Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Gap of Time

I found this re-telling really powerful and poetic and often beautiful - as well as violent and passionate. It took me to dipping back into the original Winter's Tale, and I loved the imaginative depictions of the characters, and the creative exploration of the story.

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opheliafrey's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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leonineliterature's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a book that I am sure people who read and enjoyed Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale would love! Jeanette Winterson's "cover" of the play was immensely enjoyable to me. A fast read that manages to be both sad and uncomfortable while also including scenes of funny (literary) puns. I had never read Oedipus but instead told as a joke that is actually genuinely funny.

Perdita and Florizel (Zel) are delightful. I know that some reviews on here find them boring, but I think they are adorable. Which is exactly what they are in the original; adorable, naïve teens. Ready to take on life, willing to indulge in the pleasure of loving each other without the possessiveness or abandon that characterize their fathers. The acceptance and reassurance from Shep and Clo was really nice. They did well by Perdita, and they know and are sure of the familial bond. It was nice that they provided stability to counter the craziness of the Leo/Xeno/MiMi triangle. It was refreshing to see her rewrite the sexualities of the Leontes and Polixenes. It made lots of sense for Polixenes (Xeno) to be homosexual and for Leontes (Leo) to be a bisexual cisman in denial.

I was indifferent toward Shakespeare's Autolycus, but I thought Winterson's take on him was funny. I don't care if it was not "original" to turn him into a sleazy car dealer. It worked so well! I was entertained by his banter.

At times, Winterson does miss the mark, however. Her Paulina (Pauline) was not the powerhouse of a woman that we experience in the original. She somehow seemed diminished when she was cast as someone who only holds sway over Leontes (Leo). In the original, she is immensely respected by everyone at court. I miss the pride and fierceness of the original. (And I would have to agree with another review I saw; her Jewishness seems kind of forced - I don't know if Winterson ran the character past actual Jewish persons. It does not seem like it).

The same goes for Hermione (MiMi); she is only the wronged spose in Winterson's cover. Yes, she is famous but I feel like the original character is more vocal about why Leontes wrongs her - and that he ought not to and will regret it. MiMi, in this book, is too passive. It is entirely fitting in the end, when she reappears statuesque but the passiveness should be reserved for that.

I do, however, give this book 5 stars because I was immersed from start to finish. It reads really well and is a refreshing take on a very old story - and I personally love retellings of old tales! That is my favorite kind of literature.

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megelissag's review

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fast-paced

Strong character development? No

2.0

so i saw winterson speak about this book at a book fair in like 2016 and i remember thinking "why doesn't she write more essays?" because she was so eloquent and passionate about it (she also stood on a chair to talk to us and she walked right past me, just zipped right by like an actor late for their cue, i thought.) which turns out now to be fairly ironic considering her meta-asides about the play itself are are more interesting than the story itself, which is disappointing on several levels. like, what is even going on half the time, here?? a good forty percent of this book is spent inside leo (leontes), who is so vile i had to force myself to keep reading several times. why did she make the choices she did? why choose to keep hermione alive, and yet spend no time or energy whatsoever on her point of view? why did i have to read pages upon pages of leo's disgusting porn fantasies and violently homophobic/misogynistic spirals, and yet from the moment she is raped (by her husband, a completely unnecessary addition that did not happen in the play!) she vanishes from the text like a ghost? i don't even think she even speaks, after that scene. leo, on the other hand, has plenty to say! i am, needless to say, a little disgusted.

kudos for putting in diverse characters, i guess but the stereotypes are lazy and borderline racist (chinese triplets named hollypollymolly? come ON). the melodrama of the original play was the only thing that kept me going, honestly, because i had some hope that she was going to actually deliver some catharsis (either punishment for leo, or a reunion between mimi/hermione and perdita), neither of which happened, frustratingly. winterson's style is hit or miss for most people, and i had some hope that the advantage of shakespeare's engaging plot would help her, i guess, clarify? (there's a reason it endures!! you want perdita to find her way home, you root for lear to see cordelia's goodness) i just really didn't understand any of the points i assume she was trying to make and there were parts that struck me as downright absurd. the thing with the video game? like, what??

extremely odd choices made re: xeno and mimi also. some beautiful prose but without any coherence or balance in the plot it all felt pretentious and meaningless. really didn't like this one, sorry ms winterson

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valereads's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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