The Passion
by Jeanette Winterson | Other | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0802135226 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0802135226 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Hawaii-Bookworm of Honolulu, Hawaii USA on 1/3/2009
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Amazon.com Review
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."
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."
Journal Entry 2 by Hawaii-Bookworm at Manoa Laundry in Honolulu, Hawaii USA on Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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Aloha and Welcome to BookCrossing.com, where we are trying to make the whole world a library!
If you have not already done so, please make a journal entry so we know this book has found a new home. You don't need to join BookCrossing and you can remain completely anonymous. However, we encourage you to join so that you can follow this book's future travels. It's fun and free, and your personal information will never be shared or sold.
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Mahalo and happy reading!
