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A review by orrantw
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
1.0
There are some major problems with this book stylistically. If I was grading this in a creative writing class, I would give it a barely passing mark.
-The repetition doesn’t do Shakespeare justice. This is a rewrite of a play, and the repeated words actually function as something new that emphasises the word. In Winterson’s book, this turns into something annoying and appears more like lazy writing the night before the assignment is due. I suggest looking either into experimental writing like House of Leaves or even use of white space to get the same emphasis that Shakespeare had.
-Winterson diversity packs her book. Yes, it’s great to have diversity, but every element of the book has to have a purpose. Randomly clocking someone who is trans is actually really mean. She doesn’t mention anything with racial politics in Louisiana besides it being bad. Bad? Really? Shep is religious, and he doesn’t mention the church fires. Where his distrust of police comes from. There was so much there that could have been built on. The cultural differences between him and his wife. Her cooking. Anything... it’s just marketing diversity at this point.
-Mentioning another thing about diversity, although Winterson is a gay woman, she clearly represents gay people pretty badly in this book. At one point, she mentions how gay men aren’t dangerous to women.... I don’t want to give spoilers, but this is a vague reference to the scene. This implies that they could be dangerous to people of their own gender, and having people in my seminar mention this in class makes me uncomfortable. As a gay woman, I’m not going to be dangerous to other women. It’s pretty offensive.
-Winterson attempts to use AAVE for Clo and Shep sometimes. As if it were an artistic touch of voluntary language changes. Perdita speaks regularly, except when Winterson forgets that HollyPollyMolly are Americans who don’t say “knickers”. AAVE is a dialect with very specific grammar rules. It’s almost as if she tried to write in German and forgets that German is its own language. The result is honestly offensive.
-Clo and Shep also go from educated to uneducated very quickly. It’s a change that is left unexplained and makes them look more like cultural pawns than actual characters.
-Winterson tries to use “shock factor” in the book, but never mentions it.
Honestly, this book is horrible. The writing is offensively bad (almost as bad as The Night Tiger) and the plot is scattered at best. I had to go back to read the original from Shakespeare to make sure that the play wasn’t bad, which it wasn’t. It was nice to see good writing after reading something this horrible. I’m not looking forward to my class on Thursday to talk about this book.
-The repetition doesn’t do Shakespeare justice. This is a rewrite of a play, and the repeated words actually function as something new that emphasises the word. In Winterson’s book, this turns into something annoying and appears more like lazy writing the night before the assignment is due. I suggest looking either into experimental writing like House of Leaves or even use of white space to get the same emphasis that Shakespeare had.
-Winterson diversity packs her book. Yes, it’s great to have diversity, but every element of the book has to have a purpose. Randomly clocking someone who is trans is actually really mean. She doesn’t mention anything with racial politics in Louisiana besides it being bad. Bad? Really? Shep is religious, and he doesn’t mention the church fires. Where his distrust of police comes from. There was so much there that could have been built on. The cultural differences between him and his wife. Her cooking. Anything... it’s just marketing diversity at this point.
-Mentioning another thing about diversity, although Winterson is a gay woman, she clearly represents gay people pretty badly in this book. At one point, she mentions how gay men aren’t dangerous to women.... I don’t want to give spoilers, but this is a vague reference to the scene. This implies that they could be dangerous to people of their own gender, and having people in my seminar mention this in class makes me uncomfortable. As a gay woman, I’m not going to be dangerous to other women. It’s pretty offensive.
-Winterson attempts to use AAVE for Clo and Shep sometimes. As if it were an artistic touch of voluntary language changes. Perdita speaks regularly, except when Winterson forgets that HollyPollyMolly are Americans who don’t say “knickers”. AAVE is a dialect with very specific grammar rules. It’s almost as if she tried to write in German and forgets that German is its own language. The result is honestly offensive.
-Clo and Shep also go from educated to uneducated very quickly. It’s a change that is left unexplained and makes them look more like cultural pawns than actual characters.
-Winterson tries to use “shock factor” in the book, but never mentions it.
Honestly, this book is horrible. The writing is offensively bad (almost as bad as The Night Tiger) and the plot is scattered at best. I had to go back to read the original from Shakespeare to make sure that the play wasn’t bad, which it wasn’t. It was nice to see good writing after reading something this horrible. I’m not looking forward to my class on Thursday to talk about this book.