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Written on the Body

Jeanette Winterson

Start date: August 1, 2009

Finish date: September 30, 2009

Discussion: group reads

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Jan 02, 2009 Jamie rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2010, to-buy, 1001-books

3.5 stars, I'd say, though perhaps I'm feeling less disposed to the book after having written a long review and losing it when my computer decided, quite out of the blue, to return to the previous page, erasing my work.

My third foray into Winterson territory, and I begin to question my allegiances to her. The Passion remains one of my favorite books of the past five years (my reading over the past 5, not published in the past 5), but this one and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit both left me a bi 3.5 stars, I'd say, though perhaps I'm feeling less disposed to the book after having written a long review and losing it when my computer decided, quite out of the blue, to return to the previous page, erasing my work.

My third foray into Winterson territory, and I begin to question my allegiances to her. The Passion remains one of my favorite books of the past five years (my reading over the past 5, not published in the past 5), but this one and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit both left me a bit cold. Winterson's prosaic tricks still dazzle, but I question how reliant she is on the magic of her style, to the detriment of the actual narrative...

Some problems:

If the novel's ostensible 'purpose' is to narrativize passion in a way that eludes cliche, does Written On the Body succeed? I lean towards 'no.' Barring the sex/gender neutrality/ambiguity of the protagonist & Winterson's refusal to shame said protagonist on the basis of willful homewrecking seem to me the only facets of the 'romance' narrative that travel beyond the bounds of the conventional love plot.

Also, the sex/gender thing. To my mind, Winterson allows this to speak for itself in so subtle a way as to make it almost apolitical. I don't require it to be political, but having heard people rave and rant about that aspect of this novel, I expected Winterson to, well, do something with it. In some sense, the protagonist is this era's more blase, less interesting Orlando--but what does this ambiguity do for the novel? Perhaps I'll reconsider upon a re-read.
Do I believe the protagonist's passion for Louise? I'm not certain. And again, the trajectory of their 'love' reeks of the cliche: star-crossed lovers engage in forbidden dalliance; commit to surviving all adversity; illness infiltrates; martyrish tendencies lead to tragical misunderstandings; longing-and-loss ensue. My friend Gina posed a rather provocative question, though: while complaining that she wasn't convinced by the 'motivation' of their love for one another ("Why? I can see the sex is great, but what else is there?"), she mused that perhaps that was the whole idea: passion, love, blahblahblah, really does boil down to the physical, the tactile, the text of the body.

In which case, perhaps the novel does evade cliche. In which case, I'd be a lot more interested in this as a narrative of passion. As a 'love' novel, however, I remain convinced that what saves it from mediocrity is Winterson's impeccable wordplay. But as I wonder with Nabokov--to what end? It's fun to read, but does it *do* anything? Again, I'm uncertain.

For some reason, I like to bitch about this novel quite a bit. There's no real reason; it was a quite nice read, and certainly, one might learn something from appreciating Winterson's style. She writes love in a beautiful, if conventional, way, and there are fabulous moments of laugh-out-loud humor. Winterson's got a great comic knack that emerges rarely, but pointedly. I won't say I'm turning my back on her, but I think I may re-read The Passion before I move on to another new novel... ...more

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