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A review by slow_spines
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
A kaleidoscope of myths and stories spanning time and space, that slowly (but increasingly jarringly) coalesce into something solid and mysterious. Its a dense book that will certainly reward contemplation but has, at this moment, left me reeling and wanting to watch the twentieth rerun of The One Where Joey Puts a Turkey On His Head. Probably best tackled in multiple sessions.
Ostensibly it's a story about two characters. Dog Woman is a grotesquely proportioned dog breeder and fighter. Bawdy and brawling, she is also endlessly loving, and endlessly in fear of losing the only real love she has known. Her son, Jordan, is levelheaded, scientific and dreams of travel (and in dreaming, travels). He endlessly pursues the princess of his dreams and the love which escapes him. Ostensibly.
Initially it is a little difficult to follow or, at the very least, hard to picture. The imagery is plastic and warbling: proportions shift, time shifts, places shift, identities shift and perhaps most unexpectedly, tone shifts. What starts as fantastically ribald and humorously violent eventually becomes much more metaphysical and meditative. Its a strange beast, and I would be lying if I said I "got" it. There was a moment - around the time when the titular cherry is introduced - where I felt that the meaning of it all was starting to fall into place. The following chapters were a swift kick to the nuts.
In these final chapters everything is pulled together with such speed, that, like the optical illusion, bird and cage are finally united and we get a glimpse the real narrative. Its impressively dizzying and - despite what that might suggest - never feels rushed. But it is also my only (sort of) complaint: it moves at such a clip it gets a bit overwhelming. Having just a bit more space to let some of the denser passages breathe would have been welcome, but I appreciate that would have lessened the effect. As it is, being impressively dizzied feels awfully close to being assaulted.
One to read again.
Ostensibly it's a story about two characters. Dog Woman is a grotesquely proportioned dog breeder and fighter. Bawdy and brawling, she is also endlessly loving, and endlessly in fear of losing the only real love she has known. Her son, Jordan, is levelheaded, scientific and dreams of travel (and in dreaming, travels). He endlessly pursues the princess of his dreams and the love which escapes him. Ostensibly.
Initially it is a little difficult to follow or, at the very least, hard to picture. The imagery is plastic and warbling: proportions shift, time shifts, places shift, identities shift and perhaps most unexpectedly, tone shifts. What starts as fantastically ribald and humorously violent eventually becomes much more metaphysical and meditative. Its a strange beast, and I would be lying if I said I "got" it. There was a moment - around the time when the titular cherry is introduced - where I felt that the meaning of it all was starting to fall into place. The following chapters were a swift kick to the nuts.
In these final chapters everything is pulled together with such speed, that, like the optical illusion, bird and cage are finally united and we get a glimpse the real narrative. Its impressively dizzying and - despite what that might suggest - never feels rushed. But it is also my only (sort of) complaint: it moves at such a clip it gets a bit overwhelming. Having just a bit more space to let some of the denser passages breathe would have been welcome, but I appreciate that would have lessened the effect. As it is, being impressively dizzied feels awfully close to being assaulted.
One to read again.