - Very Good

Typical of Jeanette Winterson, this defies categorisation. Is it historical? Fantasy? Romance? Well.. yes and much more.

Henri is a peasant boy. Dazzled by Napoleon, he enlists and by quirk of fate finds himself Napoleon's personal chicken chef. The first section of the book is all about Henri's life and his life in the Army...in the weeks before his section has to actually fight.

Vilanelle is the daughter of a Venetian fisherman and as such she has webbed feet and can walk on water. The second section is about her life in Venice, working in a casino and falling in love.

The third section of the book takes us to the ill-fated march to and retreat from Moscow. Unsurprisingly our two characters meet and their lives continue into section 4.

So, The Passion: passion for a leader, passion for another, passion for life even passion for chicken!...all and more. It is defined and redefined over and over within the book:

"Somewhere between fear and sex passion is."

"Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny."

"When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up. And those who meet this beast late in life are offered only devilish choices. Will they say goodbye to what they know and set sail on an unknown sea with no certainty of land again? Will they dismiss those everyday things that have made life tolerable and put aside the feelings of old friends, a lover even? In short, will they behave as if they are twenty years younger with Canaan just over the ridge?"

"The third is to refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house.....and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of leopard."

and so on

One other piece of prose I particularly liked:

"It is hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment." "I have had affairs, I will have more, but passion is for the single-minded."


#review

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Caught at the Old Gang meet up. Thank you!

This was great. I really enjoyed how this was written as a tale being told. It was weird and funny and sad and beautiful and repulsive at different points all the way through. The tale of the gambler who gambled his life made my hair stand on end. Thanks very much for passing this one on. Now off to find the next appreciative reader.