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Cecily's Reviews > The Passion
The Passion
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by
Cecily's review
bookshelves: fantasy-faeries-magic, historical-fict-pre-20th-c, magical-realism, sea-islands-coast-rivers
Nov 17, 2015
bookshelves: fantasy-faeries-magic, historical-fict-pre-20th-c, magical-realism, sea-islands-coast-rivers
Dans le Noir
�A blind pedlar� never spilt his stew or missed his mouth the way I did. ‘I can see,� he said, ‘but I don’t use my eyes.��
I recently ate unknown food, served in total darkness, by blind waiters.
It was an intense and disorienting experience. Boundaries break down: you touch the stranger who guides you to your seat, talk to invisible people sitting beside you (how un-English!), can’t judge or be judged by looks or clothing, and are tempted to eat with your fingers, despite the cutlery you feel before you. Phones and even watches must be locked away before you enter, so you lose sense of time as well as place.
Deprived of vision, your other senses are more intense. But surprisingly, this makes it harder to recognise what you are eating, not easier. You taste a medley of familiar (and delicious) flavours, but their individual identities are oddly elusive. Names only spring to mind where shape or texture are unique (scallops, figs, and pomegranate seeds).
Reading this early Winterson was similar. I’m not sure if it’s a good book, and I’m not even sure I understood it, but it was a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed.
�I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable� Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart� the Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air� Lie still at night and Dark is soft to the touch.�
Masked kiss - image source:
Not the Plot
This is set in the Napoleonic wars, and told in four parts: The Emperor (narrated by Henri, a kitchen hand and faithful server of Bonaparte), The Queen of Spades (narrated by Villanelle, a web-footed, Venetian boatman’s daughter who cross dresses, works in a casino, and picks pockets), The Zero Winter (French troops trudging through Russia, narrated by Henri), and The Rock (set in Venice, and narrated by both).
But the reading experience is not really about a linear narrative with its sprinkling of magic and occasional forays into the philosophy of passion and love.
Just indulge your senses.
That’s what Venice requires.
That's what passion demands.
Invented, Magical, Invisible City?
Venice is portrayed as invented, magical, invisible and more, and hence reminded me strongly of Calvino’s Invisible Cities:
� In the introduction, Winterson explains, “My own cities were invented; cities of language, cities of connection, words as gang-ways and bridges to the cities of the interior where the coin was not money, where it was emotion.�
� “Arriving at Venice by sea, as one must, is like seeing an invented city rise up and quiver in the air. It is a trick of the early light to make the buildings shimmer so that they seem never still.�
� “There is a city surrounded by water with watery alleys that do for streets and roads and silted up back ways that only the rats can cross.�
� “This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route.�
� “Although wherever you’re going is always in front of you there is no such thing as straight ahead.�
� “The city I come from is a changeable city. It is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.�
� “I come from the city of mazes� but if you ask me a direction I will tell you straight ahead.�
� “’I need a map.�
‘It won’t help. This is a living city. Things change.’�
Liturgy
This is a strange, mystical, and eponymously passionate book, with recurring lines that are almost liturgical. Sometimes the exact same word or phrase is repeated, but other times they weave a subtly different route every time, like the enchanted streets and canals of the city itself, especially these variations:
� “Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.�
� “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.�
� “Man cannot live without passion. Religion is somewhere between fear and sex.�
� "In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is."
Passion is... elusive, but where IS it? Everywhere, nowhere, or in a parallel realm?
THE Passion
John 15:13 �Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.�
The title has the definite article (�The Passion�, not just any old passion), which makes one think of Jesus� crucifixion. Winterson’s infamous Pentecostal upbringing (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?) means this is no accident, and yet the connection is more subtle than the title leads you to expect.
There are Biblical allusions (some think Bonaparte might be the Son of God, and like Samuel, “He’ll call you�) and references to “basking� in the glow of a church or religion you don’t believe in, but most of the passion is fiercely carnal.
Kaleidoscopic Cornucopia
With a browser and laptop, you'll see key words in bold; with a phone app, I don't think you will.
� “Surely a god can meet passion with passion?�
� “We’re a lukewarm DZ.�
� “They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true� how could we ever recover from the wonder of it?�
� “I would have preferred a burning Jesuit, perhaps then I might have found the extasy I needed to believe.�
� “Romance is not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.�
� Recruits have to “gather up their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.�
� “The King and Queen had no care for us, except as revenue and scenery.�
� “Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind.�
� Stories and even diaries are not, need not, be true: “The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then.� If stories make people happy, “Why not?�
� Non-believers can bask in the trappings of religion:
“longing for strong arms an certainty and quiet holiness around.�
� “In the dark you are in disguise and this is the city of disguises.�
� “We don’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water� A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place.�
� “To kiss well one must kiss solely� The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure.�
� “There’s no dark like it. It’s soft to the touch and heavy in the hands. You can open your mouth and let it sink into you till it makes a close ball in your belly. You can juggle with it, dodge it, swim in it. You can open it like a door.�
� �Bridges join but they also separate.�
� “’Will you kill people, Henri?’�
‘Not people� just the enemy.�
‘What is enemy?�
‘Someone who’s not on your side.’�
� Kissing only: “The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.�
� “Up she went, closing the dark behind her.�
� “How is it that one day life is orderly and content� and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travellers at least have a choice� We who were fluent find life is a foreign language.�
� “Is every snowflake different? No one knows.�
� “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side� We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.�
� “We gamble with the hope of winning but it’s the thought of what we might lose that excites us.�
� “I like passion, I like to be among the desperate.�
� “’They’re all different� snowflakes. Think of that.� I did think of that and I fell in love with her.�
� “A true gambler� prepared to risk the valuable, fabulous thing.�
� “Fingertips that had the feel of boils bursting� whose hands crept over her body like crabs.�
� “Why would people who love the grape and the sun die in the zero winter for one man? Why did I? Because I love him. He was my passion and when we go to war, we feel we are not a lukewarm people any more.�
� “Being with her was like pressing your eye to a particularly vivid kaleidoscope.�
� “Beware of old enemies in new disguises.�
� “I say I’m in love with her. What does this mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains myself to me.�
� “Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the ’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.�
� “The cities of the interior are vast and do not lie on any map.�
� “The one who took your heart wields final power.�
� “When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up� and only “devilish choices� are offered: give up the familiar to follow it, juggle, or “refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house, however tame it might seem at first…So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.�
� “This is the city of disguises. What you are one day will not constrain you on the next.�
� “What am I interested in? Passion. Obsession� The dividing line is as thin and cruel as a Venetian knife.�
� What is freedom? “To love someone else is to forget about yourself� through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.�
� “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side� We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.�
� "You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
As a wise man said, “Love is akin to risk�.
Take a chance on passion.
See also
For a magical short story about the power of flavours to transport - in more ways than one - see Tina Connolly's The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections, which I reviewed HERE.
�A blind pedlar� never spilt his stew or missed his mouth the way I did. ‘I can see,� he said, ‘but I don’t use my eyes.��
I recently ate unknown food, served in total darkness, by blind waiters.
It was an intense and disorienting experience. Boundaries break down: you touch the stranger who guides you to your seat, talk to invisible people sitting beside you (how un-English!), can’t judge or be judged by looks or clothing, and are tempted to eat with your fingers, despite the cutlery you feel before you. Phones and even watches must be locked away before you enter, so you lose sense of time as well as place.
Deprived of vision, your other senses are more intense. But surprisingly, this makes it harder to recognise what you are eating, not easier. You taste a medley of familiar (and delicious) flavours, but their individual identities are oddly elusive. Names only spring to mind where shape or texture are unique (scallops, figs, and pomegranate seeds).
Reading this early Winterson was similar. I’m not sure if it’s a good book, and I’m not even sure I understood it, but it was a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed.
�I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable� Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart� the Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air� Lie still at night and Dark is soft to the touch.�
Masked kiss - image source:
Not the Plot
This is set in the Napoleonic wars, and told in four parts: The Emperor (narrated by Henri, a kitchen hand and faithful server of Bonaparte), The Queen of Spades (narrated by Villanelle, a web-footed, Venetian boatman’s daughter who cross dresses, works in a casino, and picks pockets), The Zero Winter (French troops trudging through Russia, narrated by Henri), and The Rock (set in Venice, and narrated by both).
But the reading experience is not really about a linear narrative with its sprinkling of magic and occasional forays into the philosophy of passion and love.
Just indulge your senses.
That’s what Venice requires.
That's what passion demands.
Invented, Magical, Invisible City?
Venice is portrayed as invented, magical, invisible and more, and hence reminded me strongly of Calvino’s Invisible Cities:
� In the introduction, Winterson explains, “My own cities were invented; cities of language, cities of connection, words as gang-ways and bridges to the cities of the interior where the coin was not money, where it was emotion.�
� “Arriving at Venice by sea, as one must, is like seeing an invented city rise up and quiver in the air. It is a trick of the early light to make the buildings shimmer so that they seem never still.�
� “There is a city surrounded by water with watery alleys that do for streets and roads and silted up back ways that only the rats can cross.�
� “This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route.�
� “Although wherever you’re going is always in front of you there is no such thing as straight ahead.�
� “The city I come from is a changeable city. It is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.�
� “I come from the city of mazes� but if you ask me a direction I will tell you straight ahead.�
� “’I need a map.�
‘It won’t help. This is a living city. Things change.’�
Liturgy
This is a strange, mystical, and eponymously passionate book, with recurring lines that are almost liturgical. Sometimes the exact same word or phrase is repeated, but other times they weave a subtly different route every time, like the enchanted streets and canals of the city itself, especially these variations:
� “Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.�
� “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.�
� “Man cannot live without passion. Religion is somewhere between fear and sex.�
� "In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is."
Passion is... elusive, but where IS it? Everywhere, nowhere, or in a parallel realm?
THE Passion
John 15:13 �Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.�
The title has the definite article (�The Passion�, not just any old passion), which makes one think of Jesus� crucifixion. Winterson’s infamous Pentecostal upbringing (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?) means this is no accident, and yet the connection is more subtle than the title leads you to expect.
There are Biblical allusions (some think Bonaparte might be the Son of God, and like Samuel, “He’ll call you�) and references to “basking� in the glow of a church or religion you don’t believe in, but most of the passion is fiercely carnal.
Kaleidoscopic Cornucopia
With a browser and laptop, you'll see key words in bold; with a phone app, I don't think you will.
� “Surely a god can meet passion with passion?�
� “We’re a lukewarm DZ.�
� “They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true� how could we ever recover from the wonder of it?�
� “I would have preferred a burning Jesuit, perhaps then I might have found the extasy I needed to believe.�
� “Romance is not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.�
� Recruits have to “gather up their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.�
� “The King and Queen had no care for us, except as revenue and scenery.�
� “Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind.�
� Stories and even diaries are not, need not, be true: “The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then.� If stories make people happy, “Why not?�
� Non-believers can bask in the trappings of religion:
“longing for strong arms an certainty and quiet holiness around.�
� “In the dark you are in disguise and this is the city of disguises.�
� “We don’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water� A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place.�
� “To kiss well one must kiss solely� The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure.�
� “There’s no dark like it. It’s soft to the touch and heavy in the hands. You can open your mouth and let it sink into you till it makes a close ball in your belly. You can juggle with it, dodge it, swim in it. You can open it like a door.�
� �Bridges join but they also separate.�
� “’Will you kill people, Henri?’�
‘Not people� just the enemy.�
‘What is enemy?�
‘Someone who’s not on your side.’�
� Kissing only: “The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.�
� “Up she went, closing the dark behind her.�
� “How is it that one day life is orderly and content� and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travellers at least have a choice� We who were fluent find life is a foreign language.�
� “Is every snowflake different? No one knows.�
� “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side� We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.�
� “We gamble with the hope of winning but it’s the thought of what we might lose that excites us.�
� “I like passion, I like to be among the desperate.�
� “’They’re all different� snowflakes. Think of that.� I did think of that and I fell in love with her.�
� “A true gambler� prepared to risk the valuable, fabulous thing.�
� “Fingertips that had the feel of boils bursting� whose hands crept over her body like crabs.�
� “Why would people who love the grape and the sun die in the zero winter for one man? Why did I? Because I love him. He was my passion and when we go to war, we feel we are not a lukewarm people any more.�
� “Being with her was like pressing your eye to a particularly vivid kaleidoscope.�
� “Beware of old enemies in new disguises.�
� “I say I’m in love with her. What does this mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains myself to me.�
� “Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the ’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.�
� “The cities of the interior are vast and do not lie on any map.�
� “The one who took your heart wields final power.�
� “When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up� and only “devilish choices� are offered: give up the familiar to follow it, juggle, or “refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house, however tame it might seem at first…So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.�
� “This is the city of disguises. What you are one day will not constrain you on the next.�
� “What am I interested in? Passion. Obsession� The dividing line is as thin and cruel as a Venetian knife.�
� What is freedom? “To love someone else is to forget about yourself� through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.�
� “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side� We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.�
� "You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
As a wise man said, “Love is akin to risk�.
Take a chance on passion.
See also
For a magical short story about the power of flavours to transport - in more ways than one - see Tina Connolly's The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections, which I reviewed HERE.
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Quotes Cecily Liked
“Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“Although wherever you are going is always in front of you, there is no such thing as straight ahead.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“I was happy, but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you. This is where I disagree with the philosophers. They talk about passionate things but there is no passion in them. Never talk happiness with a philosopher.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“Somewhere beween the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere beween fear and sex. Somewere beween God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back worse.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
“You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.”
― The Passion
― The Passion
Reading Progress
November 17, 2015
–
Started Reading
November 17, 2015
– Shelved
November 17, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
November 24, 2015
–
100%
"From this rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast to "Plainsong" bu Kent Haruf. A powerful contrast."
page
176
November 24, 2015
–
Finished Reading
November 25, 2015
– Shelved as:
fantasy-faeries-magic
November 25, 2015
– Shelved as:
historical-fict-pre-20th-c
November 26, 2015
– Shelved as:
magical-realism
May 29, 2016
– Shelved as:
sea-islands-coast-rivers
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Violet
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Nov 25, 2015 01:50PM
Was it Dans Le Noir? I chickened out of going there last year.
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Yes, it was: I recommend it.
Then again, without knowing your reasons for chickening out, I won't recommend it too strongly.
I’m not sure if it’s a good book, and I’m not even sure I understood itSounds like me after reading The Stone Gods.
But you went on to reveal an awful lot more in this book than I found in the other one. I've been meaning to go back to Winterson and sample some more of her fiction because I really like the way she writes - your list of quotes are great - though the one about 'somewhere between God and the Devil' tripped me up - I figured out what she meant but it still sounded...odd.
Funny that I was just reading yesterday about Venice and masks and Russia, and like you, noting the extended metaphor continued throughout the book like a long inky thread - except it wasn't about the dark. But there was passion aplenty ;-)
Hi Fionnuala.I haven't read The Stone Gods. I first read Winterson years ago, and have come back to her recently. Lighthousekeeping is probably my favourite. It's a simpler narrative than this, but with similar elements of magical realism.
I'm sorry you were tripped up the the Devil quote. It might be the scarcity of punctuation, which caught me out once or twice. I tried to copy the quotes as they were (including the archaic spelling of "extasy"), but I expect I instinctively added a comma or two.
Was your reading of Venice, masks and Russia from Nabokov or elsewhere, and do you recommend it?
Great Review! I'm going to have to read this one.
I can imagine your experience with eating unknown food blindly being very strange, yet also valuable.The quotes you chose from the novel sound intriguing, Cecily, but so does your entire review.
Diamond wrote: "Great Review! I'm going to have to read this one."Thank you, Diamond. It's a rich but strange feast that I hope you enjoy.
Councillor wrote: "I can imagine your experience with eating unknown food blindly being very strange, yet also valuable."Exactly, and it's an experience I'd happily repeat one day.
It's oddly sensual, but not at all sexy, imo, so probably best with friends or a long-term partner, not for a first (or even second) date!
Councillor wrote: "The quotes you chose from the novel sound intriguing, Cecily, but so does your entire review."
The first is certainly true, and I thank you for the second.
I loved your review, Cecily. It enriched my memory of the book which I loved. Not maybe a perfect book but one that left me a little drunk on the richness of the prose and the imagery.Also really appreciated the quotes you chose.
Thank you.
"I’m not even sure I understood it, but it was a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed."I like this description, Cecily. In fact, I may name a new shelf exactly that. There are quite a few books I could put there.
This is yet another fabulous review. Seems like I've told you that before. I've probably even said before that I've said it before. (Sorry, it's a Friday after Thanksgiving and I'm as giddy as the table of young ladies Eilis sat at with Mrs. Kehoe.)
Ellie wrote: "I loved your review, Cecily. It enriched my memory of the book which I loved. Not maybe a perfect book but one that left me a little drunk on the richness of the prose and the imagery."Thank you, Ellie. I agree it's an imperfect book (she was young when she wrote it), but you see her potential shining through, and for me, it's quirks just add to its charm. I was "drunk on the richness" as you so perfectly say.
Steve wrote: "I like this description, Cecily. In fact, I may name a new shelf exactly that. There are quite a few books I could put there."Good idea. I really ought to get round to using shelves creatively, as some of my GR friends do. What are the contenders that spring first to mind?
Steve wrote: "This is yet another fabulous review. Seems like I've told you that before. I've probably even said before that I've said it before. (Sorry, it's a Friday after Thanksgiving and I'm as giddy as the table of young ladies Eilis sat at with Mrs. Kehoe.)"
Never apologise for giving compliments!
I like the Brooklyn link.
Belated wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving.
Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that shelf might feature Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Midnight's Children, and maybe If on a winter's night....Oh, and I apologize only for the silliness, not for the compliment, though I guess it was presented as a package.
England needs something like Thanksgiving, too, I think. Feel free to celebrate along with us, Cecily. It's all about food, family, friends and fun. (The arguments at the dinner table are optional.)
Steve wrote: "Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that shelf might feature Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Midnight's Children, and maybe If on a winter's night..."I've only read the last two, but yes, a good fit.
Steve wrote: "Oh, and I apologize only for the silliness, not for the compliment"
No need to apologise for that either, but thank you.
Steve wrote: "England needs something like Thanksgiving, too, I think. Feel free to celebrate along with us, Cecily. It's all about food, family, friends and fun. (The arguments at the dinner table are optional.)"
Thanks, but apart from missing the boat for this year, your description sounds just like the way we'll celebrate Christmas - exactly four weeks today.
It certainly correlates with Christmas, but there are fewer decorations. And there's no stress about finding gifts for people. It's a nice extra holiday to have.
Extra hols are always good, and not getting gifts may be an advantage - except you all go mad buying them today, don't you? Somehow, in the last couple of years, we've got Black Friday, but without the holiday the day before: worst of all worlds!
Ooh, I agree. I now give bonus points to any retailer who does NOT open before 9 AM on this day of all shopping days.
Hi, Elyse. Yes, "Cheers to passion!"I'm glad you enjoyed my review.
Now go read the book.
Really like the review Cecily.It left me feeling really ambivalent about whether or not to consider reading this. Did you feel this way at times while reading it?
I'm glad you enjoyed my review, Jaidee. Thank you.Ambivalence... not exactly, but I wasn't hooked from the start. It's a slippery thing; I couldn't quite work out what sort of book it was, and I found that disorienting and mildly annoying. But the language is lush, and the book is quite short, so I kept going, and as I did so, I became aware of the repetition and the beauty.
Nevertheless, it's not one of Winterson's more popular books, and I can see why.
Maybe you could just borrow it from the library, so there's no risk if you hate it?
Cecily wrote: "I'm glad you enjoyed my review, Jaidee. Thank you.Ambivalence... not exactly, but I wasn't hooked from the start. It's a slippery thing; I couldn't quite work out what sort of book it was, and I ..."
That's a great idea. I have yet to read any Winterson and I know she is well loved by many.
Sabah wrote: "Great review Cecily, unsure whether this is one I would want to read"Thanks, Sabah. It's not a book I can easily recommend, because it is rather strange, but I hope that the way I've written about it shows my passion for it in a way that lets others draw their own conclusions.
Sabah wrote: "the magic of Venice is other worldly. It is very much a surreal place, a place where you feel you've stepped in to a fairy tale."
Yes, very true. I've been a couple of times: once on a day trip when we were staying down the coast. It was lovely, but busy, and we didn't have long enough. A few years ago, we spent three days/nights there, and then it became truly magical: we really explored the place (including getting lost, which is rather the point), and as soon as the day trippers go, the city is transformed each night, into something very different, and more ethereal.
Elyse wrote: "Oh, and Cecily, we have a restaurant here in S.F. --too -- (same) Waiters are blind. Food is served in the dark. Interesting experience..."
Have you been? It is extraordinary, though in the London one, ALL the serving staff are blind: they have to be, because it's not just dark in the dining room, it is totally and absolutely black.
A whole day? Gosh, that would be a really immersive experience, and far more educational than mine, which I suppose was more of a novelty, albeit with aspects of the profound.
Here you go, Sabah: It's a short walk from Farringdon station, so quite easy to get to, but not exactly in the bustling heart of the metropolis.
You'd probably get messier practising first, than doing it for the first time under expert guidance, with food chosen and served to make it easier. I left the restaurant with my clothes unscathed. I did use my fingers occasionally to feel, but the napkins were big, linen ones.
This one is still my favorite Winterson. I got it first from a former student who read it his freshman year at Dartmouth. He came home at break and gifted me with his copy in honor of all we read together the year before. The lushness of the language will still win me over.
Margaret wrote: "This one is still my favorite Winterson. I got it first from a former student..."What a wonderful gift, for a beautiful reason. What a tribute to Winterson - and especially to you.
"a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed."Well put, Cecily! Great review.
Also I like your nod to the liturgical sounding passages, and the reference to Christ's crucifixion, which I didn't give enough thought to while reading this.
Robin wrote: "Well put, Cecily! Great review.Also I like your nod to the liturgical sounding passages, and the reference to Christ's crucifixion, which I didn't give enough thought to while reading this."
Thank you, Robin. One of the many joys of GR is seeing new things via the eyes of others. And thank you for reminding me of this stunning tale.
Katie wrote: "What a thoroughly persuasive review!"Thanks, Katie. I hope you find it entrancing when you eventually pick it up.
Wow, what an amazing review! I think a key tip is "Just indulge your senses." I love your thoughts on THE Passion particularly. Thank you for sharing these insights--I learned so much!
Kathleen wrote: "Wow, what an amazing review! I think a key tip is "Just indulge your senses."..."Invariably a pleasure, but sometimes with risks and consequences.
Kathleen wrote: "... I love your thoughts on THE Passion particularly. Thank you for sharing these insights--I learned so much!"
Thank you so much for your generous comment, Kathleen.
I loved this book and loved your review, Cecily, especially reading about the culinary experience you had!
Jenna wrote: "I loved this book and loved your review, Cecily, especially reading about the culinary experience you had!"I would rather like to go there again. Thanks, Jenna.
Wow! Tour de force, Cecily. Thanks!
Great review, Cecily. I've planning to read the author for quite some time but could not get my hands on her books, however, your evocative write-up inspires me to pick this one up soon. I also liked your rumination upon the experience of eating an unknown food. Thanks for sharing it :)
HBalikov wrote: "Wow! Tour de force, Cecily. Thanks!"She's a brilliant and fascinating writer - even with the books of hers I've liked less! For a passionate set of Winterson reviews from a true fan, look at Steven's reviews: /review/list...
Gaurav wrote: "Great review, Cecily. I've planning to read the author for quite some time but could not get my hands on her books..."I hope you can find some. However, before you read anything of hers, I suggest you learn a little about her life (Wikipedia is fine), as the recurring themes of her work all come from that.
See my comment to H, above, re Steven's Winterson reviews (though mine aren't bad either!).
