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flappermyrtle's review against another edition
4.0
Well. After the first 50 pages or so I was positively shocked. In a good way. The start of this novel is like watching a car crash take place, right in front of you. It is intense, bold, and grabs you by the throat.
Having said that, time for a little background information. The Gap of Time is a rewriting of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, which is not one of his major plays and barely ever brought on stage. Winterson explains that she picked this for its resonance with her own life, as it deals with a lost baby, and she herself was adopted as a baby.It is the first in a series of rewritings, which features a list of well-known writers and more well-known plays (really excited for Atwood's redo of The Tempest!).
Onto the book, then. The characters still felt Shakespearean to me, modernised of course, but they still had a certain Renaissance elegance to them. Winterson's lyrical language is perhaps less present than in novels like Written on the Body and The Power Book, a necessity when one must obey a plot. Still, there are plenty of moments when it surfaces, and the reader can get lost in its simple beauty.
I loved The Gap of Time for its acuteness, its language, its clever updating of Shakespeare. The one criticism I have is not so much on Winterson's head, but on Shakespeare's - the ending does not seem to flow very organically from the rest of the story. It is wonderful, magical even, to reunite the early generation and the later one, to show a promise for the future, but it just felt a little too good. With a novel this visceral, a happy ending seems somewhat out of place. But, alas, Shakespeare made it a comedy, and thus a comedy it must be, even 500 years later.
I'd very highly recommend this novel to those unfamiliar with Winterson's work, as well as returning fans. I feel it is perhaps easier to access than some of her earlier novels, yet still clearly bears her mark on it. Can't wait for the next one.
Having said that, time for a little background information. The Gap of Time is a rewriting of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, which is not one of his major plays and barely ever brought on stage. Winterson explains that she picked this for its resonance with her own life, as it deals with a lost baby, and she herself was adopted as a baby.It is the first in a series of rewritings, which features a list of well-known writers and more well-known plays (really excited for Atwood's redo of The Tempest!).
Onto the book, then. The characters still felt Shakespearean to me, modernised of course, but they still had a certain Renaissance elegance to them. Winterson's lyrical language is perhaps less present than in novels like Written on the Body and The Power Book, a necessity when one must obey a plot. Still, there are plenty of moments when it surfaces, and the reader can get lost in its simple beauty.
I loved The Gap of Time for its acuteness, its language, its clever updating of Shakespeare. The one criticism I have is not so much on Winterson's head, but on Shakespeare's - the ending does not seem to flow very organically from the rest of the story. It is wonderful, magical even, to reunite the early generation and the later one, to show a promise for the future, but it just felt a little too good. With a novel this visceral, a happy ending seems somewhat out of place. But, alas, Shakespeare made it a comedy, and thus a comedy it must be, even 500 years later.
I'd very highly recommend this novel to those unfamiliar with Winterson's work, as well as returning fans. I feel it is perhaps easier to access than some of her earlier novels, yet still clearly bears her mark on it. Can't wait for the next one.
starry_minded's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
jjlim1996's review against another edition
4.0
"And time, that sets all limits, offers our one chance at freedom from limits. We were not trapped after all. Time can be redeemed. That which is lost is found..."
Jeanette Winterson with another fantastic work!
Jeanette Winterson with another fantastic work!
zoe_jiran's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
stacialithub's review
4.0
Really enjoyed this one. I think Winterson actually managed to get to the emotional core of the story more than the bard himself did. (Is that possible?) It's a tragedy that ends in a comedy, I guess, but Winterson's version does a better job of intertwining the stories over the time gap, I think. Worth reading.
heathssm's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-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
4.0
__nyx__'s review against another edition
4.0
‘It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change. […] Everything, but she couldn’t say it. Too much, but she couldn’t explain it. Enough, but she couldn’t understand why what she wanted seemed to have happened and she didn’t want it at all. Soon […] we have to go to work, have children, make homes, make dinner, make love. We will have dreams but will they come true?
[…] Love. The size of it. The scale of it. Unimaginable. Vast. Your love for me. My love for you. Our love for one another. Real. Yes.’
The Gap of Time it took between starting and finishing this book is unforgivable. But so is the play of Shakespeare’s The Winter Tale. But this is only my opinion. And as ironic as it is, as an English teacher, I hate Shakespeare. I don’t quite enjoy his tanglement of words. I think as I’ve grown older I’ve grown more fond of the slowness of love and its language and the way it carries you and I feel like the language of Shakespeare is too clunky hence. And it pains me to see so many of Winterson’s gorgeous, picturesque words dancing on the page but in the midst of a Shakespeare take. But for her, I respect it. And for her, I read on until the last word. And despite my lack of interest in Shakespeare and my lack of understanding of the intertextuality hence, I don’t even care. I don’t care because Winterson’s words made it better. They make everything better.
They make love more beautiful than love is. And love is very beautiful.
Time and connection and love explored timelessly.
A must.
Especially if you cannot stand Shakespeare.
[…] Love. The size of it. The scale of it. Unimaginable. Vast. Your love for me. My love for you. Our love for one another. Real. Yes.’
The Gap of Time it took between starting and finishing this book is unforgivable. But so is the play of Shakespeare’s The Winter Tale. But this is only my opinion. And as ironic as it is, as an English teacher, I hate Shakespeare. I don’t quite enjoy his tanglement of words. I think as I’ve grown older I’ve grown more fond of the slowness of love and its language and the way it carries you and I feel like the language of Shakespeare is too clunky hence. And it pains me to see so many of Winterson’s gorgeous, picturesque words dancing on the page but in the midst of a Shakespeare take. But for her, I respect it. And for her, I read on until the last word. And despite my lack of interest in Shakespeare and my lack of understanding of the intertextuality hence, I don’t even care. I don’t care because Winterson’s words made it better. They make everything better.
They make love more beautiful than love is. And love is very beautiful.
Time and connection and love explored timelessly.
A must.
Especially if you cannot stand Shakespeare.
artemishi's review
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Characters: 6, each character was distinguishable from the others, but they were fairly one-dimensional, defined more by a single instance in their lives than by actual personality. I don't find them very memorable, and I didn't care much what happened to any of them. That said, Winterson presents an interesting take on Shakespeare's original characters (themselves rather one-dimensional) and a possible toxic masculinity origin for the two male leads' overblown emotional reactions.
Atmosphere: 7, the setting was rather bare bones, but recognizable (both New Bohemia and London). Full marks for setting being established and developed through Shep's narrative perspective and Leo's narrative perspective (two very different voices), neither of which feel a strong connection to place- though Shep has clearly been molded by place and Leo clearly avoids forming emotional attachment to place and just tries to buy everything.
Writing: 6, this is a tough one to rate. I loved the voice employed for Shep's narrative. It felt easy, natural, and I could hear his voice in my head. Leo's chapters, on the other hand, were punctuated by stilted, violent, and obscene language, which turned me off. Was it supposed to push me away from the character? Maybe. But it also pushed me away from the story. Maybe if his conversations with Pauline had been more casual, it would've felt less awkward. She also sometimes wrote dialogue with quotation marks, and sometimes not, so you didn't know if a character was entirely in their own head or actually conversing with the other person present. Given the melodramatic nature of the story and her own more philosophical wanderings, some passages felt genuinely profound and impactful, while others felt like the author was stroking her own ego.
Plot: 8, the pacing was a highlight of this retelling. I understand the difficulty keeping interest, given the source material's jumping around in time, so I'm sure pacing must've been a difficult aspect of writing this. But there was tension, mystery, and emotional resonance throughout, from start to finish. That tension propelled me to keep reading, more than anything.
Intrigue: 6, the story held my interest while I was reading it, apart from wincing through Leo's chapters. But I wasn't gravitating toward it in my free time.
Logic: 9, more full marks for consistent characters- everyone acted in line with their own motives, which were largely either love or fear. As much as I didn't want to deal with Leo's insecure-manyboy ego or Xeno's (sometimes written as Zeno as well) insecurity-dressed-as-highbrow-maturity, every action they took was in line with their impulses (likely due to being ignored by their fathers). The female characters, by contrast, were more difficult to understand (MiMi is largely defined by being a singer and then a victim, Pauline is a voice of reason to balance Leo, Perdita understandably wants to meet her birth parents). But again, the throughline between past action and present action was discernable. And although the play involves some breaking of the rules of reality, the retelling is solidly contemporary and plays by our known reality rules.
Enjoyment: 6, it was OK. It seems like, for every passage or chapter that I liked and which resonated with me (largely Shep's, to be honest), there was one that was gratuitous and off-putting, or felt lazily written. As a retelling, I applaud its faithfulness to the original play and bringing modern relevance. But the style just wasn't entirely to my liking.