Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
I've neither read "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" nor seen the BBC adaption, which I know to have been wildly popular. I certainly know who Jeanette Winterson is, but I was drawn to this memoir not because of her fame, but because it was on the NYT Best Books of 2012 list, and because I thought the title was funny and mildly sardonic.
Reader, I warn you. The title is the cruelest quote, straight from a mother's lips, that I have ever read. It's been jangling around in my mind all weekend. What mother, natural or adoptive, could possibly not want her daughter to be happy? The answer, it seems, is the Mrs. Wintersons of the world. Bah, humbug!
I was dragged through the emotional morass of this unbearably sad, yet sometimes funny, personal story by Jeanette Winterson's unflagging belief in love and her passion for books; but I was absolutely uplifted by a few quotes from the very last pages. I'd like to share them with you so that you might know why I elevated the book from fewer stars to four:
"I guess that over the last few years I have come home. I have always tried to make a home for myself, but have not felt at home in myself. I have worked hard at being the hero of my own life, but every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it."
"And the people I have hurt, the mistakes I have made, the damage to myself and others, wasn't poor judgement: it was the place where love had hardened into loss. "
I don't think one needs to be adopted, nor lesbian, nor British, nor short, nor brilliant, nor mad to have these moving reflections make your heart contract just a little and expand a little more.
In the on-deck circle? "Are You My Mother?" By Alison Bechdel. I swear I didn't plan it this way. I will report back shortly in required compare-and-contrast form.
Reader, I warn you. The title is the cruelest quote, straight from a mother's lips, that I have ever read. It's been jangling around in my mind all weekend. What mother, natural or adoptive, could possibly not want her daughter to be happy? The answer, it seems, is the Mrs. Wintersons of the world. Bah, humbug!
I was dragged through the emotional morass of this unbearably sad, yet sometimes funny, personal story by Jeanette Winterson's unflagging belief in love and her passion for books; but I was absolutely uplifted by a few quotes from the very last pages. I'd like to share them with you so that you might know why I elevated the book from fewer stars to four:
"I guess that over the last few years I have come home. I have always tried to make a home for myself, but have not felt at home in myself. I have worked hard at being the hero of my own life, but every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it."
"And the people I have hurt, the mistakes I have made, the damage to myself and others, wasn't poor judgement: it was the place where love had hardened into loss. "
I don't think one needs to be adopted, nor lesbian, nor British, nor short, nor brilliant, nor mad to have these moving reflections make your heart contract just a little and expand a little more.
In the on-deck circle? "Are You My Mother?" By Alison Bechdel. I swear I didn't plan it this way. I will report back shortly in required compare-and-contrast form.
emotional
funny
inspiring
medium-paced
Enjoyed this book. The ideas in it resonated easily. Enjoyed how honest it was. Sometimes slightly preachy making the tone hard to relax into.
4.5 stars—I started this a few months ago, left it because it was so painful, and then picked it up again last week and devoured the rest of it. The beauty & the depth are worth it. She also made me laugh quite a few times, so there’s relief from the heaviness of her experience. I definitely recommend to folks who like memoir, and to anyone who has read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
challenging
reflective
Oranges are not the only fruit's raw and open twin, I was unsettled yet recognised by your ways of speaking about god. I feel like I'm emotionally devouring the book when I read stuff like this, it's as honest as I hoped it would be; 'a language powerful enough to say it how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.'
“But making the ugly hurt part human again is not an exercise for the well-meaning social worker in us.
This is the most dangerous work you can do. It is like bomb disposal but you are the bomb. That's the problem--the awful thing is you.”
I’m not usually one for memoirs, and picking this up I was convinced this was a “fake-memoir”, where the author’s goal is to explore situations, somewhat like On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Low and behold I started to understand that this novel is not in any way supposed to explore the effects of fake memories, but actually concerns true events.
“Creativity is on the side of health – it isn’t the thing that drives us mad; it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness.
Needless to say, it would’ve been better if this book had been false, not true, had never happened, because it truly is harrowing as to the childhood that it portrays.
Jeanette Winterson was put up for adoption at 6 months old, and taken in by a home ruled by Pentecostal Christians.
The book is mostly a meditation on her adopted mother, Mrs Winterson, who needless to say would be the last candidate for the Mother of the Year award.
"But as I try and understand how life works--and why some people cope better than others with adversity--I come back to something to do with saying yes to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found. Not in the me-first way that is the opposite of life and love, but with a salmon-like determination to swim upstream, however choppy upstream is, because this is your stream...”
It’s hard to put this book into words. It’s disjointed, raw, heartfelt, sad and absolutely true. You feel sad for everyone involved, for Jeanette, Mrs. Winterson and the father, who like many fathers takes on the "onlooker stance", also known as "I see it but I won't do anything about it."
This book in many ways is like many adoption stories. The protagonist doesn't know who she is, where she comes from, etc. etc. then sets out on a journey to find out, and realizes that her real mother can still somehow be less of a mother compared to the adopted mother that raised her, no matter how awfully.
"She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice."
Breaking away from the mold of the common adoption tropes, Jeanette doesn't feel the need to keep in contact with her real mother, or be part of her real family, after her adopted family had already passed.
Finding connection with a real parent decades after the fact rarely ends well, and after the initial amazement of seeing where you're from, the true colors of everyone start to come out. No matter how much of a biological parent someone is, it means little when they weren't there when they were supposed to be.
"We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember. But we don't."
This is the most dangerous work you can do. It is like bomb disposal but you are the bomb. That's the problem--the awful thing is you.”
I’m not usually one for memoirs, and picking this up I was convinced this was a “fake-memoir”, where the author’s goal is to explore situations, somewhat like On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Low and behold I started to understand that this novel is not in any way supposed to explore the effects of fake memories, but actually concerns true events.
“Creativity is on the side of health – it isn’t the thing that drives us mad; it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness.
Needless to say, it would’ve been better if this book had been false, not true, had never happened, because it truly is harrowing as to the childhood that it portrays.
Jeanette Winterson was put up for adoption at 6 months old, and taken in by a home ruled by Pentecostal Christians.
The book is mostly a meditation on her adopted mother, Mrs Winterson, who needless to say would be the last candidate for the Mother of the Year award.
"But as I try and understand how life works--and why some people cope better than others with adversity--I come back to something to do with saying yes to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found. Not in the me-first way that is the opposite of life and love, but with a salmon-like determination to swim upstream, however choppy upstream is, because this is your stream...”
It’s hard to put this book into words. It’s disjointed, raw, heartfelt, sad and absolutely true. You feel sad for everyone involved, for Jeanette, Mrs. Winterson and the father, who like many fathers takes on the "onlooker stance", also known as "I see it but I won't do anything about it."
This book in many ways is like many adoption stories. The protagonist doesn't know who she is, where she comes from, etc. etc. then sets out on a journey to find out, and realizes that her real mother can still somehow be less of a mother compared to the adopted mother that raised her, no matter how awfully.
"She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice."
Breaking away from the mold of the common adoption tropes, Jeanette doesn't feel the need to keep in contact with her real mother, or be part of her real family, after her adopted family had already passed.
Finding connection with a real parent decades after the fact rarely ends well, and after the initial amazement of seeing where you're from, the true colors of everyone start to come out. No matter how much of a biological parent someone is, it means little when they weren't there when they were supposed to be.
"We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember. But we don't."
I haven’t read prose for a while and never finished what I have been trying to read. This book came very naturally to me. I couldn’t stop reading it: read it in the gym, the bathroom, the bed, car rides. Everywhere. I loved loved loved it. Eternally grateful.
I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself. (page 9)
Prior to this, I’d only read Winterson’s [b:Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles|15046|Weight The Myth of Atlas and Heracles|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405975290l/15046._SY75_.jpg|2270630]. Laura’s review prompted me to read this now rather than later.
I was engrossed by Winterson’s account, including her depictions of her mentally ill adopted mother and, later on, her own mental illness. Her descriptions of her own depression and what’s perhaps schizophrenia were some of the best writing. How hard it must be to describe such states.
As an adult, when she finally starts to confront her feelings, she has to deal with the outcome of being taken from loving arms, as a 6-weeks-old baby, to no arms. I think of the children at the U.S./Mexico border who are experiencing the same thing, and how they will be dealing with the aftermath of that for the rest of their lives.
Prior to this, I’d only read Winterson’s [b:Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles|15046|Weight The Myth of Atlas and Heracles|Jeanette Winterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405975290l/15046._SY75_.jpg|2270630]. Laura’s review prompted me to read this now rather than later.
I was engrossed by Winterson’s account, including her depictions of her mentally ill adopted mother and, later on, her own mental illness. Her descriptions of her own depression and what’s perhaps schizophrenia were some of the best writing. How hard it must be to describe such states.
As an adult, when she finally starts to confront her feelings, she has to deal with the outcome of being taken from loving arms, as a 6-weeks-old baby, to no arms. I think of the children at the U.S./Mexico border who are experiencing the same thing, and how they will be dealing with the aftermath of that for the rest of their lives.
dark
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced