Scan barcode
A review by misslezlee
Art & Lies by Jeanette Winterson
3.0
"This is not a novel but an extended rift on art, sex, religion, social repression, the dangers of patriarchy, and everything that is wrong with the contemporary drift to the right.”
Another pick from my to-be-read shelf, probably purchased from Daedelus Books back in the dark ages, twenty-some years ago, when they sent you a paper catalog and you sent in an order.
Art & Lies is set in some dream time, in the 20th century, maybe in London. The characters, Handel, Picasso and Sappho aren’t *the* Handel, Picasso and Sappho, although Sappho actually is even as she unwittingly interacts with Picasso, in some kind of time space meld. There are threads of a story but they are interspersed with the extended riffs so it doesn’t read like a novel. The writing is amazingly beautiful. I needed to read this book slowly so I could savor the words. Even if I sometimes didn’t quite understand the meaning of the words.
I think, in another previous time, I might not have had the mental capacity to handle this book, but, now, in the midst of this pandemic, when we are in our very own dream time, sometime in the 21st century, maybe wherever we are at this moment, it was easier to slip into the surreal setting and events. It’s a shorter book but worthy of a long, slow read.
Another pick from my to-be-read shelf, probably purchased from Daedelus Books back in the dark ages, twenty-some years ago, when they sent you a paper catalog and you sent in an order.
Art & Lies is set in some dream time, in the 20th century, maybe in London. The characters, Handel, Picasso and Sappho aren’t *the* Handel, Picasso and Sappho, although Sappho actually is even as she unwittingly interacts with Picasso, in some kind of time space meld. There are threads of a story but they are interspersed with the extended riffs so it doesn’t read like a novel. The writing is amazingly beautiful. I needed to read this book slowly so I could savor the words. Even if I sometimes didn’t quite understand the meaning of the words.
I think, in another previous time, I might not have had the mental capacity to handle this book, but, now, in the midst of this pandemic, when we are in our very own dream time, sometime in the 21st century, maybe wherever we are at this moment, it was easier to slip into the surreal setting and events. It’s a shorter book but worthy of a long, slow read.