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93rd out of 575 books
—
738 voters
Sexing the Cherry
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 j...more
Paperback, 167 pages
Published
August 10th 1998
by Grove Press
(first published 1989)
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Date 15 January 23rd January
Time 19:00 – 20.15
Location : The Box
Excerpt from interview with P Bryant
Detective Munch : Thing is, my literary friend, you got no proof.
PB : Proof?
Det Munch : Anyone can invent an identity and claim to have read like a zillion books and then post up fake reviews. Anyone. I could pay 15 year olds to do it.
PB : Well, so what? That’s the internet for you. Who cares?
Det Pembleton : Who cares? Did you hear that John? Who cares? We care. Let me explain a little. This Good...more
In Sexing the Cherry, Jordan is found floating in the River Thames. A large woman, known only as the Dog Woman, rescues baby Jordan, and brings him up like her own son. But Jordan, having been ‘born’ of the river, belongs to the river, and it isn’t long before the flowing waters reclaim him once again, as he sets of with sails to travel the world.
The book is told with alternating narratives, first Jordan, then the mother, then Jordan again and so forth. But while the mother’s narratives sound li...more
The book is told with alternating narratives, first Jordan, then the mother, then Jordan again and so forth. But while the mother’s narratives sound li...more
Jeannette Winterson is one of my all-time favorite writers and I'm constantly recommending this slim book. For what it lacks in girth, the book makes up for in substance. I have never more furiously scribbled passages down in my journal for future reference.
The story itself is entertaining enough to merit the book worth a read. The premise is reminiscent of a Brother's Grimm fairy tale - you know, back when fairy tales were sort of dark, creepy, and a little scary, before Disney got its hands on...more
The story itself is entertaining enough to merit the book worth a read. The premise is reminiscent of a Brother's Grimm fairy tale - you know, back when fairy tales were sort of dark, creepy, and a little scary, before Disney got its hands on...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Nov 18, 2012
Vale
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Vale by:
Francesco Fantuzzi
Shelves:
english-literature
Niente trucchi da quattro soldi
Mentre leggevo questo libro mi tornavano in mente le parole di Carver, perché ho percepito l'intera architettura del romanzo come falsa: un modo originale per avvinghiare il lettore alla storia, ma in una modalità artefatta e stucchevole.
E' una questione di gusti e di sensibilità personali, ma mi dispiace perché la voce narrante, nonostante tutto, resta davvero forte e le capacità dell'autrice non sono in discussione.
A volte sembra che un autore voglia per forza...more
Mentre leggevo questo libro mi tornavano in mente le parole di Carver, perché ho percepito l'intera architettura del romanzo come falsa: un modo originale per avvinghiare il lettore alla storia, ma in una modalità artefatta e stucchevole.
E' una questione di gusti e di sensibilità personali, ma mi dispiace perché la voce narrante, nonostante tutto, resta davvero forte e le capacità dell'autrice non sono in discussione.
A volte sembra che un autore voglia per forza...more
I...I don't know what just happened. I think I need to go reread some parts of this book, or at least think it over again because I am so darn confused.
But as for what I did understand, there are parts of this book that are bewitching, and then there are parts that drag so much it is as if there is no life in them.
This was a vintage twin set, basically I got the book for free along with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The set is called Vintage Monsters. So I guess I'll spend tonight thinking about...more
But as for what I did understand, there are parts of this book that are bewitching, and then there are parts that drag so much it is as if there is no life in them.
This was a vintage twin set, basically I got the book for free along with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The set is called Vintage Monsters. So I guess I'll spend tonight thinking about...more
bizzarly profound.
food for thought:
"The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for the past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time?
Matter, that thing the most solid and well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world"(frontispiece)?
"Truth to tell, I could have snappe...more
food for thought:
"The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for the past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time?
Matter, that thing the most solid and well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world"(frontispiece)?
"Truth to tell, I could have snappe...more
Feb 20, 2008
Molly
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Everyone alive
Recommended to Molly by:
Natalie Giarratano
Sometimes I think I would like to write a letter of thanks to Jeanette Winterson. The letter would go something like this, "Thank you, Ms. Winterson, for being so magical. Thank you for holding on to the play of childhood and mingling it with a breadth of creative intelligence I never knew existed. Thank you for reading as much as you do and for deploying history in new and invigorating ways. Thank you for playing with your narratives, changing your characters into hyperboles of their human selv...more
Jul 15, 2012
Andreea Obreja
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Andreea by:
Sorana
Shelves:
fantasy,
read-in-romanian
It was brilliant! It reminded me a lot of "Everything Is Illuminated" (Jonathan Safran Foer) because of all the time references and really weird characters. I loved every little special thing about this book! I also liked the historical information it gives and very accurate (in my opinion) points of view of those times.
"But there's no Rabelaisian dimension for fury." -> Rabelaisian = dealing with sex an the human body in a rude but humorous way; Now that I know what it means I can say that t...more
"But there's no Rabelaisian dimension for fury." -> Rabelaisian = dealing with sex an the human body in a rude but humorous way; Now that I know what it means I can say that t...more
I enjoyed Written on the Body, but I think I may like this one much more. Winterson's prose is tight but somehow perfectly expressive. The concepts in the novel are mind-blowing and I have a hard time articulating exactly what it is that she's trying to say, but I'm OK with that. It reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude in that the story is fantastic and magical, yet it seems natural that it would exist. The Twelve Dancing Princesses are my absolute favorite aspect...more
Winterson, Jeanette. SEXING THE CHERRY. (1989). ***. This novel by this author started out like an historical novel – though an off-beat one – in the style of Fielding or Swift, but turned into something completely different in the final quarter of the book. I should have caught the hint by the opening quotation (unascribed): “The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division doesn not exist. What does this say about tim...more
This is a strange and wonderful book. The only way to describe it is to quote from it:
and
In the Crown of Thorns that night Tradescant made plans to take ship and leave us. I saw the look on Jordans's face and my heart became a captive in a locked room. I couldn't reach him now. I knew he would go.
I went outside and walked until the lights of the inn were specks in the distance and I was alone with the river flowing out to sea.
and
I've kept the log book for the ship. Meticulously. And I've kept a boo...more
This was enjoyable to an extent, but it's hard to say that there was a followable plot or coherent story, though I suspect that was the point. In style, it is more like Winterson's The Passion, or Calvino's Invisible Cities than it is like any of Winterson's other novels (at least that I have read). It has that disjointed structure where everything is linked, though it's not immediately obvious how. And the alternating points of view is what reminds me of The Passion.
However, it also has a fairy...more
However, it also has a fairy...more
Once I stood in a museum looking at a "painting" hanging on the wall. It had all the components of a painting: the canvas, lines and squiggles rendered in pencil, the artist's signature, and some blotches of color here and there. I read the review on the little plaque next to it which described what it was made of, its post-modern symbolism, it's meaning. I didn't see that at all.
Another time I put on a CD to listen to. It had all the components of "music": instruments, notes, pauses, a musician...more
Another time I put on a CD to listen to. It had all the components of "music": instruments, notes, pauses, a musician...more
I’ve read my fair share of books that utilize either farce or magic realism to get their point across, but never together, and never to this extent. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanne Winterson flits between subverted fairy-tales, metaphysical discourse, bawdy satire, and commentary on its 17th century historical context. It’s astonishing how much is stuffed into such a slim volume — barely 150 pages — though perhaps in compensation of this, it demands a second or a third or even a fourth reading to gr...more
Reminiscent of works such as Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" or Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams." A novella of multiple perspectives, fantasies, transforming identities, past and present. During the Interregnum, a foundling named Jordan sets sail to explore the world, discover new fruits, find love, find himself; back in England, his adopted mother -- an impossibly massive creature known only as the Dog-Woman -- brutalizes hypocritical Puritans and longs for the presence of her son, the on...more
This book is utterly beautiful. Winterson has an incredibly gifted talent of writing the most magical prose. I was utterly in awe, and a teeny bit jealous of her superbly written imaginative tales of the princess's who lived happily ever after, (just not with their husbands), the twisted reality of Sixteenth Century England, (taking a fair amount of time commenting on the battle between Cromwell's republican Commonwealth and the already established monarchy), not to mention throwing in detailed...more
In this surreal fantastical novel, one of the themes is the nature of love. For example:��"On more than one occasion I have been ready to abandon my whole life for love. To alter everything that makes sense to me and to move into a different world where the only known will be the beloved. Such a sacrifice must be the result of love . . . or is it that the life itself was already worn out? I had finished with that life, perhaps, and could not admit it, being stubborn or afraid, or perhaps did not...more
Apr 07, 2010
Susan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Susan by:
susan@imageswritten.biz
Shelves:
book-club
This book is a conundrum to me. It is beautifully written. It is more prose poem than novel. Calling this a novel did it a great disservice in my mind.
Passages and passages of powerful, beautiful imagery. In terms of exploration of the nature of love, relationships, self and time, this book earns 5 stars.
In terms of actually pulling all of those things into a cohesive and assessable story or book, it falls short. I often had the feeling this book grew out of an series of writing exercises. In so...more
Passages and passages of powerful, beautiful imagery. In terms of exploration of the nature of love, relationships, self and time, this book earns 5 stars.
In terms of actually pulling all of those things into a cohesive and assessable story or book, it falls short. I often had the feeling this book grew out of an series of writing exercises. In so...more
The juxtaposition of the stories of the giant woman living on the banks of the Thames with her dogs and her adopted son who is drawn to exploring the world in the mid 1600s was interesting. The incorporation of the stories of women who although kept by men for their pleasure are still able to lead lives of their own and escape were interesting asides as was the story of the 12 dancing princesses. The drawings of the banana and the pineapple at the top of the paragraph when the narrator changed w...more
this book is seriously amazing -- confused and intricate and beautiful and miserable. i'd tried it in high school, with limited success. i decided to try again after seeing winterson at the pen writer's conference, and she told of how, after leaving home for the last time, her mother yelled after her, "why be happy when you could be normal?'. i've read most of her books since, except for the futuristic one that was just in the running for the bad sex in literature prize.....
Creative, a little all over the place, but I liked it.
_________________________________
Assorted quotes:
Johnson shouted above the din as best he could . . .
‘THIS IS NOT SOME UNFORTUNATE’S RAKE. IT IS THE FRUIT OF A TREE. IT IS TO BE PEELED AND EATEN.’ (pp. 12–13)
We were out at sea. Grey waves with white heads. A thin line in the distance where the sky dropped into the water. There were no birds, no buildings, no people and no boats. (p. 16)
We were all pleased to see the elephant, a huge beast wit...more
_________________________________
Assorted quotes:
Johnson shouted above the din as best he could . . .
‘THIS IS NOT SOME UNFORTUNATE’S RAKE. IT IS THE FRUIT OF A TREE. IT IS TO BE PEELED AND EATEN.’ (pp. 12–13)
We were out at sea. Grey waves with white heads. A thin line in the distance where the sky dropped into the water. There were no birds, no buildings, no people and no boats. (p. 16)
We were all pleased to see the elephant, a huge beast wit...more
Un fel de basm modern, fără tabu-uri. Relatările lui Jordan din călătoriile lui pe mare în scopuri botanice (botanice "de formă", el fiind în căutarea uneia dintre cele Douăsprezece Domniţe Dansatoare") se intersectează cu poveştile Femeii cu Câini, rămasă acasă şi răzbunându-l pe Charles I prin crime şi schilodiri.
Se poate remarca şi povestea de dragoste mamă-fiu, prima iubindu-l pe copil într-un mod tăcut din copilărie; acest lucru îl face pe Jordan să creadă că femeia nu-l iubeşte, dar nu fac...more
Se poate remarca şi povestea de dragoste mamă-fiu, prima iubindu-l pe copil într-un mod tăcut din copilărie; acest lucru îl face pe Jordan să creadă că femeia nu-l iubeşte, dar nu fac...more
I liked her 'Gut Symmetries' but this one was not nearly as inspiring to me. In the period of civil war and Cromwell in the mid-17th century in England, a working woman saves an abandoned baby, Jordan, who grows up to become an explorer. Along the way, many fables are spun out that reflect on women's approaches to surpassing their marginalized role in society and targeting by the Puritans as the source of evil temptation. As a child, Jordan is captivated by introduction of the banana to the King...more
I read this for Dorota Glowacka's Postmodern women's literature course for my Master's. It is one of the shortest and densest novels I have ever read. It is provocative at every step of the way, turning myth and story on their ears. I loved it so much I did my seminar presentation on it and wrote a paper that was accepted for an anthology on Jeanette Winterson, but which was sadly never published.
Hence started my love affair with Winterson's words.
Hence started my love affair with Winterson's words.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This is a really fascinating book, not in the least because it shifts continuously through different narrators, times, places, and story lines. The main narrator (I'll call her that because she narrates more of the novel than any other character) is a fascinating character--a 17th century mountain of a woman who calmly murders people whenever they threaten her friends, son, or values; a breeder of fighting dogs and a fierce defender of Charles I during the English Civil War; a devoted mother to...more
beautifully written, absolutely hilarious, and totally empowering. winterson smoothly dispels all preconceived ideas of what constitutes a love story and creates something all her own. she makes her statements about love and gender without being preachy or condescending, which i totally appreciate, and wraps it all up in a plot that pushes you around a little but you like it so it doesn't matter. i especially loved the story of the princesses.
To think of this as a historical novel is to miss the point. It's a novel of ideas, principally about the journey of life, which for Winterson is as much about imagination as reality. Time and place are both capable of simultaneous, multiple existences -I.e. we can be in more than one time and place at once. What is true is not the same as what is real.
The characters happen to live in the 1600s (or do they?) but to me this is because the 1600s were a time of exploration and change - it's symbol...more
The characters happen to live in the 1600s (or do they?) but to me this is because the 1600s were a time of exploration and change - it's symbol...more
"I've been everywhere, but I still have a feeling I've missed it. I feel like I'm being laughed at, I don't know what by, who by, it sounds silly. I think I may have missed the world, that the one I've seen is a decoy to get me off the scent. I feel as though I'm always on the brink of making sense of it and then I lose it again."
At once awfully confusing and deeply profound, this book is fantasy and truth. I found myself enraptured with the images that Jeanette Winterson paints, laughing out lo...more
At once awfully confusing and deeply profound, this book is fantasy and truth. I found myself enraptured with the images that Jeanette Winterson paints, laughing out lo...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodreads Librari...: incorrect cover change (sexing the cherry) | 2 | 21 | Aug 13, 2012 08:20pm | |
| Goodreads Librari...: description change | 5 | 42 | Mar 04, 2012 09:34am | |
| Charles I | 2 | 31 | Feb 22, 2012 05:39pm |
Novelist Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England in 1959. She was adopted and brought up in Accrington, Lancashire, in the north of England. Her strict Pentecostal Evangelist upbringing provides the background to her acclaimed first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. She graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and moved to London where she worked as an assi...more
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“The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help.”
—
318 people liked it
“On more than one occasion I have been ready to abandon my whole life for love. To alter everything that makes sense to me and to move into a different world where the only known will be the beloved. Such a sacrifice must be the result of love... or is it that the life itself was already worn out? I had finished with that life, perhaps, and could not admit it, being stubborn or afraid, or perhaps did not known it, habit being a great binder. I think it is often so that those most in need of change choose to fall in love and then throw up their hands and blame it all on fate. But it is not fate, at least, not if fate is something outside of us; it is a choice made in secret after nights of longing.
... I may be cynical when I say that very rarely is the beloved more than a shaping spirit for the lover's dreams... To be a muse may be enough. The pain is when the dreams change, as they do, as they must. Suddenly the enchanted city fades and you are left alone again in the windy desert. As for your beloved, she didn't understand you.
The truth is, you never understood yourself.”
—
145 people liked it
More quotes…
... I may be cynical when I say that very rarely is the beloved more than a shaping spirit for the lover's dreams... To be a muse may be enough. The pain is when the dreams change, as they do, as they must. Suddenly the enchanted city fades and you are left alone again in the windy desert. As for your beloved, she didn't understand you.
The truth is, you never understood yourself.”
Mar 11, 2013 03:48pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRC2UH...
May 07, 2013 01:38pm