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A review by misslezlee
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
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).