lee_foust 's review for:

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

4.0

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Although I've seen the BBC TV adaptation, which got me interested in Winterson, I only just now found a second hand copy of this, her first effort. It's the third novel of hers that I've read overall, however, and I have to say that despite its hilarity and super witty, original, and obviously heartfelt writing, I feel like this suffered as a novel perhaps because it was just too close to autobiography. To me there's something about the inconclusiveness of life which lacks the punch of pure narrative. The inserted texts here, which my guess are things Winterson wrote during the time period (childhood to young adulthood) of which Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit treats, rather worked to emphasize the autobiographical aspect rather than downplay or render it more artistic through embellishment. Perhaps, if there had been some sort of attempt to explain these inserts, frame them within the other narrative, give us a double narrative of Jeanette's (author and protagonist) discovery of herself both as lesbian and writer...but it just doesn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, this is a five-star book (a lovely, effecting, and jolly read), but only a four-star novel. There's just something it doesn't quite do that I think a novel should do, whatever that is.