Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Jul 25, 2007

Tina rated it:

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 ha More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2008

Austen rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Shawn rated it:

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"(frontispi More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Molly rated it:

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 h More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

May 27, 2009

Lena rated it:

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...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 05, 2008

Tony rated it:

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 a More...

0 comments like

Dec 17, 2011

Ryan rated it:

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 presenc More...

0 comments like

Aug 16, 2011

Emma rated it:

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...

0 comments like

May 19, 2010

Kay rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Apr 07, 2010

Susan rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Jan 06, 2010

Michelle rated it:

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 narrati More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 13, 2011

Hana rated it:

Every journey conceals another journey within its lines: the path not taken and the forgotten angle.

The prose in this book is absolutely stunning; the images it imparted mostly dream-like and occasionally disturbing. The story it was trying to tell, however, almost blasted the better part of my brain to eternal confusion. Having said that, do not be fooled by the girth of this book. For although it looks thin, it’s got double the size of the world in it—it having been written with litt More...

0 comments like

Jun 05, 2010

Jenny rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Molly rated it:

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.....

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2007

Linda rated it:

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.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

oppem rated it:

A deceiving book - only 144 pages thought I - I quick read thought I.Well, not quite found out I... At 60+ years of age reading this book meant unlocking very well sealed (even rusty) doors into what & how a novel should read.This is actually a plus as we all get very lazy and complacent when reading ...Did I enjoy the book - yes for the most part but it read a little like a book of poetry for me - some poems I loved, some poems I liked & some poems I didn't really like at all.I know it a More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 16, 2007

Emily rated it:

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.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2010

Lisa rated it:

"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 pai More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Lauren rated it:

As part of my continuing preparation for reviewing Winterson's new book, "Why be Normal When You Could Be Happy", I've just finished this one. SEXING THE CHERRY is firmly in the post-modernist camp, as is all of Winterson's work, and although this is not a camp in which I'm generally comfortable, I have trouble resisting Winterson's work, since its so beautifully written. SEXING THE CHERRY mixes history and myth, and includes a lot of narrative sidesteps and digressions. It plays w More...

1 comment like

Feb 25, 2011

Lisa rated it:

Jeannette Winterson's poetic-prose is crack to me. I obsess about her sentences like a junkie. Her images and words find me at the oddest times; sometimes they call to me. They set up camp in my head and never leave. They speak me. They speak what I long to be. They speak what I fear being. I push them around in my mouth just to feel them form, again and again.

This book is something of a loose mixture of historical fiction, sci-fi time-travel lit, brutal Brothers-Grimm style fairy ta More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Nikki rated it:

Read this for contemporary women's writing. I really don't know how to feel about it. I have flicked through Jeanette Winterson books before and found myself repelled by the postmodernism -- I just can't get into books that are like that. But since I had to read this one, I did, and it wasn't a huge chore. There were some gorgeous images, some lovely writing, and yet I wasn't sold. I liked the stories of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, but... I loved the part with the city and the word clouds han More...

3 comments like

Aug 25, 2010

Riff rated it:

Painfully pretentious and drowning in a mess of its failed aspirations, it's always a bad thing when an author becomes too fond of the sound of their own voice. Characters, ideas, feelings, and stories are lost under the weight of what I can only presume is Winterson's creative vanity. While arguably intelligent she lacks the poetic ability required to pull off a style like this, using language which distracts and detracts from the world she is struggling to present. A wonderful imagination is c More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2011

Ioana rated it:

Cartea despre care urmează să vă povestesc e una mai… atipică, să zicem. Sunt înfăţişate două planuri paralele, unul cu Anglia secolului XVII, şi celălalt cu o perioadă ceva mai apropiată, şi anume anii ’90. Protagoniştii sunt Femeia cu Câini şi Jordan.

În Anglia secolului al XVII-lea, Femeia cu Câini şi copilul găsit de aceasta, Jordan, îl întâlnesc pe navigatorul John Tradescant, care e în Londra pentru a le arăta englezilor prima banană. Jordan e foarte impresionat şi curând părăseşt More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Tim rated it:

possibly my absolute favorite book of all time. I want jeanette winterson to read me a bedtime story every night. I didn't know how much I could worship an author before I read this. It's short but potent, and thoroughly infused with her wit. Please please read it, it's wonderful.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Lisa rated it:

This was an interesting, imaginative book that takes place in England at the time of the English Civil War, & centers around Jordan & his mother, who is nameless except for being called the Dog Woman. He was found by the river, & that's what she names him for, the River Jordan. Jordan has flights of fancy that take him to different places, as he travels with John Tradescant, the King's Gardener, around the world in search of rare & exotic plants. The point of view switches back & forth betwee More...

0 comments like

Oct 21, 2011

Beverly rated it:

I didn't finish this book and I don't want to. There is not enough narrative push or compensating interest to bother. However, I didn't exactly hate it. While it doesn't hold together, the individual sections have a sort of fascination as do the main characters: the wanderer Jordan and his gigantic and lonely mother.

I picked this up for the story of the twelve dancing princesses, my second favorite fairy tale after Cinderella. In his pursuit of the twelfth princess, Jordan meets th More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2009

Gail rated it:

Read this last night. Another great Winterson book..she is becoming one of my favorite authors. This is a wild tale about Dog Woman and the baby she finds and raises named Jordan. The time period is 17th century London, and eventually present day England. The story is full of metaphors and prose about environmental concerns, politics and feminism and is worth a second read because I'm sure I missed a lot.
The story weaves back and forth between myths of such things as flying princesses More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 07, 2009

Jessica rated it:

I loved how this book was written; it was like reading a poem. The characters dance between imagination and reality as they attempt to define themselves and their relationship with love and with each other. The story is set within the English Civil War, which adds an interesting dimension to the book. While the author plays with time and highlights human connections across time and space, she also interweaves the traditional chronology of an historical event.

I'm only giving out 3 star More...

1 comment like

Jan 08, 2012

CaterinaAnna rated it:

I wasn't sure I was going to like this one, given the comments above and my vague memories of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit being a bit of a rant. However I enjoyed the interweaving of the journeys, the fantastic and historical. It was easy and stimulating to read, with lots of ideas as well as lots of stories. My favourite ideas were those of the city that has to be cleansed of words on pages 11-13 and an internal rate of conductivity determining how we experience time (100-101), but maybe the More...

0 comments like

Apr 21, 2011

Henry rated it:

This book is a creative tour de force, seamlessly blending themes of love, loss and exploration in a fantastical world that is part 17th century Europe, part fable. It's not something that is easy to define, with stories within stories, multiple narrators, and a journey: first down the river, then across oceans, and finally across time.

In terms of style, I am a big fan of Jeanette Winterson although in some of her other books, I get bogged down in the descriptive language. This book k More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

reviews