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A review by inuyasha
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
4.0
reading queer lit backwards (as in, i've read a lot of modern publications and am just now making my way back towards the modern classics) is interesting because you find yourself bored with a lot of established genre conventions but need to be aware that you're reading the Originator of these conventions. i loved this story but found the fairytale interjections (of which one of my fav modern releases, paul takes the mortal form of a girl, also does) a little dull.
but this felt honest and real and the passage in the final ruth section that says this hit like a gut punch:
As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.
but this felt honest and real and the passage in the final ruth section that says this hit like a gut punch:
As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.