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hillersg7's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse and Rape
celestihel's review
4.0
I love a retelling done well, and Jeanette Winterson does everything well. Is this my favorite of hers? No. I think it starts strong and then suffers from pacing issues that made it hard for me to keep on task. But, overall, it's a great story with fun historical context.
trulybooked's review against another edition
5.0
In this entire year, this is the closest I have come to reading a perfect novel. For all the flaws I've found, all the issues that I have sometimes with Winterson's writing... this novel is compelling in a way that I can't put to words. It is beautiful and tragic and hopeful all at once with poetic prose that stays in my mind long after I put the novel down.
This may be my favourite novel ever, unseating Winterson's other novel: Lighthouse Keeping.
This may be my favourite novel ever, unseating Winterson's other novel: Lighthouse Keeping.
opheliafrey's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Grief, and Abandonment
misslezlee's review
5.0
I bought this gem at the Dollar Store, attracted by the author’s name and knowing nothing about it. I read Winterson’s first novel, “Oranges are Not the Only Fruit” decades ago and remember really enjoying it. I may have read a few of her others but they don’t stand out in my reading memory.
It’s another book about time. The plot is a cover version of Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale,” a play I am not familiar with. I had some friends a lifetime and another continent ago who named their cat Dorcas after rejecting the name Perdita and they told me it came from this play. Not to worry because Winterson gives a brief summary of Shakespeare’s original before she begins deconstructing it in her retelling. She calls it a cover version, alluding to the many musical references.
I can’t begin to tell you how many chords this novel hit with me. There’s a wonderful episode where two characters kinda sorta fall in love in Paris and they hear Jackson Browne’s “Stay” drifting from a cafe. I had to stop reading and find a youtube to watch, right then, and found myself transported back forty years. The feeling was so delicious, I stopped reading for the night just to savor it all the more. Then she did the same thing with 10CC and “I’m not in Love” when two other characters *are* falling in love. So many secret smiles while reading this book :-)
The setting is London after the 2008 financial crisis, and a fictitious place, New Bohemia, which feels a lot like New Orleans and is, indeed, in the US. There’s also a video game populated by some of the characters where they act out their deepest regrets in virtual time.
Apparently, there are more books in this Hogarth Press series. Margaret Atwood has written a retelling of The Tempest ( I didn’t realize that was Shakespeare’s last play).
It’s another book about time. The plot is a cover version of Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale,” a play I am not familiar with. I had some friends a lifetime and another continent ago who named their cat Dorcas after rejecting the name Perdita and they told me it came from this play. Not to worry because Winterson gives a brief summary of Shakespeare’s original before she begins deconstructing it in her retelling. She calls it a cover version, alluding to the many musical references.
I can’t begin to tell you how many chords this novel hit with me. There’s a wonderful episode where two characters kinda sorta fall in love in Paris and they hear Jackson Browne’s “Stay” drifting from a cafe. I had to stop reading and find a youtube to watch, right then, and found myself transported back forty years. The feeling was so delicious, I stopped reading for the night just to savor it all the more. Then she did the same thing with 10CC and “I’m not in Love” when two other characters *are* falling in love. So many secret smiles while reading this book :-)
The setting is London after the 2008 financial crisis, and a fictitious place, New Bohemia, which feels a lot like New Orleans and is, indeed, in the US. There’s also a video game populated by some of the characters where they act out their deepest regrets in virtual time.
Apparently, there are more books in this Hogarth Press series. Margaret Atwood has written a retelling of The Tempest ( I didn’t realize that was Shakespeare’s last play).
mazza57's review against another edition
4.0
The winter's tale is not one of Shakespeare's plays that I am familiar with. Winterson's retelling has, however, made me want to see the play in its original form. I found the setting, characterisation and narrative all worked well together to make an intriguing novel
orrantw's review
1.0
There are some major problems with this book stylistically. If I was grading this in a creative writing class, I would give it a barely passing mark.
-The repetition doesn’t do Shakespeare justice. This is a rewrite of a play, and the repeated words actually function as something new that emphasises the word. In Winterson’s book, this turns into something annoying and appears more like lazy writing the night before the assignment is due. I suggest looking either into experimental writing like House of Leaves or even use of white space to get the same emphasis that Shakespeare had.
-Winterson diversity packs her book. Yes, it’s great to have diversity, but every element of the book has to have a purpose. Randomly clocking someone who is trans is actually really mean. She doesn’t mention anything with racial politics in Louisiana besides it being bad. Bad? Really? Shep is religious, and he doesn’t mention the church fires. Where his distrust of police comes from. There was so much there that could have been built on. The cultural differences between him and his wife. Her cooking. Anything... it’s just marketing diversity at this point.
-Mentioning another thing about diversity, although Winterson is a gay woman, she clearly represents gay people pretty badly in this book. At one point, she mentions how gay men aren’t dangerous to women.... I don’t want to give spoilers, but this is a vague reference to the scene. This implies that they could be dangerous to people of their own gender, and having people in my seminar mention this in class makes me uncomfortable. As a gay woman, I’m not going to be dangerous to other women. It’s pretty offensive.
-Winterson attempts to use AAVE for Clo and Shep sometimes. As if it were an artistic touch of voluntary language changes. Perdita speaks regularly, except when Winterson forgets that HollyPollyMolly are Americans who don’t say “knickers”. AAVE is a dialect with very specific grammar rules. It’s almost as if she tried to write in German and forgets that German is its own language. The result is honestly offensive.
-Clo and Shep also go from educated to uneducated very quickly. It’s a change that is left unexplained and makes them look more like cultural pawns than actual characters.
-Winterson tries to use “shock factor” in the book, but never mentions it.
Honestly, this book is horrible. The writing is offensively bad (almost as bad as The Night Tiger) and the plot is scattered at best. I had to go back to read the original from Shakespeare to make sure that the play wasn’t bad, which it wasn’t. It was nice to see good writing after reading something this horrible. I’m not looking forward to my class on Thursday to talk about this book.
-The repetition doesn’t do Shakespeare justice. This is a rewrite of a play, and the repeated words actually function as something new that emphasises the word. In Winterson’s book, this turns into something annoying and appears more like lazy writing the night before the assignment is due. I suggest looking either into experimental writing like House of Leaves or even use of white space to get the same emphasis that Shakespeare had.
-Winterson diversity packs her book. Yes, it’s great to have diversity, but every element of the book has to have a purpose. Randomly clocking someone who is trans is actually really mean. She doesn’t mention anything with racial politics in Louisiana besides it being bad. Bad? Really? Shep is religious, and he doesn’t mention the church fires. Where his distrust of police comes from. There was so much there that could have been built on. The cultural differences between him and his wife. Her cooking. Anything... it’s just marketing diversity at this point.
-Mentioning another thing about diversity, although Winterson is a gay woman, she clearly represents gay people pretty badly in this book. At one point, she mentions how gay men aren’t dangerous to women.... I don’t want to give spoilers, but this is a vague reference to the scene. This implies that they could be dangerous to people of their own gender, and having people in my seminar mention this in class makes me uncomfortable. As a gay woman, I’m not going to be dangerous to other women. It’s pretty offensive.
-Winterson attempts to use AAVE for Clo and Shep sometimes. As if it were an artistic touch of voluntary language changes. Perdita speaks regularly, except when Winterson forgets that HollyPollyMolly are Americans who don’t say “knickers”. AAVE is a dialect with very specific grammar rules. It’s almost as if she tried to write in German and forgets that German is its own language. The result is honestly offensive.
-Clo and Shep also go from educated to uneducated very quickly. It’s a change that is left unexplained and makes them look more like cultural pawns than actual characters.
-Winterson tries to use “shock factor” in the book, but never mentions it.
Honestly, this book is horrible. The writing is offensively bad (almost as bad as The Night Tiger) and the plot is scattered at best. I had to go back to read the original from Shakespeare to make sure that the play wasn’t bad, which it wasn’t. It was nice to see good writing after reading something this horrible. I’m not looking forward to my class on Thursday to talk about this book.
mushimilda's review against another edition
4.0
Mon premier de la série Hogarth de réécriture des pièces de Shakespeare (ici Le Conte d'Hiver) en roman contemporain, et j'ai clairement envie de tous les lire! Le ton reste tragi-comique, les personnages sont attachants, le style résonne des vers de Shakespeare et de paroles de chanson des années 50. L'histoire évoque les familles détruites par l'ego et réparées par l'amour, et la vie qui continue malgré le passé et des traumas.
yyyyyy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
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
4.0