When Jeanette Winterson was invited to participate in Canongate's Myths series, she realized that she had chosen already: "The story of Atlas holdi...
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Dec 17, 2009
Donna
rated it: 
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Hercules, Jeanette Winterson. New York: Cannongate, 2005. Hardcover, $18.00 ISBN 1-84195-718-6
Have you ever read someone you're a fan of and thought; there's no way to do it better than this? For me it's Jeanette Winterson, her lyricism, her wide flung knowledge of mythology and science, and humanness and above all else, her risk taking. At the end of each of her books I walk away feeling like she’s left everything on the page the way an athlete leaves More...
Have you ever read someone you're a fan of and thought; there's no way to do it better than this? For me it's Jeanette Winterson, her lyricism, her wide flung knowledge of mythology and science, and humanness and above all else, her risk taking. At the end of each of her books I walk away feeling like she’s left everything on the page the way an athlete leaves More...
Jul 28, 2009
Elizabeth
rated it: 
Yesterday I would have given this book three stars. Today, though, was one of the days where you ask your self the simple question: gin and tonic or vodka and tonic? Today, I felt weighted. Today I wondered if I all this --stuff-- is really worth it. And today I finished this book.
Jeanette Winterson writes with personal reality. She hasn't written an autobiography, although she touches it. She includes some of her own story in the myth; she retells this myth because she wants to rete More...
Jeanette Winterson writes with personal reality. She hasn't written an autobiography, although she touches it. She includes some of her own story in the myth; she retells this myth because she wants to rete More...
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Jun 15, 2011
Nikki
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As always, with Jeannette Winterson's work, there are parts of this that caught at me -- phrases, quotable bites, a scene here and there -- but for the most part I was underwhelmed. More underwhelmed than usual, perhaps. It had a very light, dismissive tone that just didn't work for me, and the characterisation of Heracles as a big idiot just... isn't anything new. That exact character has been given so many names.
Also, weird sex-stuff between Heracles and Hera. Just, what? And weird More...
Also, weird sex-stuff between Heracles and Hera. Just, what? And weird More...
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Jan 18, 2008
stephanie
rated it:
i've been disappointed in winterson lately, but i have always loved her best when she is messing with stories people already know.
she did not let me down. it wasn't fabulous (i could have done without all the scenes of heracles' prick dripping) but the story itself . . . there were lines that made me sooo happy and wish i had written them myself.
i loved the ending especially. laika gets saved! atlas is a fabulous character, and i loved hera in this. i want to read every More...
she did not let me down. it wasn't fabulous (i could have done without all the scenes of heracles' prick dripping) but the story itself . . . there were lines that made me sooo happy and wish i had written them myself.
i loved the ending especially. laika gets saved! atlas is a fabulous character, and i loved hera in this. i want to read every More...
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Feb 07, 2009
Sparring
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"I built a walled garden, a temenos, a sacred space. I lifted the huge stones with my hands and piled them carefully, as a goatherd would, leaving tiny gaps to let the wind through. A solid wall is easily collapsed...A wall well built with invisible spaces will allow the winds that rage against it to pass through. When the earth underneath it trembles, the spaces make room for movement and settlement. The wall stands. The walls strength is not in the stones but in the spaces between the sto
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Jun 09, 2007
Daniel
rated it:
Ugh. What an awful book.
The author wants to tell the story of Heracles and Atlas. Cool. Apparently she thinks she's the first person to make to connection between this ancient tale and the story of Jesus, insofar as interrupting the story with an entire chapter explaining the whole "bearing the weight of the world" emotion. (Though, curiously, she seems to have forgotten about St. Christopher).
She also seems to have learned a new dirty word: "prick" More...
The author wants to tell the story of Heracles and Atlas. Cool. Apparently she thinks she's the first person to make to connection between this ancient tale and the story of Jesus, insofar as interrupting the story with an entire chapter explaining the whole "bearing the weight of the world" emotion. (Though, curiously, she seems to have forgotten about St. Christopher).
She also seems to have learned a new dirty word: "prick" More...
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Jan 09, 2008
Mary
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Poets across the world groan at the sheer injustice of Jeanette Winterson's ability with words. If ever anyone could turn a phrase, Winterson can, and so as always, I was thoroughly immersed in her language and her compelling take on a story I thought I knew. Unfortunately, - also as usual - I had trouble relating with major aspects of her characters. (For instance, the fact that Heracles is a serious sex-fiend.) Although I tend to find myself wishing Winterson would tell different stories than
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Sep 09, 2007
Rebecca
rated it: 
I don't like how she played fast and loose with the myths, because instead of rich, layered, and complicated, her versions felt sketchy, thin, and declarative. There are many stand-alone sentences that announce things: Even a goddess is still a woman, I am not a Freudian, Men are unfaithful by nature. Instead of telling us about people in a crisis, she uses her weight to slam us around with her single sentences, each highlighted and set on a separate pedestal. Suitable for framing--I mean, qu
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Feb 01, 2012
Chris
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I never really liked Hercules. Okay, I liked the Kevin Sorbo series, but Hercules wasn't my favorite character, and Sorbo's Hercules wasn't the Greek Hercules, not really. There was something about Hercules I never liked. Maybe because he was so self-centered. Maybe because he killed horses. Maybe because I always liked Hera and wanted to take her side in everything. I don't know. I prefered Troy, Jason, Altanta, anything but Hercules.
Winterson makes me feel something about He More...
Winterson makes me feel something about He More...
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Jan 26, 2012
Miss
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I'm having difficulty knowing what to say about this book. I liked it – or, well, I liked most of it, I didn't like Heracles at all. But Atlas was interesting. Philosophical and self-reflective; the polar opposite to Heracles who actively avoided ever allowing a thought into his head. Atlas' narration was a pleasure to read, concerned about burdens and responsibilities and boundaries. Just look:
In the limitless universe of his imagination he would not be punished for wanting the imposMore...
Sep 19, 2010
Simone
rated it:
On the plane from Wenatchee to Seattle, I decided to take a break from Cormac McCarthy to try my hand at some Jeanette Winterson. One of my co-workers mentioned her to me, and I liked the sound of her writing from some of the quotes I had read.
This was obviously a really quick read, but I really liked it. I thought the style (a lot of repetition, multiple narrators) could have gotten really annoying in a longer book, but worked in this context. For me the repetition really provided More...
This was obviously a really quick read, but I really liked it. I thought the style (a lot of repetition, multiple narrators) could have gotten really annoying in a longer book, but worked in this context. For me the repetition really provided More...
Jul 12, 2010
Zoë
rated it:
"The strata of sedimentary rock are like the pages of a book, each with a record of contemporary life written on it. Unfortunately, the record is far from complete."
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles is the first book I have read by Jeanette Winterson. It is unusual in that it is a part of the Myth series, in which contemporary writers (like Winterson and Atwood) reinvent ancient myths- tell the stories again. Weight, as its title indicates, is the Greek myth of A More...
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles is the first book I have read by Jeanette Winterson. It is unusual in that it is a part of the Myth series, in which contemporary writers (like Winterson and Atwood) reinvent ancient myths- tell the stories again. Weight, as its title indicates, is the Greek myth of A More...
Sep 16, 2011
Jay
rated it: 
This is my first book by Jeanette Winterson.
I really like when authors take a story I know (myth, fable, fairy tale, whatever) and bend it in new ways. Simply changing the lighting or tying some bows to it is good, too, but twisting it around so I see something I never suspected in it... that's the best.
I liked the combination of science, narrator's intrusion, and mythology in this story. My favorite part was probably the unexpected appearance of Laika, though Heracles -- More...
I really like when authors take a story I know (myth, fable, fairy tale, whatever) and bend it in new ways. Simply changing the lighting or tying some bows to it is good, too, but twisting it around so I see something I never suspected in it... that's the best.
I liked the combination of science, narrator's intrusion, and mythology in this story. My favorite part was probably the unexpected appearance of Laika, though Heracles -- More...
Jun 28, 2009
Lizzie
rated it:
I got this at the same time as The Penelopiad, and started to read it then, but put it down halfway. (I almost never do that!)
This time around I liked it perfectly ok. It is kind of rambly, but often pretty. Eventually I took away one whole star for all the times I had to read about Heracles's erections. No thank you. Then, I got to the chapter "Leaning on the Limits of Myself," a tiny 4-page section in the middle, and I put the star back. That chapter is extraordinar More...
This time around I liked it perfectly ok. It is kind of rambly, but often pretty. Eventually I took away one whole star for all the times I had to read about Heracles's erections. No thank you. Then, I got to the chapter "Leaning on the Limits of Myself," a tiny 4-page section in the middle, and I put the star back. That chapter is extraordinar More...
Jan 16, 2011
Larhonda
rated it:
A SCRIBBLER’S REVIEW:
“The Weight” is a modern day re-telling of the story of Atlas from Greek mythology. Atlas, who holds the world on his shoulders, is momentarily relieved of the burden by Heracles (the strongest man in the world), only to be tricked into holding it up once again. Winterson, oddly uses her story (which is named befittingly) to also flesh out her personal feelings or the weight behind being adopted. While I have always been fascinated with Greek mythology, and More...
“The Weight” is a modern day re-telling of the story of Atlas from Greek mythology. Atlas, who holds the world on his shoulders, is momentarily relieved of the burden by Heracles (the strongest man in the world), only to be tricked into holding it up once again. Winterson, oddly uses her story (which is named befittingly) to also flesh out her personal feelings or the weight behind being adopted. While I have always been fascinated with Greek mythology, and More...
Dec 04, 2007
Julie
rated it:
When I read Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, I learned that it was part of a series of modern reworkings of myths, and of course I was interested in reading the others. The problem is that I picked up this book thinking of Margaret Atwood, and it was not written by Margaret Atwood. I had trouble getting into it and ended up skimming much of it.
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Jul 04, 2010
Ed
rated it:
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 More...
Heracles tricks Atlas into performing part of the last of the 12 labors to which he has been sentenced More...
Jun 18, 2011
Krista
rated it:
I finished Weight today and I loved it. I really did. It's a short book, but it's dense and a bit strange in the sense of being beguiling and compelling if you give it a chance to unfold itself. I loved what I got out of it (which I think is actually a multiplicity of themes that I need to unpack) but critically, it was about the concept of burden and assumption of burden as an aspect of personality without ever questioning why it is so important, why it is ours to take on. What our personal
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May 19, 2011
Benjamin
rated it:
This was a relatively short book and a pretty quick read, but I think that these aspects worked in the book's favor. It reads almost like a poetic essay at times, balancing itself mostly on the feelings of Atlas as he carries the universe. Winterson creates some amazing prose describing the vastness of time and the depth of space. At first, some of the more glib moments put me off, but I got used to them, especially after Heracles (here played as an almost entirely-id man) shows up. There's some
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May 06, 2011
Susan
rated it:
Very satisfying after having read The Alchemist. Unlike Paulo Coelho, Winterson is not prescriptive in her myth-telling and allegorizing. In a few simple chapters she is able to contemporize the tale with references as vast as astrophysics (including Laika the Russian space dog) and as personal as what her adoptive mother kept on the sideboard when threatened (a WWII revolver). Thanks, Jeanette Winterson! You've just made the burden I carry on my back a little lighter.
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Apr 28, 2008
Kate
rated it:
tricked into reading this by a soft blankie and a cool, sunny day. took me 3 hours to read cover to cover.
winterson is my dream of communication, with myself and others. and, i really liked her vulgar depiction of mythology.
winterson is my dream of communication, with myself and others. and, i really liked her vulgar depiction of mythology.
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Feb 14, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
Jeanette Winterson has such a talent with words, but there are times when an individual thought means more to me than a chapter. Overall, an enjoyable read, but at times I was distracted from the story by a sentence.
"What is it that you contain? The dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia opening in your gut. Every minute, in each of you, a few million potassium atoms succumb to radioactive decay. The energy that powers these tiny atomic events has been locked inside potassium More...
"What is it that you contain? The dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia opening in your gut. Every minute, in each of you, a few million potassium atoms succumb to radioactive decay. The energy that powers these tiny atomic events has been locked inside potassium More...
Jan 28, 2011
pri
rated it:
i liked this as a collection of beautiful phrases by winterson - but not as a story. i love her quotes. but i thought the story itself was flat.
Here are two:
"How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracles, and just a lottery win or Mr Right will make the world new."
"The ancients believed in fate because they recognized how hard it More...
Here are two:
"How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracles, and just a lottery win or Mr Right will make the world new."
"The ancients believed in fate because they recognized how hard it More...
Aug 01, 2011
Jy
rated it:
Jeanette Winterson really impressed me with her book "Weight", in which she re-told the story of Atlas and Hercules. Not only did Jeanette Winterson re-tell the actual myth in very compelling language, she also incorporated parts of the future into the myth, giving the myth a nice, modern twist.
The ending she gives us is not only insightful, but inspiring and hopeful - and allows the reader to take some time to do some self reflection and realise that the "weights" More...
The ending she gives us is not only insightful, but inspiring and hopeful - and allows the reader to take some time to do some self reflection and realise that the "weights" More...
Mar 22, 2010
John
rated it:
I read this book in one day.
I never do that, but I was waiting in the hospital during one of my mother's surgeries. I had received this book as a gift, and being an admirer of Winterson's I took this along.
It is told from the point of view of Hercules and Atlas. And Laika the space dog ends up in there as well. I was so moved by this book I e-mailed the writer, thanking her for the book and especially Laika.
Ms. Winterson was kind enough to thank me for my kind words a More...
I never do that, but I was waiting in the hospital during one of my mother's surgeries. I had received this book as a gift, and being an admirer of Winterson's I took this along.
It is told from the point of view of Hercules and Atlas. And Laika the space dog ends up in there as well. I was so moved by this book I e-mailed the writer, thanking her for the book and especially Laika.
Ms. Winterson was kind enough to thank me for my kind words a More...
Aug 16, 2009
Elka
rated it:
I want to give this 5 stars but 5 to me is something I never give. I have read and reread and reread again this book, loaned it out to friends, and recommended it to almost everybody. Short, a night's reading, and lyrical. I like a poetic turn of phrase. Every time I read it I pick up something new. To be read from beginning to end~~ preface/intro etc. I have not read Winterson before and wonder if she is as repetitive as she is here.. hammering home a point or maybe just exploring all the
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Mar 05, 2011
Rachel
rated it:
“The free man never thinks of escape.”
With this line, Jeanette Winterson begins a journey through the retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles, yet a retelling in such a way as to make the story of Atlas part of her own.
It is a twist on a classic myth: Atlas, the titan, holder of the cosmos, is bearing the weight of his punishment for his defiance of the gods. His punishment, on a deeper level, is one that remarks on the weight implied by nothing. Nothing, the absence More...
With this line, Jeanette Winterson begins a journey through the retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles, yet a retelling in such a way as to make the story of Atlas part of her own.
It is a twist on a classic myth: Atlas, the titan, holder of the cosmos, is bearing the weight of his punishment for his defiance of the gods. His punishment, on a deeper level, is one that remarks on the weight implied by nothing. Nothing, the absence More...
Feb 12, 2011
Claire
rated it:
Easy and enjoyable.
"I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject. I left my hometown, left my parents, left my life. I made a home and a life elsewhere, more than once. I stayed on the run. Why then, did the burden feel intolerable? What was it that I carried?
I realize now that the past does not dissolved like a mirage. I realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy - speed-of- More...
"I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject. I left my hometown, left my parents, left my life. I made a home and a life elsewhere, more than once. I stayed on the run. Why then, did the burden feel intolerable? What was it that I carried?
I realize now that the past does not dissolved like a mirage. I realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy - speed-of- More...
Jun 04, 2009
Cameron
rated it:
Much has been said about the labors of Heracles, but not often is his mental state addressed in the tales. Winterson comically yet seriously addresses the buzzing "thought-wasp" that Heracles very seldom engages, being more inclined to smack himself upside the head until the buzzing ceases, couching this tale within her larger exploration of the internal life of Atlas, he who bears the burden of the world's (and we discover, his own) weight.
As part of Heracles' twelve labo More...
As part of Heracles' twelve labo More...
