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Jun 26, 2008

Alan rated it:

I tried really hard to like Jeanette Winterson, because most of the women I respect think she is amazing. But I just think she is fumbling and kind of incompetent. And for me her charisma, great passion, and several devastating one-liners don't compensate for her imprecision, scattered incoherence, or the clamminess of her authorial 'I.'

Can't do it.

(Wait, don't leave! I like Anais Nin. Seriously...)

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Simona rated it:

Ne valeva la pena. L'amore ne vale la pena.

L'amore magari sì, ma questo libro penso proprio di no.

Personalmente, sono sempre stata del parere che per apprezzare appieno un libro bisogna anche leggerlo nel momento giusto della propria vita. Questo per me non è stato affatto il momento giusto per "Scritto sul corpo". Pensate di me ciò che volete, definitemi insensibile, disattenta o tutto quello che vi passa per la testa, ma io tra queste pagine ho trovato solo una mir More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2008

Anne rated it:

You know how it is when your friends fall madly in love with someone (a new girlfriend), or something (Guitar Hero, Battlestar Galactica), and wear you out during the honeymoon phase babbling on about his/her/its awesomeness, sometimes in excruciating detail? If you're not in a similar situation, or worse, wish you were, it's damn near unendurable.

For God's sake, don't read this book unless you can stand to read about sheer, uninhibited passion, often in graphic detail. The pointed More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Evan rated it:

I was reading thru some of the reviews for this book. I'll just say that it's beautifully written. This book moved me. I cried with about twenty pages to go. My heart expanded and ached a little bit. I felt for the narrator (who we have to guess woman or man?) and for Louise. I love the narrator. This book is about love, relationships, loss, and is a bit hope filled at the end. The opening sentence: Why is the measure of love loss? and the book takes you from there. I finished it in a day More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Taylor rated it:

Simply put, this is the story of someone (man or woman, who knows? My guess is man, but it doesn't really matter) who is in love with a woman named Louise. They have to overcome a series of hurdles, such as their relationships with other people and a terminal disease.

It's a very quick read - I blazed through this in about 2-3 days of reading on the subway. A quick reader could probably finish in one day of dedicated reading. However, despite how easy it is to read, it's also a little More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jenny rated it:

This was an amazing book. It starts out as a story of an affair, but the second half is more of a memory about or a lovestory to the lover's body. It's impossible to tell whether the storyteller is a man or woman, but this is so well written - sad, reflective, happy, joyful - it works through every emotion. I will have to buy it for myself.

A few quotes that were meaningful to me:

"I will taste you if only through your cooking."

"When I say 'I w More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Liv rated it:

I don't believe I've ever read anyone who writes quite like Jeanette Winterson. She writes with a kind of sensuality that leaps over the conventional, making it arousing and painfully sad at the same time. It is incredible how she has managed to write a book in which you know not even the gender of the main character, but you know their emotions as intimately as if they were your own. After a single reading of this book, it became one of my favorites; not because the story is tragic (and it is), More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

marissa rated it:

Gah -- I found this insufferably narcissistic and eye-rolling to read, devoid of any sympathetic characters save the zoo-lady Jacqueline, and incredibly unsatisfying in every way. The only reason I gave it two stars is because Winterson obviously has talent -- there were a few places where the imagery was striking enough to pierce my annoyance -- and clearly this is a matter of taste and preference. It's technically and emotionally proficient, but just doesn't resonate with me personally.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

This was one of my first exposures to lesbian fiction; even though it wasn't supposed to be b/c the protagonist's gender is never clear, but reading it you just knew the author was putting herself in the protagonist's shoes (and I swear I read in my research of the book later that she was having an affair w/ her editor who was married at the time).

Anyway, I remember reading a review of the book in the Metro Times in Detroit and went to Borders to find it; found it, and stood in the WXY More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 01, 2008

Lara rated it:

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

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2007

Lynn rated it:

This is not a novel in the usual sense.
The narrator sounds at first like a man
then later like a woman. He/she has no particular
characteristics of her/his own apart from a voice.
The plot is also barely there. Narrator is having an
affair with one woman, meets another, falls in love.
Lover leaves husband. Narrator learns that lover has
cancer and that only Estranged Husband can cure her.
(No surprise in an English novel, the semi-vile Husband
just More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 13, 2007

Renee rated it:

This book contains one of my favorite passages of all time; here's a little excerpt:

"When I say 'I will be true to you' I am drawing a quiet space beyond the reach of other desires. No-one can legislate love; it cannot be given orders or cajoled into service. Love belongs to itself, deaf to pleading and unmoved by violence. Love is not something you can negotiate. Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation....

When I sa More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 31, 2007

Dan rated it:

This was a very provocative read for me. There were challenges to what is left of my sense of right and wrong in relationships, there is again that great question of what makes life meaningful and whether one needs another for there to be real meaning in life. Actually, maybe that is not the question the author struggles with - it may be more that real passion in life comes with relationship with another and that respecting that is the real ethic in living. The book ends with several pages of More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2008

Janelle rated it:

I feel like Jeanette Winterson is someone I'm supposed to like, but in reality, I find her work to be frustratingly uneven and myopic. Maybe I'm not highbrow enough for her stuff, or maybe it's just too naval-gazing! This prompted some interesting discussion in my book group, though. Some people adored the nonspecificity of the narrator's gender. I thought it came off as a bit of a literary trick, though. Still, it was interesting that all the lesbian readers thought the narrator was female More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Maroo rated it:

One of the most beautiful novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and I can’t wait to read it again. Wow. Phew. I can still feel it in my chest. This book was written for the senses. Not only does it speak in raw emotion, but it weaves a tangible story out of so many images and smells and tastes and feelings that are so often ignored by writers. It was unlike anything I've ever read, for sure.

I read it all in one sitting, not really expecting to fall in love. It was definitely ri More...

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2011

Avalon rated it:

I have to say that I did enjoy this book (I believe I read it all in one or two sittings), and that it had some gorgeous, piercing descriptions (the scene where Louise is described wading in water still sticks in my mind, and it's been years since I read it), but, unfortunately, I found myself completely distracted by the gender-less narrator. I initially was intrigued by the narrative choice, and respected Winterson for the boldness of it, but by the end I realised that to me, part of who a per More...

0 comments like

Sep 30, 2011

Sasha added it

Is there such a thing as “too much lyricism”? I like to think so, yes–especially when I’m bombarded with it page after page after page. Metaphor after metaphor after metaphor had me saying WTF one too many times.

But I ended up liking it. It took a while for me to do so, but I liked it well enough. Which puzzles me, really.

In the novel–and I use that loosely, mind you–we have the Unnamed, Un-Gendered Narrator, a person intent on loving and lusting and obsessing, although More...

0 comments like

Jun 20, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

It's hard to describe my reaction to Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body," because it was initially physiological rather than psychological. My heart pounded and my breaths quickened with both the excitement of compassionate connection and the pain of meaningless loss. Plot, setting, character, and other seemingly important elements of literature became trifles of prose compared to the bluntness in which Winterson defined (and failed to define) philosophical questions of love, lu More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2011

Andrew rated it:

There is a lot of beauty in this book. Every sentence is like a poem. You can feel the care and attention that went into every choice of word. For the first few pages, I was blown away and thought I had discovered a new favourite writer. But towards the end my enthusiasm faded. I felt like a diner who’s gorged on desserts and longs for some plain old bread and water to settle the stomach.

I’ve felt this before, where writing is very ornate. Arundhati Roy comes to mind. It seems wonder More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 02, 2011

Chelsea rated it:

Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body was a book I picked up when Mary Renault’s book gets a little too historical fiction-y. You know, pages upon pages of descriptions of battle and who killed who and a whole bunch of other things I would probably care about more if I found military history at all intersting. Needless to say, Written on the Body was completely removed, and thus was a marvelous read at a marvelous time.

I should probably point out that the most original aspect of t More...

0 comments like

Apr 23, 2011

Lorraine rated it:

Clever, but I'm not feeling it. Odd, because I'm usually the first to be affected by poetic language. But it's almost because I can sense that it is meant to be about love? that I shy away from it. My odd prim little self just wants to shake the poor narrator: my reaction is, you think you're so deep don't you? -- just on a visceral level. It can't be denied, however, that Winterson is a good writer who Knows Her Stuff -- she's not clueless. She does ask the big questions: what is the experience More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2011

Tancredi rated it:

"I segni delle tue mani li ho impressi su tutto il corpo. La tua carne è la mia carne. Mi hai decifrato e adesso sono un libro aperto. Il messaggio è semplice: il mio amore per te. Voglio che tu viva. Perdona i miei sbagli. Perdonami."

Un romanzo sull'amore, viscerale e trascendente. Quando si parla di "Scritto sul corpo" si fa sempre riferimento all'ambiguo io-narrante, non si sa mai se si tratta di un uomo o di una donna. L'autrice ha fatto questa scelta perché, davvero, non

More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2010

Automedusa rated it:

Why did I read this? Why did I go up the stairs into the most counter-intuitive library in eastern Canada (won't say which one, but it's a University) to find this book?

It's a mistery, but I read Jeanette Winterson's interview on The Guardian and I was intrigued.

It deserves four stars because it is beautifully written, I have no other way to put it. Every single line is crafted with exquisite care contrasting with the ravishing passion it describes. These are the books I dev More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2010

Josh rated it:

At first I thought this was a book to match my experiences, a book about being deserted. Then you figure out it's a book about the deserter, who is harder to sympathize with when you know that type in life. In a lot of ways I don't sympathize with the central, nameless character. S/he never got any closer to unraveling his/her inability to let him/herself be loved. But then people who have that problem can't answer it in life. Writing this, I feel hostile toward the character. When I read it, I, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 22, 2010

Patti rated it:

Reading Winterson's Written on the Body immediately after Atwood's Cat's Eye was an interesting experience, as its hard to imagine how the two novels could be more different. While Atwood in Cat's Eye uses a sparse style to write round, complex characters, Winterson here writes flat characters, essentially archetypes, and crafts what is at its core a fable carried along by its lush prose.

The novel tells the most basic of stories: love found, love lost, love regained. The simplici More...

0 comments like

Apr 10, 2010

Becki rated it:

Written on the Body isn't the sort of book I would normally read. As a Christian I don't read a lot of explicit fiction (though I do occasionally read a romance novel or two!) and I try to avoid books that have a "gimmick," particularly if the "gimmick" doesn't appeal to me. This book fits into the "explicit" and "gimmicky" category.

The narrator of Written on the Body is genderless (though most readers are aware of an underlying femininity to t More...

2 comments like

Jan 12, 2010

Becky rated it:

Wow. And I thought Michael Ondaatje's "penis like a sea horse" was a simile too far. That had nothing on the entirety of Written On The Body. The self obsessed narrator (oooh...they're gender inspecific guys!) apparently describes their love for Louise, a red haired and fiery English woman who starts off as their stalker. Except it's not really love is it? It's supposed to be lust, and then the ridiculously over laboured language, awfully awkward references to classic literature a More...

0 comments like

Jul 01, 2009

Carolyn rated it:

Excerpts from reflections I wrote for "Gender, Bodies, and the Medical Establishment":

"One of the first things that struck me upon reading Written on the Body (besides the fact that the narrator—and possibly Winterson herself—is totally fat-phobic) is that the narrator’s love for Louise is almost completely situated upon her body. Which is fine and exciting until the story is complicated by other bodies, like Gail’s, which the narrator finds distasteful. It is then o More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2011

Lauren rated it:

Although I quite love Winterson's ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT and THE PASSION, and was very fond of SEXING THE CHERRY, I'm afraid I'm not quite as enthralled with WRITTEN ON THE BODY, which I first read back in 1992 and have just re-read.

Part of the problem I have with this novel is the assumption Winterson makes in the opening sentence: "why is the measure of love loss?" This assumes that the measure of love IS loss, and I'm not sure what a reader is supposed to do wit More...

0 comments like

Jan 05, 2011

Doreen rated it:

This is the kind of infuriating book that spurs me to continue writing. The foundation is so good, so strong, and the first third of the book so well-written, that when I am let down by the last two-thirds, I am convinced that I can do better, that I can _fix_ this.

This is a book that romantics will love, that the impractical will cherish and quote. It's hard to challenge Ms Winterson's command of the language: she does write beautifully, but after Elgin's revelation and the narrator More...

0 comments like