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The Passion
"Winterson is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides." — Vanity Fair First published to great acclaim in 1987, this arresting, elegant novel from Jeanette Winterson uses Napolean’s Europe as the setting for a tantalizing surrealistic romance between an observer of history and a creature of fantasy. Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Jeanette Winterson
104 books7,122 followersNovelist Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England in 1959. She was adopted and brought up in Accrington, Lancashire, in the north of England. Her strict Pentecostal Evangelist upbringing provides the background to her acclaimed first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. She graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and moved to London where she worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press.
One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council.
She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001.
Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.
One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council.
She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001.
Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.
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August 3, 2024
‘You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play.’
For over a decade I’ve referred to this novel as a favorite and upon a reread I have reaffirmed this statement while also finding a new depth and enjoyment beyond my already heartfelt appreciation for Winterson’s work. ‘The Passion’ is an incredible epic in miniature, weaving together the fates of Henri, a soldier in Napoleon’s army, with that of Villanelle, a Venetian gambler who is the daughter of a boatman all in under 200 pages of prose that shines like a star to which you’d chart your emotional map.This is a novel bursting with ideas as Winterson tackles themes surrounding the question of what is passion and how does it inform your actions, from the religious fervor of Napoleon devotees willing to lay down their life for Nationalsitic expansion to an exquisite but taboo love affair that blossoms despite bittersweet assumptions of ephemerality. Reading much like a fairy tale but also grounded in historical fiction of the Napoleonic wars, Winterson questions faith from many angles and, through giving voice to those often made voiceless, tells a captivating tale that will break your heart but only to transform it into something stronger and full of magic.
‘[D]o it from the heart or not at all.’
Rereading books seems to reinforce the idea that you can’t step in the same river twice, especially when reading again in a different decade of your life. Beyond noticing different aspects, the reader’s heart clings to different elements that compliment their current aches and the intellect processes everything in relation to the world as it currently understands it. Different aspects from both Villanelle and Henri's narratives were highlighted for me in the reread, and the examinations of violent nationalism and warnings against hero worship of political figures took on a different tone today as it did before. The aspects of gender fluidity as well was quite interesting now with a better working language to interpret it and I enjoyed to see how progressive this novel was for its time. The biggest thing I noticed was that this book is indeed amazing and I would be reading many more Winterson books.
Which is why we reread I suppose, to better observe and understand as well as relieve the love for a good book. The Passion is a perfect book for this as it unlocks itself more upon each reading if only because there is so much going on expressed succinctly but unfolds into complex and expansive ideas when analyzed. The prose reaches to the stratosphere in its beauty but it also feels so refined and tightly packed, elegantly tracing its path through highly nuanced themes while knotting them all together for an overall emotional and cerebral impact. Add to that the elements of magic and the epic tones that drench the scenes of doomed romance and damned men and you’ll begin to gather how this novel so effectively can conquer your heart.
‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.’
There is an interesting dynamic to the magical realism at play within the novel. In the early pages we hear of fantastical events, such as the Venetian boatmen’s webbed feet, hearts in a jar outside a living body, or the Irish priest Patrick’s ‘eagle eye’ that can see a woman remove her clothes from miles away. We only experience these as unverified stories told to us, however, as the novel progresses these stories are often corroborated by secondary sources. Henri retrieves the heart and, to his surprise, discovers Villanelle’s story is literal and not a metaphor and Napoleon’s men pay a woman to stand five miles away in order to test Patrick’s vision claims. In all these instances another witness is also present: you, the reader. In a book about questioning faith, the magical realism elements are aspects you initially have no choice but to accept on faith in the framework of the novel and, much like a fairy tale, likely think of it as a flair of storytelling. By making the reader a witness in the moments these aspects are verified by other characters who had also questioned their validity, it grounds the novel into one about accepting and experiencing the fantastical as an aspect of everyday reality, to enter the realism hand-in-hand with the magical and find them one and the same.
Having the novel be rooted in historical fiction only doubles down on this effect and also allows the history to cast its weight into the tone and experience of the book. The major players, such as Napoleon, Josephine or the Czar, are minor characters here, positioning the story instead around the experience of marginalized voices—an army deserter and a bisexual woman in occupied territory—and returns history into the hands of common people. ‘We are a lukewarm people,’ Henri writes, ‘and our longing for freedom is our longing for love.’ The novel looks at the way history is shaped and rewritten through wars and conquests and the ways a political leader can rally an army to die for them, how social roles are embedded into society to perpetuate warmaking—such as Henri being told from a young age that ‘soldiering is a fine life for a boy—along with many other methods of nationalistic pride. This worldview shifts as the ghosts of fallen comrades haunt Henri and crack the veneer of his devotion to Napoleon, realizing the quest for power and territory was a game to the wealthy while the average citizen paid for it with their lives. ‘He was trying to found a dynasty,’ Henri reflects, ‘we were fighting for our lives.’ When 2,000 men die in a training exercise, 2,000 new recruits march in the next day because the powerful have found the strategy to manipulate others to die for them out of a feeling of passion.
‘We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much’
Henri writes ‘If we had the courage to love we would not so value these acts of war.’ In his youth he wished to have passion for religion and a belief in god. ‘Surely a god can meet passion with passion?’ he asks, but when he finds that intensity unmet in religion he unconsciously seeks out a new target for his passion and finds one in Napoleon Bonapart. As did many other young men who were willing to die for their leader. This is contrasted with Villanelle for whom the object of passion is a woman she cannot openly love and the inability to be consumed by her passion redirects her life to the ill wishes of abusive men and warmakers. This is a novel full of passion that becomes frustrated in the face of unrequited or impossible loves, and a search for purpose and meaning that extends beyond oneself.
The falling out of faith in Napoleon feels much like a falling away from religion as well as a falling out of love ‘I don’t want to worship him anymore,’ he writes, ‘I want to make my own mistakes. I want to die in my time.’ The opposite of passion is a hate that begins to consume him:
The falling away from Napoleon is entrenched in the realization that the powerful use the lives of those beneath them for their own purposes, and there is no end to their greed. ‘I thought he’d end wars forever,’ Henri muses on being duped when he realizes ‘one more and then there’ll be peace but it’s always one more.’ He also recognizes there is no end to wars once they begin, and victory means endlessly defending territory populated by those who hate you. The passionate intenisty of warmaking begins to be paralleled with the act of gambling in Villanelle’s storyline, in which she insists ‘gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness…some do it at the gambling table, some do not.’ She tells a story of a mysterious gambler, one of the most standout moments in the book, honestly, and the juxtaposition between war and gambling begins to truly shine.
‘In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is.’
A favorite aspect of this novel for me are the parallels and the interacting storylines. Henri speaks of living with ‘heartless men,’ a figurative expression he invests his thoughts into as he thinks of the hardness and loss of humanity he and his fellow soldiers experience in order to survive war and the ‘zero winter’ as they invade Russia.
This passage almost perfectly expresses Villanelle’s story, having her heart of fire in passion but then having to leave it outside herself. Literally. The two narratives inform upon each other in ways that enhance each theme, allow for a multitude of vantage points on the ideas and become a joint commentary greater than the sum of their convergences. The novel, told in retrospect, also charmingly finds certain lines of narration to be borrowed from other character’s speech when the storylines finally intersect. Henri’s musings on if no two snowflakes truly are the same early in the novel seems to have been informed by something Villanelle says when they meet: ‘’Snowflakes. Think of that.’ I did think of that and I fell in love with her.’ There is a lasting bond between characters that transcends even their words when we see their word choice being indebted to their feelings for the other.
‘To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.’
Speaking of words, there are some of the most beautiful passages on the idea of passion and love in this book. Winterson hits hard with some genuine gems:
When Henri writes ‘When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself,’ we see the way he has absorbed Villanelle into himself, with her own words coming out through his ideas as he writes this novel decades after the events that transpire. It is her explaining him to himself, even if she does not know it.
‘Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the gambler’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.’
But the most moving aspect of the story is the love experienced by Villanelle and the tragic circumstances that keep her from being fulfilled. There is a longing that screams from the pages, a tenderness and trepidation that puts the reader right back to youthful moments of first love. ‘There is no sense in loving someone you can never wake up to except by chance,’ she fears, and the passages of their nine nights together are as beautiful as they are heart wrenching. Having read Winterson’s memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, one can’t help but wonder how much autobiography made it’s way into this character. The aspect that Villanelle is always in disguise—often in a mask, dressed as a boy or wearing a mustache—reflects her examination of herself and sexual identity. This is reflected as well in descriptions of Venice:
This passage acknowledges the class aspects that inform much of the novel and how being outside the upper echelons is a reduction in freedom, but also how much place and the people from there are reflections on each other in this book. Villanelle is very much the city itself, fluid and malleable from day to day. On my first read of this in college, Villanelle was the first character like this I had encountered and I identified with her immediately. Upon the reread I’ve continued to identify with her and would offer her up as one of my favorite literary characters ever, a character so compellingly easy to fall for.
‘Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost for ever. There's only now.’
Jeannette Winterson’s The Passion is an absolute favorite novel that, like the heart hidden in a jar, now contains my heart within its pages. It is a feast of emotions and insight, with passages that will stir every corner of your heart as well as your mind. The commentary on many types of passion, the meaning of love and faith, the rejection of endless wars, and more make up an extraordinary little novel that lives on in the reader much more substantially than the length of the book. I am happy to have reread this, relived the struggles alongside the character, and been dazzled by Winterson’s magic yet again.
5/5
‘To love someone else is to forget about yourself… through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.’
For over a decade I’ve referred to this novel as a favorite and upon a reread I have reaffirmed this statement while also finding a new depth and enjoyment beyond my already heartfelt appreciation for Winterson’s work. ‘The Passion’ is an incredible epic in miniature, weaving together the fates of Henri, a soldier in Napoleon’s army, with that of Villanelle, a Venetian gambler who is the daughter of a boatman all in under 200 pages of prose that shines like a star to which you’d chart your emotional map.This is a novel bursting with ideas as Winterson tackles themes surrounding the question of what is passion and how does it inform your actions, from the religious fervor of Napoleon devotees willing to lay down their life for Nationalsitic expansion to an exquisite but taboo love affair that blossoms despite bittersweet assumptions of ephemerality. Reading much like a fairy tale but also grounded in historical fiction of the Napoleonic wars, Winterson questions faith from many angles and, through giving voice to those often made voiceless, tells a captivating tale that will break your heart but only to transform it into something stronger and full of magic.
‘[D]o it from the heart or not at all.’
Rereading books seems to reinforce the idea that you can’t step in the same river twice, especially when reading again in a different decade of your life. Beyond noticing different aspects, the reader’s heart clings to different elements that compliment their current aches and the intellect processes everything in relation to the world as it currently understands it. Different aspects from both Villanelle and Henri's narratives were highlighted for me in the reread, and the examinations of violent nationalism and warnings against hero worship of political figures took on a different tone today as it did before. The aspects of gender fluidity as well was quite interesting now with a better working language to interpret it and I enjoyed to see how progressive this novel was for its time. The biggest thing I noticed was that this book is indeed amazing and I would be reading many more Winterson books.
Which is why we reread I suppose, to better observe and understand as well as relieve the love for a good book. The Passion is a perfect book for this as it unlocks itself more upon each reading if only because there is so much going on expressed succinctly but unfolds into complex and expansive ideas when analyzed. The prose reaches to the stratosphere in its beauty but it also feels so refined and tightly packed, elegantly tracing its path through highly nuanced themes while knotting them all together for an overall emotional and cerebral impact. Add to that the elements of magic and the epic tones that drench the scenes of doomed romance and damned men and you’ll begin to gather how this novel so effectively can conquer your heart.
‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.’
There is an interesting dynamic to the magical realism at play within the novel. In the early pages we hear of fantastical events, such as the Venetian boatmen’s webbed feet, hearts in a jar outside a living body, or the Irish priest Patrick’s ‘eagle eye’ that can see a woman remove her clothes from miles away. We only experience these as unverified stories told to us, however, as the novel progresses these stories are often corroborated by secondary sources. Henri retrieves the heart and, to his surprise, discovers Villanelle’s story is literal and not a metaphor and Napoleon’s men pay a woman to stand five miles away in order to test Patrick’s vision claims. In all these instances another witness is also present: you, the reader. In a book about questioning faith, the magical realism elements are aspects you initially have no choice but to accept on faith in the framework of the novel and, much like a fairy tale, likely think of it as a flair of storytelling. By making the reader a witness in the moments these aspects are verified by other characters who had also questioned their validity, it grounds the novel into one about accepting and experiencing the fantastical as an aspect of everyday reality, to enter the realism hand-in-hand with the magical and find them one and the same.
Having the novel be rooted in historical fiction only doubles down on this effect and also allows the history to cast its weight into the tone and experience of the book. The major players, such as Napoleon, Josephine or the Czar, are minor characters here, positioning the story instead around the experience of marginalized voices—an army deserter and a bisexual woman in occupied territory—and returns history into the hands of common people. ‘We are a lukewarm people,’ Henri writes, ‘and our longing for freedom is our longing for love.’ The novel looks at the way history is shaped and rewritten through wars and conquests and the ways a political leader can rally an army to die for them, how social roles are embedded into society to perpetuate warmaking—such as Henri being told from a young age that ‘soldiering is a fine life for a boy—along with many other methods of nationalistic pride. This worldview shifts as the ghosts of fallen comrades haunt Henri and crack the veneer of his devotion to Napoleon, realizing the quest for power and territory was a game to the wealthy while the average citizen paid for it with their lives. ‘He was trying to found a dynasty,’ Henri reflects, ‘we were fighting for our lives.’ When 2,000 men die in a training exercise, 2,000 new recruits march in the next day because the powerful have found the strategy to manipulate others to die for them out of a feeling of passion.
‘We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much’
Henri writes ‘If we had the courage to love we would not so value these acts of war.’ In his youth he wished to have passion for religion and a belief in god. ‘Surely a god can meet passion with passion?’ he asks, but when he finds that intensity unmet in religion he unconsciously seeks out a new target for his passion and finds one in Napoleon Bonapart. As did many other young men who were willing to die for their leader. This is contrasted with Villanelle for whom the object of passion is a woman she cannot openly love and the inability to be consumed by her passion redirects her life to the ill wishes of abusive men and warmakers. This is a novel full of passion that becomes frustrated in the face of unrequited or impossible loves, and a search for purpose and meaning that extends beyond oneself.
The falling out of faith in Napoleon feels much like a falling away from religion as well as a falling out of love ‘I don’t want to worship him anymore,’ he writes, ‘I want to make my own mistakes. I want to die in my time.’ The opposite of passion is a hate that begins to consume him:
‘If the love was passion, the hate will be obsession. A need to see the once-loved weak and cowed and beneath pity. Disgust is close and dignity is far away. The hate is not only for the once-loved, it’s for yourself too; how could you have ever loved this?’
The falling away from Napoleon is entrenched in the realization that the powerful use the lives of those beneath them for their own purposes, and there is no end to their greed. ‘I thought he’d end wars forever,’ Henri muses on being duped when he realizes ‘one more and then there’ll be peace but it’s always one more.’ He also recognizes there is no end to wars once they begin, and victory means endlessly defending territory populated by those who hate you. The passionate intenisty of warmaking begins to be paralleled with the act of gambling in Villanelle’s storyline, in which she insists ‘gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness…some do it at the gambling table, some do not.’ She tells a story of a mysterious gambler, one of the most standout moments in the book, honestly, and the juxtaposition between war and gambling begins to truly shine.
‘In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is.’
A favorite aspect of this novel for me are the parallels and the interacting storylines. Henri speaks of living with ‘heartless men,’ a figurative expression he invests his thoughts into as he thinks of the hardness and loss of humanity he and his fellow soldiers experience in order to survive war and the ‘zero winter’ as they invade Russia.
’To survive zero winter and that war we made a pyre of our hearts and put them aside forever. There’s no pawnshop for the heart. You can’t take it in and leave it awhile in a clean cloth and redeem it in better times.’
This passage almost perfectly expresses Villanelle’s story, having her heart of fire in passion but then having to leave it outside herself. Literally. The two narratives inform upon each other in ways that enhance each theme, allow for a multitude of vantage points on the ideas and become a joint commentary greater than the sum of their convergences. The novel, told in retrospect, also charmingly finds certain lines of narration to be borrowed from other character’s speech when the storylines finally intersect. Henri’s musings on if no two snowflakes truly are the same early in the novel seems to have been informed by something Villanelle says when they meet: ‘’Snowflakes. Think of that.’ I did think of that and I fell in love with her.’ There is a lasting bond between characters that transcends even their words when we see their word choice being indebted to their feelings for the other.
‘To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.’
Speaking of words, there are some of the most beautiful passages on the idea of passion and love in this book. Winterson hits hard with some genuine gems:
‘I say I’m in love with her. What does that mean?
It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself.’
When Henri writes ‘When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself,’ we see the way he has absorbed Villanelle into himself, with her own words coming out through his ideas as he writes this novel decades after the events that transpire. It is her explaining him to himself, even if she does not know it.
‘Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the gambler’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.’
But the most moving aspect of the story is the love experienced by Villanelle and the tragic circumstances that keep her from being fulfilled. There is a longing that screams from the pages, a tenderness and trepidation that puts the reader right back to youthful moments of first love. ‘There is no sense in loving someone you can never wake up to except by chance,’ she fears, and the passages of their nine nights together are as beautiful as they are heart wrenching. Having read Winterson’s memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, one can’t help but wonder how much autobiography made it’s way into this character. The aspect that Villanelle is always in disguise—often in a mask, dressed as a boy or wearing a mustache—reflects her examination of herself and sexual identity. This is reflected as well in descriptions of Venice:
‘This is the city of disguises. What you are one day will not constrain you on the next. You may explore yourself freely and, if you have wit or wealth, no one will stand in your way.’
This passage acknowledges the class aspects that inform much of the novel and how being outside the upper echelons is a reduction in freedom, but also how much place and the people from there are reflections on each other in this book. Villanelle is very much the city itself, fluid and malleable from day to day. On my first read of this in college, Villanelle was the first character like this I had encountered and I identified with her immediately. Upon the reread I’ve continued to identify with her and would offer her up as one of my favorite literary characters ever, a character so compellingly easy to fall for.
‘Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost for ever. There's only now.’
Jeannette Winterson’s The Passion is an absolute favorite novel that, like the heart hidden in a jar, now contains my heart within its pages. It is a feast of emotions and insight, with passages that will stir every corner of your heart as well as your mind. The commentary on many types of passion, the meaning of love and faith, the rejection of endless wars, and more make up an extraordinary little novel that lives on in the reader much more substantially than the length of the book. I am happy to have reread this, relived the struggles alongside the character, and been dazzled by Winterson’s magic yet again.
5/5
‘To love someone else is to forget about yourself… through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.’
August 4, 2022
“In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.”
The Passion is the story of Henri, a young Frenchman sent to fight in the Napoleonic wars. It is also the story of Villanelle, a red-haired Venetian woman, daughter of a boatman, born with webbed feet. Their paths cross in Moscow and together, they flee from the grande armee and make their way to Venice.
Absolutely stunning! I am in awe at this brilliantly written piece of literature. Part magical realism, part historical fiction, part romance, with two wonderfully original and endearing characters. Written in such beautiful, poetic prose. I was completely drawn into the world the author creates so vividly. An absorbing adventure, with characters taken to the extreme. A mystical complex story of pain, suffering and passion! The tying together of the two story threads was so well done. An absolute masterpiece.
I'm ashamed to say that this was the first novel by Jeanette Winterson that I have read, but I will certainly seek out her other works.
My highest Recommendation.
“You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.”
The Passion is the story of Henri, a young Frenchman sent to fight in the Napoleonic wars. It is also the story of Villanelle, a red-haired Venetian woman, daughter of a boatman, born with webbed feet. Their paths cross in Moscow and together, they flee from the grande armee and make their way to Venice.
Absolutely stunning! I am in awe at this brilliantly written piece of literature. Part magical realism, part historical fiction, part romance, with two wonderfully original and endearing characters. Written in such beautiful, poetic prose. I was completely drawn into the world the author creates so vividly. An absorbing adventure, with characters taken to the extreme. A mystical complex story of pain, suffering and passion! The tying together of the two story threads was so well done. An absolute masterpiece.
I'm ashamed to say that this was the first novel by Jeanette Winterson that I have read, but I will certainly seek out her other works.
My highest Recommendation.
“You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.”
May 1, 2021
4.5 stars
“Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.”
Reading Jeanette Winterson’s prose is like soaking in the most luxurious bath. It’s warm and sensuous and leaves me feeling a bit light-headed once I’ve finished. It’s difficult to describe her writing. The one word that comes to mind immediately is magical. Of the four pieces I’ve read so far, the plot seems secondary to the prose, until I’ve finished. Then all of a sudden I’m able to see the beautiful tapestry she’s woven together. I nearly always start at the beginning and read through all the wondrous phrases I’ve highlighted all over again. And there are plenty of them! This is a story about passion and love in all its various forms, beginning with the Napoleonic Wars and the love of a country for its hero.
“He was in love with himself and France joined in. It was a romance. Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.”
Henri set off to war hoping to become a drummer. What he became instead was Bonaparte’s personal waiter. He follows this godlike figure faithfully, like the rest of his compatriots. His best friends include a diminutive groomsman and a defrocked priest. Eventually time reveals to Henri the blinders he’s worn for eight years, following a leader who perhaps wasn’t all he appeared to be at first. His illusions are crushed under the frigid snows of Russia.
“It’s the heart that betrays us, makes us weep, makes us bury our friends when we should be marching ahead. It’s the heart that sickens us at night and makes us hate who we are. It’s the heart that sings old songs and brings memories of warm days and makes us waver at another mile, another smouldering village… You can’t make sense of your passion for life in the face of death, you can only give up your passion. Only then can you begin to survive.”
Villanelle is the enchanting daughter of a Venetian boatman, working the casinos of this otherworldly city. She dresses as a boy to please the patrons of the gambling floor while assisting the dealers and lifting the wallets of the unsuspecting on the side. A dangerous love affair eventually catches up to her and Villanelle is the one that finds something precious has been stolen from her.
“How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange?... Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.”
Fate brings these two compelling characters together where their stories are shared and a deep friendship blooms. A bond is created between two lives and two very different backgrounds. What is one to do when a heart is lost to another that doesn’t return love in the same fashion? The pain is palpable and exquisitely written. The setting of Venice with its labyrinthine waterways and the island of the dead evokes an even more surreal feeling to the whole piece.
I adore Jeanette Winterson and her stories! I really can’t get enough of them. Written on the Body is my favorite so far, but this very nearly reaches the same level as that one for me. Highly recommended.
“Love, they say, enslaves and passion is a demon and many have been lost for love. I know this is true, but I know too that without love we grope the tunnels of our lives and never see the sun. When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself.”
“Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.”
Reading Jeanette Winterson’s prose is like soaking in the most luxurious bath. It’s warm and sensuous and leaves me feeling a bit light-headed once I’ve finished. It’s difficult to describe her writing. The one word that comes to mind immediately is magical. Of the four pieces I’ve read so far, the plot seems secondary to the prose, until I’ve finished. Then all of a sudden I’m able to see the beautiful tapestry she’s woven together. I nearly always start at the beginning and read through all the wondrous phrases I’ve highlighted all over again. And there are plenty of them! This is a story about passion and love in all its various forms, beginning with the Napoleonic Wars and the love of a country for its hero.
“He was in love with himself and France joined in. It was a romance. Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.”
Henri set off to war hoping to become a drummer. What he became instead was Bonaparte’s personal waiter. He follows this godlike figure faithfully, like the rest of his compatriots. His best friends include a diminutive groomsman and a defrocked priest. Eventually time reveals to Henri the blinders he’s worn for eight years, following a leader who perhaps wasn’t all he appeared to be at first. His illusions are crushed under the frigid snows of Russia.
“It’s the heart that betrays us, makes us weep, makes us bury our friends when we should be marching ahead. It’s the heart that sickens us at night and makes us hate who we are. It’s the heart that sings old songs and brings memories of warm days and makes us waver at another mile, another smouldering village… You can’t make sense of your passion for life in the face of death, you can only give up your passion. Only then can you begin to survive.”
Villanelle is the enchanting daughter of a Venetian boatman, working the casinos of this otherworldly city. She dresses as a boy to please the patrons of the gambling floor while assisting the dealers and lifting the wallets of the unsuspecting on the side. A dangerous love affair eventually catches up to her and Villanelle is the one that finds something precious has been stolen from her.
“How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange?... Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.”
Fate brings these two compelling characters together where their stories are shared and a deep friendship blooms. A bond is created between two lives and two very different backgrounds. What is one to do when a heart is lost to another that doesn’t return love in the same fashion? The pain is palpable and exquisitely written. The setting of Venice with its labyrinthine waterways and the island of the dead evokes an even more surreal feeling to the whole piece.
I adore Jeanette Winterson and her stories! I really can’t get enough of them. Written on the Body is my favorite so far, but this very nearly reaches the same level as that one for me. Highly recommended.
“Love, they say, enslaves and passion is a demon and many have been lost for love. I know this is true, but I know too that without love we grope the tunnels of our lives and never see the sun. When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself.”
August 15, 2024
Dans le Noir
“A blind pedlar… never spilt his stew or missed his mouth the way I did. ‘I can see,’ he said, ‘but I don’t use my eyes.’”
I recently ate unknown food, served in total darkness, by blind waiters.
It was an intense and disorienting experience. Boundaries break down: you touch the stranger who guides you to your seat, talk to invisible people sitting beside you (how un-English!), can’t judge or be judged by looks or clothing, and are tempted to eat with your fingers, despite the cutlery you feel before you. Phones and even watches must be locked away before you enter, so you lose sense of time as well as place.
Deprived of vision, your other senses are more intense. But surprisingly, this makes it harder to recognise what you are eating, not easier. You taste a medley of familiar (and delicious) flavours, but their individual identities are oddly elusive. Names only spring to mind where shape or texture are unique (scallops, figs, and pomegranate seeds).
Reading this early Winterson was similar. I’m not sure if it’s a good book, and I’m not even sure I understood it, but it was a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed.
“I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable… Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart… the Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air… Lie still at night and Dark is soft to the touch.”
Masked kiss - image source: http://www.holidaypirates.com/media/i...
Not the Plot
This is set in the Napoleonic wars, and told in four parts: The Emperor (narrated by Henri, a kitchen hand and faithful server of Bonaparte), The Queen of Spades (narrated by Villanelle, a web-footed, Venetian boatman’s daughter who cross dresses, works in a casino, and picks pockets), The Zero Winter (French troops trudging through Russia, narrated by Henri), and The Rock (set in Venice, and narrated by both).
But the reading experience is not really about a linear narrative with its sprinkling of magic and occasional forays into the philosophy of passion and love.
Just indulge your senses.
That’s what Venice requires.
That's what passion demands.
Invented, Magical, Invisible City?
Venice is portrayed as invented, magical, invisible and more, and hence reminded me strongly of Calvino’s Invisible Cities:
• In the introduction, Winterson explains, “My own cities were invented; cities of language, cities of connection, words as gang-ways and bridges to the cities of the interior where the coin was not money, where it was emotion.”
• “Arriving at Venice by sea, as one must, is like seeing an invented city rise up and quiver in the air. It is a trick of the early light to make the buildings shimmer so that they seem never still.”
• “There is a city surrounded by water with watery alleys that do for streets and roads and silted up back ways that only the rats can cross.”
• “This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route.”
• “Although wherever you’re going is always in front of you there is no such thing as straight ahead.”
• “The city I come from is a changeable city. It is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.”
• “I come from the city of mazes… but if you ask me a direction I will tell you straight ahead.”
• “’I need a map.’
‘It won’t help. This is a living city. Things change.’”
Liturgy
This is a strange, mystical, and eponymously passionate book, with recurring lines that are almost liturgical. Sometimes the exact same word or phrase is repeated, but other times they weave a subtly different route every time, like the enchanted streets and canals of the city itself, especially these variations:
• “Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.”
• “Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.”
• “Man cannot live without passion. Religion is somewhere between fear and sex.”
• "In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is."
Passion is... elusive, but where IS it? Everywhere, nowhere, or in a parallel realm?
THE Passion
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The title has the definite article (“The Passion”, not just any old passion), which makes one think of Jesus’ crucifixion. Winterson’s infamous Pentecostal upbringing (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?) means this is no accident, and yet the connection is more subtle than the title leads you to expect.
There are Biblical allusions (some think Bonaparte might be the Son of God, and like Samuel, “He’ll call you”) and references to “basking” in the glow of a church or religion you don’t believe in, but most of the passion is fiercely carnal.
Kaleidoscopic Cornucopia
With a browser and laptop, you'll see key words in bold; with a phone app, I don't think you will.
• “Surely a god can meet passion with passion?”
• “We’re a lukewarm people.”
• “They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true… how could we ever recover from the wonder of it?”
• “I would have preferred a burning Jesuit, perhaps then I might have found the extasy I needed to believe.”
• “Romance is not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.”
• Recruits have to “gather up their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.”
• “The King and Queen had no care for us, except as revenue and scenery.”
• “Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind.”
• Stories and even diaries are not, need not, be true: “The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then.” If stories make people happy, “Why not?”
• Non-believers can bask in the trappings of religion:
“longing for strong arms an certainty and quiet holiness around.”
• “In the dark you are in disguise and this is the city of disguises.”
• “We don’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water… A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place.”
• “To kiss well one must kiss solely… The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure.”
• “There’s no dark like it. It’s soft to the touch and heavy in the hands. You can open your mouth and let it sink into you till it makes a close ball in your belly. You can juggle with it, dodge it, swim in it. You can open it like a door.”
• “Bridges join but they also separate.”
• “’Will you kill people, Henri?’…
‘Not people… just the enemy.’
‘What is enemy?’
‘Someone who’s not on your side.’”
• Kissing only: “The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”
• “Up she went, closing the dark behind her.”
• “How is it that one day life is orderly and content… and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travellers at least have a choice… We who were fluent find life is a foreign language.”
• “Is every snowflake different? No one knows.”
• “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side… We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.”
• “We gamble with the hope of winning but it’s the thought of what we might lose that excites us.”
• “I like passion, I like to be among the desperate.”
• “’They’re all different… snowflakes. Think of that.’ I did think of that and I fell in love with her.”
• “A true gambler… prepared to risk the valuable, fabulous thing.”
• “Fingertips that had the feel of boils bursting… whose hands crept over her body like crabs.”
• “Why would people who love the grape and the sun die in the zero winter for one man? Why did I? Because I love him. He was my passion and when we go to war, we feel we are not a lukewarm people any more.”
• “Being with her was like pressing your eye to a particularly vivid kaleidoscope.”
• “Beware of old enemies in new disguises.”
• “I say I’m in love with her. What does this mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains myself to me.”
• “Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the gambler’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.”
• “The cities of the interior are vast and do not lie on any map.”
• “The one who took your heart wields final power.”
• “When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up” and only “devilish choices” are offered: give up the familiar to follow it, juggle, or “refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house, however tame it might seem at first…So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.”
• “This is the city of disguises. What you are one day will not constrain you on the next.”
• “What am I interested in? Passion. Obsession… The dividing line is as thin and cruel as a Venetian knife.”
• What is freedom? “To love someone else is to forget about yourself… through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.”
• “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side… We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.”
• "You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
As a wise man said, “Love is akin to risk”.
Take a chance on passion.
See also
For a magical short story about the power of flavours to transport - in more ways than one - see Tina Connolly's The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections, which I reviewed HERE.
“A blind pedlar… never spilt his stew or missed his mouth the way I did. ‘I can see,’ he said, ‘but I don’t use my eyes.’”
I recently ate unknown food, served in total darkness, by blind waiters.
It was an intense and disorienting experience. Boundaries break down: you touch the stranger who guides you to your seat, talk to invisible people sitting beside you (how un-English!), can’t judge or be judged by looks or clothing, and are tempted to eat with your fingers, despite the cutlery you feel before you. Phones and even watches must be locked away before you enter, so you lose sense of time as well as place.
Deprived of vision, your other senses are more intense. But surprisingly, this makes it harder to recognise what you are eating, not easier. You taste a medley of familiar (and delicious) flavours, but their individual identities are oddly elusive. Names only spring to mind where shape or texture are unique (scallops, figs, and pomegranate seeds).
Reading this early Winterson was similar. I’m not sure if it’s a good book, and I’m not even sure I understood it, but it was a rich, kaleidoscopic, and confusing carnal feast that I enjoyed.
“I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable… Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart… the Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air… Lie still at night and Dark is soft to the touch.”
Masked kiss - image source: http://www.holidaypirates.com/media/i...
Not the Plot
This is set in the Napoleonic wars, and told in four parts: The Emperor (narrated by Henri, a kitchen hand and faithful server of Bonaparte), The Queen of Spades (narrated by Villanelle, a web-footed, Venetian boatman’s daughter who cross dresses, works in a casino, and picks pockets), The Zero Winter (French troops trudging through Russia, narrated by Henri), and The Rock (set in Venice, and narrated by both).
But the reading experience is not really about a linear narrative with its sprinkling of magic and occasional forays into the philosophy of passion and love.
Just indulge your senses.
That’s what Venice requires.
That's what passion demands.
Invented, Magical, Invisible City?
Venice is portrayed as invented, magical, invisible and more, and hence reminded me strongly of Calvino’s Invisible Cities:
• In the introduction, Winterson explains, “My own cities were invented; cities of language, cities of connection, words as gang-ways and bridges to the cities of the interior where the coin was not money, where it was emotion.”
• “Arriving at Venice by sea, as one must, is like seeing an invented city rise up and quiver in the air. It is a trick of the early light to make the buildings shimmer so that they seem never still.”
• “There is a city surrounded by water with watery alleys that do for streets and roads and silted up back ways that only the rats can cross.”
• “This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route.”
• “Although wherever you’re going is always in front of you there is no such thing as straight ahead.”
• “The city I come from is a changeable city. It is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.”
• “I come from the city of mazes… but if you ask me a direction I will tell you straight ahead.”
• “’I need a map.’
‘It won’t help. This is a living city. Things change.’”
Liturgy
This is a strange, mystical, and eponymously passionate book, with recurring lines that are almost liturgical. Sometimes the exact same word or phrase is repeated, but other times they weave a subtly different route every time, like the enchanted streets and canals of the city itself, especially these variations:
• “Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny.”
• “Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.”
• “Man cannot live without passion. Religion is somewhere between fear and sex.”
• "In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is."
Passion is... elusive, but where IS it? Everywhere, nowhere, or in a parallel realm?
THE Passion
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The title has the definite article (“The Passion”, not just any old passion), which makes one think of Jesus’ crucifixion. Winterson’s infamous Pentecostal upbringing (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?) means this is no accident, and yet the connection is more subtle than the title leads you to expect.
There are Biblical allusions (some think Bonaparte might be the Son of God, and like Samuel, “He’ll call you”) and references to “basking” in the glow of a church or religion you don’t believe in, but most of the passion is fiercely carnal.
Kaleidoscopic Cornucopia
With a browser and laptop, you'll see key words in bold; with a phone app, I don't think you will.
• “Surely a god can meet passion with passion?”
• “We’re a lukewarm people.”
• “They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true… how could we ever recover from the wonder of it?”
• “I would have preferred a burning Jesuit, perhaps then I might have found the extasy I needed to believe.”
• “Romance is not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life.”
• Recruits have to “gather up their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.”
• “The King and Queen had no care for us, except as revenue and scenery.”
• “Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind.”
• Stories and even diaries are not, need not, be true: “The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then.” If stories make people happy, “Why not?”
• Non-believers can bask in the trappings of religion:
“longing for strong arms an certainty and quiet holiness around.”
• “In the dark you are in disguise and this is the city of disguises.”
• “We don’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water… A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place.”
• “To kiss well one must kiss solely… The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure.”
• “There’s no dark like it. It’s soft to the touch and heavy in the hands. You can open your mouth and let it sink into you till it makes a close ball in your belly. You can juggle with it, dodge it, swim in it. You can open it like a door.”
• “Bridges join but they also separate.”
• “’Will you kill people, Henri?’…
‘Not people… just the enemy.’
‘What is enemy?’
‘Someone who’s not on your side.’”
• Kissing only: “The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”
• “Up she went, closing the dark behind her.”
• “How is it that one day life is orderly and content… and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travellers at least have a choice… We who were fluent find life is a foreign language.”
• “Is every snowflake different? No one knows.”
• “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side… We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.”
• “We gamble with the hope of winning but it’s the thought of what we might lose that excites us.”
• “I like passion, I like to be among the desperate.”
• “’They’re all different… snowflakes. Think of that.’ I did think of that and I fell in love with her.”
• “A true gambler… prepared to risk the valuable, fabulous thing.”
• “Fingertips that had the feel of boils bursting… whose hands crept over her body like crabs.”
• “Why would people who love the grape and the sun die in the zero winter for one man? Why did I? Because I love him. He was my passion and when we go to war, we feel we are not a lukewarm people any more.”
• “Being with her was like pressing your eye to a particularly vivid kaleidoscope.”
• “Beware of old enemies in new disguises.”
• “I say I’m in love with her. What does this mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains myself to me.”
• “Pleasure on the edge of danger is sweet. It’s the gambler’s sense of losing that makes winning an act of love.”
• “The cities of the interior are vast and do not lie on any map.”
• “The one who took your heart wields final power.”
• “When passion comes late in life for the first time, it is harder to give up” and only “devilish choices” are offered: give up the familiar to follow it, juggle, or “refuse the passion as one might sensibly refuse a leopard in the house, however tame it might seem at first…So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.”
• “This is the city of disguises. What you are one day will not constrain you on the next.”
• “What am I interested in? Passion. Obsession… The dividing line is as thin and cruel as a Venetian knife.”
• What is freedom? “To love someone else is to forget about yourself… through the flesh we are set free. Our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.”
• “I longed for feeling though I could not have told you that. Words like passion and extasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what’s on the other side… We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.”
• "You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
As a wise man said, “Love is akin to risk”.
Take a chance on passion.
See also
For a magical short story about the power of flavours to transport - in more ways than one - see Tina Connolly's The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections, which I reviewed HERE.
March 28, 2018
"Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness.
We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not.
You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
Jeanette Winterson is one of those authors I am constantly surprised at. "The Passion" is my favourite so far (update: before reading Sexing the Cherry, which is even more fascinating). There is something magical in her way of weaving the stories of her characters, and showing different angles of the central theme: passion. I do generally not like historical fiction, but in this case, the setting in Napoleonic Europe adds tremendously to the ideas she develops - in her own, very special language.
One main thought, repeated several times over the course of the story, haunts me ever since I read it for the first time: "Between fear and sex is passion". That strikes me as the sad truth of the human condition, a valid explanation for many women's choice to trust themselves to violent, unreliable men. Those men represent such stuff as dreams are made on, and nightmares as well.
To save themselves, the protagonists have to make the decision to renounce the passion that is too hurtful to endure. Beautiful fiction! Must-read!
We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not.
You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play."
Jeanette Winterson is one of those authors I am constantly surprised at. "The Passion" is my favourite so far (update: before reading Sexing the Cherry, which is even more fascinating). There is something magical in her way of weaving the stories of her characters, and showing different angles of the central theme: passion. I do generally not like historical fiction, but in this case, the setting in Napoleonic Europe adds tremendously to the ideas she develops - in her own, very special language.
One main thought, repeated several times over the course of the story, haunts me ever since I read it for the first time: "Between fear and sex is passion". That strikes me as the sad truth of the human condition, a valid explanation for many women's choice to trust themselves to violent, unreliable men. Those men represent such stuff as dreams are made on, and nightmares as well.
To save themselves, the protagonists have to make the decision to renounce the passion that is too hurtful to endure. Beautiful fiction! Must-read!
January 22, 2016
"Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags, and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently
wished consummation. They do not stroke the favored cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner,
your poetry, will go wrong".
A small book to be experienced!
Historical setting: Venice...Napoleonic era
Luscious..eccentric storytelling with offbeat passionate themes: gender & identity...
physical deformation....mental illness....war... prostitution...gambling...always stories
and always love!
Magical realism at is best....beautiful and powerful!
*A special thanks to Cecily.....who turned me on to this book!
wished consummation. They do not stroke the favored cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner,
your poetry, will go wrong".
A small book to be experienced!
Historical setting: Venice...Napoleonic era
Luscious..eccentric storytelling with offbeat passionate themes: gender & identity...
physical deformation....mental illness....war... prostitution...gambling...always stories
and always love!
Magical realism at is best....beautiful and powerful!
*A special thanks to Cecily.....who turned me on to this book!
May 17, 2013
There is little I can say about this book that does not border on gushing, but I'll try. The Passion is perhaps one of the most amazing stories I have ever read. It is not so much a novel as a journey through the mind and soul of Henri and Villanelle, through the real and ephemeral Venice, through history and imagination. While containing a solid narrative, it delves into the psyche and spirit of the writer and her characters. Read it once and you are trapped. Read it twice and you gladly relinquish your freedom.
The story follows Henri, cook and horse groomsman for Napoleon Bonaparte, as the conqueror's army moves across Europe and Henri discovers that life is so much more than working for the highly particular self-styled overlord. We also meet Villanelle, a wonderful Venetian who makes gender seems as fluid as the water in the canals of La Serenissima. Through the consequence of Fate these two meet at one point, and their lives, strange and wonderful already, are never to be the same. In the midst of it all, Love is explored as a force of creation and destruction, as that unique impetus that can make or break a person, and how it is all one and the same.
This is the fourth time I have read it, and every single time it casts the same spell on me, sucking me into the world that the pages, only letting me go after a fierce struggle. What I love about The Passion is that, after four times around the block, it still captivates and surprises me. With each reading, it reveals a new layer you did not see the time before, and only hints at all the wonderful mysteries it still holds for you. It is exhilarating to think that there is so much still waiting for me there, whenever I come back. And come back to it I will...
This is a book that is not so much read as experienced; by the time the last page is turned, you are a different being. Revel in it.
May 16, 2013: Read it overnight, a fifth time, and still love it as much as ever.
The story follows Henri, cook and horse groomsman for Napoleon Bonaparte, as the conqueror's army moves across Europe and Henri discovers that life is so much more than working for the highly particular self-styled overlord. We also meet Villanelle, a wonderful Venetian who makes gender seems as fluid as the water in the canals of La Serenissima. Through the consequence of Fate these two meet at one point, and their lives, strange and wonderful already, are never to be the same. In the midst of it all, Love is explored as a force of creation and destruction, as that unique impetus that can make or break a person, and how it is all one and the same.
This is the fourth time I have read it, and every single time it casts the same spell on me, sucking me into the world that the pages, only letting me go after a fierce struggle. What I love about The Passion is that, after four times around the block, it still captivates and surprises me. With each reading, it reveals a new layer you did not see the time before, and only hints at all the wonderful mysteries it still holds for you. It is exhilarating to think that there is so much still waiting for me there, whenever I come back. And come back to it I will...
This is a book that is not so much read as experienced; by the time the last page is turned, you are a different being. Revel in it.
May 16, 2013: Read it overnight, a fifth time, and still love it as much as ever.
December 3, 2015
Jeanette Winterson pops up from time to time on BBC political debate programmes and she is like a laser beam of sensibleness, from a decidedly rad-lesbian perspective she cuts through the waffle and she's a joy to hear, Germaine Greer's punkier young sister maybe. But in her books she goes off on one, to coin a British phrase :
to go off on one (Brit; colloq.)
to suddenly become very angry and start shouting or behaving violently, as in
He went off on one because he thought I was threatening his dog
JW doesn't go off on one violently, but wildly and artistically. She pins you against the wall and rants in this really wonderful poetic prose style. Leaving aside the autobiographical stuff (which is great) I've read two of her actual novels, this one and Sexing the Cherry, and each time I was like you sometimes get in a movie like Fellini Satyricon or Last Year at Marienbad - you whisper to the person you came with hey, do you know what's goin on here? Who's she? Is he supposed to be the bad guy? Is that guy her father? Who are all those people ? and if your friend says I was just about to ask you, I have no clue what's goin on then you can say Let's leg it to the pub, this is auteurist codswallop but us readers, we can't do that. If I say something to this effect to my cat Hatter, he just yawns back at me and mutters pal, I've never read a book in my life. I don't know why you're wasting your time like that when you could be sleeping.
to go off on one (Brit; colloq.)
to suddenly become very angry and start shouting or behaving violently, as in
He went off on one because he thought I was threatening his dog
JW doesn't go off on one violently, but wildly and artistically. She pins you against the wall and rants in this really wonderful poetic prose style. Leaving aside the autobiographical stuff (which is great) I've read two of her actual novels, this one and Sexing the Cherry, and each time I was like you sometimes get in a movie like Fellini Satyricon or Last Year at Marienbad - you whisper to the person you came with hey, do you know what's goin on here? Who's she? Is he supposed to be the bad guy? Is that guy her father? Who are all those people ? and if your friend says I was just about to ask you, I have no clue what's goin on then you can say Let's leg it to the pub, this is auteurist codswallop but us readers, we can't do that. If I say something to this effect to my cat Hatter, he just yawns back at me and mutters pal, I've never read a book in my life. I don't know why you're wasting your time like that when you could be sleeping.
November 20, 2021
Forgive me for this: there are few books I find myself loving with a passion these days, and this may just be one of them. To think it sat on my shelf for years before I picked it up. The Passion is Angela Carter meets Beryl Bainbridge, but it lacks the bawdy humor present in these ladies' books. It doesn't lack humor, but it treats its subject--love--with great seriousness. Is love worthy of such seriousness? I guess I tend to take a plenty of fish in the sea view, but makes for a nice story, anyway. Like The Viceroy of Ouidah or The Blue Flower, it is one of the rarities that is concise historical fiction. The way the story alternates between its narrators, Henri and Villanelle, reminds me of Wide Sargasso Sea--another favorite--and there is even a touch of madness thrown in. It checks all the boxes--as I needed any more reason to love literary Venice--including a PRIDE month read. 🏳️🌈
May 9, 2023
In this tale of passion, Jeanette Winterson contrasts two characters bringing into view the shaded nuances of differing sides of passion. Henri is a boy from the French countryside; his people are slow to love, lukewarm. He lacks confidence and represents innocence. It takes the fire of Napoleon’s war to stir his passion but when stirred it will adhere him to Napoleon’s side for eight long years and lead to the fateful winter of 1812. Nearly a million soldiers and civilians are left dead within six months that frigid winter when the French army marches on Moscow. The war robs Henri of his innocence and introduces him to violence and the duplicitous ways of mankind.
Another side of passion is revealed by our second main character, Villanelle, the red headed daughter of a boatman in Venice. Only the sons of boatmen are supposed to have webbed feet, but Villanelle comes into the world with webbed feet. Born during a solar eclipse, even her red hair expresses her passion. Venice is the backdrop for her flowering personality, which takes on some of the qualities of that “City of Water,” also known as “City of Masks.” Villanelle has a lot of self-confidence and isn't afraid to take life as it comes.
Since Bonaparte captured our city of mazes in 1797, we’ve more or less abandoned ourselves to pleasure. What else is there to do when you’ve lived a proud and free life and suddenly you’re not proud and free any more? We became an enchanted island for the mad, the rich, the bored, the perverted. Our glory days were behind us but our excess was just beginning.
Villanelle will dress as a boy and work in a casino at a card table. In this way, Winterson explores gender fluidity. After all, her webbed feet were supposed to belong to the male boatmen. Villanelle enjoys the games of chance at the casino but we can see that this thrill…is it passion…bleeds over into her daily life. At the card table she meets her great love, a woman with grey-green eyes and dark red hair. Villanelle wonders whether to reveal her true gender.
Jeanette Winterson’s prose is like a poetic dream but one that never loses the thread of story. Like a sculptor with words, she shapes a form that soars and plummets, that adds and subtracts, drawing out the curves and nuances of humanity in all its sordid grandeur. She looks at the messy, rough, hard shape of us but doesn’t neglect the luminous, the terrible, the magnificent, the numinous…her words create an uplifting emotion, much of which comes from the sheer beauty of her thoughts strung like philosophical jewels, little shiny bread crumbs that could lead to a witch’s house or a sublime haven, I’m not sure which, but I’m going either way.
This story of passion boils over into tragedy. Finally Henri has had enough. Villanelle gets caught in a sticky web. A story of war, love, games, and disguises might reveal God or possibly the Devil.
Travellers at least have a choice. Those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home. Explorers are prepared. But for us, who travel along the blood vessels, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation. We who were fluent find life is a foreign language. Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.
Winterson refers to the cities of the interior several times, mentioning that there is no map for the interior. This seems like the mind, where you can have grand adventures and travel great distances without ever leaving your home. You can also get lost there and never find your way out. Villanelle traveled the interior canals of Venice through intuition and many years of experience.
This is a story that could be read a hundred times and never get old. Labeled as historical metafiction, magical realism is also present. I loved it!
Another side of passion is revealed by our second main character, Villanelle, the red headed daughter of a boatman in Venice. Only the sons of boatmen are supposed to have webbed feet, but Villanelle comes into the world with webbed feet. Born during a solar eclipse, even her red hair expresses her passion. Venice is the backdrop for her flowering personality, which takes on some of the qualities of that “City of Water,” also known as “City of Masks.” Villanelle has a lot of self-confidence and isn't afraid to take life as it comes.
Since Bonaparte captured our city of mazes in 1797, we’ve more or less abandoned ourselves to pleasure. What else is there to do when you’ve lived a proud and free life and suddenly you’re not proud and free any more? We became an enchanted island for the mad, the rich, the bored, the perverted. Our glory days were behind us but our excess was just beginning.
Villanelle will dress as a boy and work in a casino at a card table. In this way, Winterson explores gender fluidity. After all, her webbed feet were supposed to belong to the male boatmen. Villanelle enjoys the games of chance at the casino but we can see that this thrill…is it passion…bleeds over into her daily life. At the card table she meets her great love, a woman with grey-green eyes and dark red hair. Villanelle wonders whether to reveal her true gender.
Jeanette Winterson’s prose is like a poetic dream but one that never loses the thread of story. Like a sculptor with words, she shapes a form that soars and plummets, that adds and subtracts, drawing out the curves and nuances of humanity in all its sordid grandeur. She looks at the messy, rough, hard shape of us but doesn’t neglect the luminous, the terrible, the magnificent, the numinous…her words create an uplifting emotion, much of which comes from the sheer beauty of her thoughts strung like philosophical jewels, little shiny bread crumbs that could lead to a witch’s house or a sublime haven, I’m not sure which, but I’m going either way.
This story of passion boils over into tragedy. Finally Henri has had enough. Villanelle gets caught in a sticky web. A story of war, love, games, and disguises might reveal God or possibly the Devil.
Travellers at least have a choice. Those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home. Explorers are prepared. But for us, who travel along the blood vessels, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation. We who were fluent find life is a foreign language. Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.
Winterson refers to the cities of the interior several times, mentioning that there is no map for the interior. This seems like the mind, where you can have grand adventures and travel great distances without ever leaving your home. You can also get lost there and never find your way out. Villanelle traveled the interior canals of Venice through intuition and many years of experience.
This is a story that could be read a hundred times and never get old. Labeled as historical metafiction, magical realism is also present. I loved it!
August 6, 2007
To my surprise? I'm kind of disappointed in it. The New York Times review of it says that it "dares you to laugh and stares you down." Unfortunately, I'm just laughing. She's trying so hard to be profound with these statements, and 9 out of 10 times it doesn't quite work. The book is filled with cliches and trite conclusions that are just so hackneyed (actual example: death and darkness are like each other...wow! Have you noticed that??) Her attempt to be Marquez fails quite badly, unfortunately. I am okay with basic points, but I just need them to be expressed in a more nuanced way. I mean, Ulysses a canonical classic and its message is about love and family.
She did have a few really good lines. But she would immediately follow up those good lines with groan worthy ridiculousness for the next thirty pages. I really wanted to like this. Everyone said it was right up my alley. I was ready to love it. I doggedly tried to. And yet... meh. I was disappointed that I found it nothing more than below-average with a few glimmers of good.
She did have a few really good lines. But she would immediately follow up those good lines with groan worthy ridiculousness for the next thirty pages. I really wanted to like this. Everyone said it was right up my alley. I was ready to love it. I doggedly tried to. And yet... meh. I was disappointed that I found it nothing more than below-average with a few glimmers of good.
February 5, 2022
حالا فکر میکنم که آزاد بودن نه برخورداری از قدرت، ثروت، احترام یا اسیر نبودن در چنگ جبر، بلکه توانایی برای عشق ورزیدن است. آزاد بودن یعنی اینکه آنقدر عاشق دیگری باشی که حتی برای یک لحظه هم که شده خودت را فراموش کنی.
✏️
کتابی که خواندم داستان عجیب و غریبی از یک سرباز و دختری قایقران بود. یک داستان افسانهای در شهری جادویی، ونیز!
آنری سربازی است که در آشپزخانهی افس��ها کار و در جنگ خدمت میکند. ویلانل دختری سرخمو و ماجراجوی ونیزی است که پاهای عجیبش وجه تمایز اوست.
داستان به طور موازی از زبان این دو پیش میرود.
آنری مورد توجه بناپارت است و داستان گذری هم به وقایع تاریخی جنگ فرانسه دارد.
✏️
کتاب با نثری شاعرانه و دوستانه برای من از آن دست کتابهایی بود که ذهنم را درگیر کرد؛ چراکه قهرمانان داستان در پی یافتن معنایی برای زندگی و عشق هستند و دچار چالشها و جدالهایی روحی میشوند.
در هر پاراگراف شاهد جملاتی زیبا از عشق، قمار و زندگی، طمع و ظلم هستیم که در عین وضوح میدرخشیدند.
درست زمانیکه کتاب به سمت یکنوا��تی میرفت، به پایان رسید و در کل من کتاب رو دوست داشتم.
✏️
کتابی که خواندم داستان عجیب و غریبی از یک سرباز و دختری قایقران بود. یک داستان افسانهای در شهری جادویی، ونیز!
آنری سربازی است که در آشپزخانهی افس��ها کار و در جنگ خدمت میکند. ویلانل دختری سرخمو و ماجراجوی ونیزی است که پاهای عجیبش وجه تمایز اوست.
داستان به طور موازی از زبان این دو پیش میرود.
آنری مورد توجه بناپارت است و داستان گذری هم به وقایع تاریخی جنگ فرانسه دارد.
✏️
کتاب با نثری شاعرانه و دوستانه برای من از آن دست کتابهایی بود که ذهنم را درگیر کرد؛ چراکه قهرمانان داستان در پی یافتن معنایی برای زندگی و عشق هستند و دچار چالشها و جدالهایی روحی میشوند.
در هر پاراگراف شاهد جملاتی زیبا از عشق، قمار و زندگی، طمع و ظلم هستیم که در عین وضوح میدرخشیدند.
درست زمانیکه کتاب به سمت یکنوا��تی میرفت، به پایان رسید و در کل من کتاب رو دوست داشتم.
April 20, 2019
A magical book. The story of the French country boy Henri who was personally picked by Napoleon Bonaparte to be his special chicken cook and Villanelle, the adventurous red-haired daughter of a Venetian boatsman whose feet are webbed, but she cannot swim. They escape Napoleon’s army at the siege of Moscow and make their way to Venice where they meet their separate fates. It is wonderful to see Venice through the eyes of Henri, who gets lost for days on end and is almost convinced that the churches and mansions of Venice can change positions overnight. Venice does give that feeling! Jeanette Winterson pictures Venice as a city where one is constantly lost and so are the hearts and minds of her protagonists. I enjoyed this lovely book and recommend it wholeheartedly.
October 23, 2019
Εκλεπτυσμένο Πάθος. Ανίερο. Ανίκητο. Ηδονικό. Αποτελούμενο απο συστατικά ψυχής και ερείπια ονείρων, απο εκρήξεις επιθυμιών και ελπίδων
που δεν βρίσκουν διέξοδο στην καθημερινή ζωή,
ούτε συμβιβάζονται μπροστά στα μνήματα των προθέσεων μας.
Μόνο τα μεγάλα δράματα του πάθους οδηγούν αναίσχυντα σε δάση με δηλητηριασμένα ποτάμια
και σιωπηλά πουλιά.
Μόνο τα τραγικά παθιασμένα πυροτεχνήματα της ρομαντικής λαγνείας μπορούν να παραμείνουν στο μηδέν της αιωνιότητας, αλλάζοντας χρώματα στα φεγγάρια των παράλληλων κόσμων,
κανοντας έρωτα στην μέθεξη των κολασμένων ναών, εκεί που τα κορμιά βουτάνε στην εξαΰλωση
και τα μυαλά τραγουδούν την σονάτα της παράνοιας, έχοντας αρνηθεί μετά βδελυγμίας κάθε είδους υπόδειξη του πεπρωμένου.
Πρόκειται για ένα εκπληκτικό βιβλίο, απο τα λίγα που γράφονται στο πέρασμα των χρόνων και μπορούν παθιασμένα να αξιώσουν μονιμότητα στις επίσημες θέσεις των εννοιών της τέχνης.
Ποιητικό, λαμπερό, ειπωμένο σαν παλιός θρύλος, σαν σκοτεινό παραμύθι, πολυεπίπεδο και μυθοπλαστικά πρωτότυπο.
Αχαλίνωτος συμβολισμός μα κρυστάλλινα ξεκάθαρος,
σε μια απλή ποιητική γλώσσα, παθιασμένη σαν αγκαλιά τρυφερή με τους χτύπους της καρδιάς και σκληρή σαν ματωμένη πληγή νεκρού στολισμένη με αγκάθια απο τους καρπούς του πολέμου.
Η Ουίντερσον γνωρίζει με διαολεμένη ευφυΐα πότε να χαθεί στον λαβύρινθο του πάθους της ύπαρξης και πότε να λυτρωθεί με ένα τελικό θαύμα στο παθητικό παιχνίδι του μυθιστορήματος.
Το «Πάθος»λαμβάνει χώρα κατά την διάρκεια των ναπολεόντειων πολέμων τέλη 18ου, αρχές 19ου αιώνα. Ακολουθεί την ζωή δυο ιερά καταραμένων πλασμάτων.
Ο ένας, ήταν νεαρός εραστής των ειδωλολατρικών παραδόσεων.
Έφθασε με επιτυχία στην τρέλα, κατρακυλώντας την ζωή του μέσα στην ιστορία μας, απο τα άγονα χωράφια της γαλλικής επαρχίας που τον ανέθρεψε και μεταφέροντας σε συσκευασία ονείρου, μυρωδιές απο αγάπη σκορπισμένη σε νωπά άχυρα, και χυλό βρώμης που ψηνόταν απο τα χάδια και τις ευχές της μητέρα του, στην Ρωσία του Γάλλου πολέμαρχου, που ακολούθησε πιστά με παραπλανητικό πάθος.
Εκεί, τα έκανε οράματα, για να αρωματίζει τις νιφάδες χιονιού, αυτές, που αποδεικνύουν την μαγεία της πλάσης με την σχηματική τους ανομοιότητα, αυτές, που κάλυπταν το αίμα των ηρώων πολέμου και έδιναν λάμψη στην γοητεία της απάτης του Ναπολέοντα.
Ήταν ο σερβιτόρος του στρατηλάτη που έγινε είδωλο αγάπης και μίσους,
όταν ξημέρωσε και δεν φάνηκε ποτέ ο δεύτερος ήλιος που θα φώτιζε την ματωμένη αυτοκρατορία του.
Το άλλο πλάσμα είναι μια μυστηριώδη, λάγνα, κοκκινομάλλα γυναίκα, κατάγεται απο την πόλη του σατανά, την Βενετία, και μπορεί να περπατήσει πάνω στο νερό της λιμνοθάλασσας και να οδηγήσει την γόνδολα του θανάτου σε νησάκια αχαρτογράφητα,
με μνήματα και ιερές κατάρες.
Χάρισε την καρδιά της σε μια άλλη γυναίκα που ερωτεύτηκε με «πάθος» και την έχασε, απο το παθιασμένο παιχνίδι της μοίρας, των μύθων, της θρησκείας και της θυσίας.
Πόσο απαράμιλλα υπέροχη είναι σε αυτές τις αφηγηματικές καταστάσεις η αίσθηση της λεπτής ομορφιάς και της έντονης μελαγχολίας.
Οι δυο ιστορίες τρέχουν παράλληλα στο πρώτο μισό του βιβλίου, για να συναντηθούν και να γίνουν ένα, στο δεύτερο μισό.
Το «πάθος» παρακινεί κάθε έναν απο τους χαρακτήρες για διαφορετικούς λόγους, επιτρέποντας στον εκστασιασμένο αναγνώστη να διερευνήσει τις επιθυμίες και τις ανάγκες που καταναλώνουν τα ανθρώπινα πλάσματα.
Η Ουίντερσον ψεκάζοντας με δροσιά μαγικού ρεαλισμού σταγόνες φτιαγμένες απο λέξεις και φαντασία καταφέρνει να κάνει μια ιστορία παγκόσμιας έκκλησης, αξέχαστη και βαθιά στοχαστική.
Αιχμαλώτισε την πεζογραφία τοποθετώντας την σε μαγικές αιώνες πόλεις που περιβάλλουν τον χρόνο, αυτόν που ανακαλύπτει την φαντασία και πλάθει γλυκόπικρες πειραματικές εμπειρίες πάθους με άφθονο πόνο και αρκετή χαρά
Συναρπαστικό, συγκινητικό, λυρικό και μαγευτικό αυτό το ταξίδι της ανακάλυψης.
💥💥💥💥💥
💋💕
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς
που δεν βρίσκουν διέξοδο στην καθημερινή ζωή,
ούτε συμβιβάζονται μπροστά στα μνήματα των προθέσεων μας.
Μόνο τα μεγάλα δράματα του πάθους οδηγούν αναίσχυντα σε δάση με δηλητηριασμένα ποτάμια
και σιωπηλά πουλιά.
Μόνο τα τραγικά παθιασμένα πυροτεχνήματα της ρομαντικής λαγνείας μπορούν να παραμείνουν στο μηδέν της αιωνιότητας, αλλάζοντας χρώματα στα φεγγάρια των παράλληλων κόσμων,
κανοντας έρωτα στην μέθεξη των κολασμένων ναών, εκεί που τα κορμιά βουτάνε στην εξαΰλωση
και τα μυαλά τραγουδούν την σονάτα της παράνοιας, έχοντας αρνηθεί μετά βδελυγμίας κάθε είδους υπόδειξη του πεπρωμένου.
Πρόκειται για ένα εκπληκτικό βιβλίο, απο τα λίγα που γράφονται στο πέρασμα των χρόνων και μπορούν παθιασμένα να αξιώσουν μονιμότητα στις επίσημες θέσεις των εννοιών της τέχνης.
Ποιητικό, λαμπερό, ειπωμένο σαν παλιός θρύλος, σαν σκοτεινό παραμύθι, πολυεπίπεδο και μυθοπλαστικά πρωτότυπο.
Αχαλίνωτος συμβολισμός μα κρυστάλλινα ξεκάθαρος,
σε μια απλή ποιητική γλώσσα, παθιασμένη σαν αγκαλιά τρυφερή με τους χτύπους της καρδιάς και σκληρή σαν ματωμένη πληγή νεκρού στολισμένη με αγκάθια απο τους καρπούς του πολέμου.
Η Ουίντερσον γνωρίζει με διαολεμένη ευφυΐα πότε να χαθεί στον λαβύρινθο του πάθους της ύπαρξης και πότε να λυτρωθεί με ένα τελικό θαύμα στο παθητικό παιχνίδι του μυθιστορήματος.
Το «Πάθος»λαμβάνει χώρα κατά την διάρκεια των ναπολεόντειων πολέμων τέλη 18ου, αρχές 19ου αιώνα. Ακολουθεί την ζωή δυο ιερά καταραμένων πλασμάτων.
Ο ένας, ήταν νεαρός εραστής των ειδωλολατρικών παραδόσεων.
Έφθασε με επιτυχία στην τρέλα, κατρακυλώντας την ζωή του μέσα στην ιστορία μας, απο τα άγονα χωράφια της γαλλικής επαρχίας που τον ανέθρεψε και μεταφέροντας σε συσκευασία ονείρου, μυρωδιές απο αγάπη σκορπισμένη σε νωπά άχυρα, και χυλό βρώμης που ψηνόταν απο τα χάδια και τις ευχές της μητέρα του, στην Ρωσία του Γάλλου πολέμαρχου, που ακολούθησε πιστά με παραπλανητικό πάθος.
Εκεί, τα έκανε οράματα, για να αρωματίζει τις νιφάδες χιονιού, αυτές, που αποδεικνύουν την μαγεία της πλάσης με την σχηματική τους ανομοιότητα, αυτές, που κάλυπταν το αίμα των ηρώων πολέμου και έδιναν λάμψη στην γοητεία της απάτης του Ναπολέοντα.
Ήταν ο σερβιτόρος του στρατηλάτη που έγινε είδωλο αγάπης και μίσους,
όταν ξημέρωσε και δεν φάνηκε ποτέ ο δεύτερος ήλιος που θα φώτιζε την ματωμένη αυτοκρατορία του.
Το άλλο πλάσμα είναι μια μυστηριώδη, λάγνα, κοκκινομάλλα γυναίκα, κατάγεται απο την πόλη του σατανά, την Βενετία, και μπορεί να περπατήσει πάνω στο νερό της λιμνοθάλασσας και να οδηγήσει την γόνδολα του θανάτου σε νησάκια αχαρτογράφητα,
με μνήματα και ιερές κατάρες.
Χάρισε την καρδιά της σε μια άλλη γυναίκα που ερωτεύτηκε με «πάθος» και την έχασε, απο το παθιασμένο παιχνίδι της μοίρας, των μύθων, της θρησκείας και της θυσίας.
Πόσο απαράμιλλα υπέροχη είναι σε αυτές τις αφηγηματικές καταστάσεις η αίσθηση της λεπτής ομορφιάς και της έντονης μελαγχολίας.
Οι δυο ιστορίες τρέχουν παράλληλα στο πρώτο μισό του βιβλίου, για να συναντηθούν και να γίνουν ένα, στο δεύτερο μισό.
Το «πάθος» παρακινεί κάθε έναν απο τους χαρακτήρες για διαφορετικούς λόγους, επιτρέποντας στον εκστασιασμένο αναγνώστη να διερευνήσει τις επιθυμίες και τις ανάγκες που καταναλώνουν τα ανθρώπινα πλάσματα.
Η Ουίντερσον ψεκάζοντας με δροσιά μαγικού ρεαλισμού σταγόνες φτιαγμένες απο λέξεις και φαντασία καταφέρνει να κάνει μια ιστορία παγκόσμιας έκκλησης, αξέχαστη και βαθιά στοχαστική.
Αιχμαλώτισε την πεζογραφία τοποθετώντας την σε μαγικές αιώνες πόλεις που περιβάλλουν τον χρόνο, αυτόν που ανακαλύπτει την φαντασία και πλάθει γλυκόπικρες πειραματικές εμπειρίες πάθους με άφθονο πόνο και αρκετή χαρά
Συναρπαστικό, συγκινητικό, λυρικό και μαγευτικό αυτό το ταξίδι της ανακάλυψης.
💥💥💥💥💥
💋💕
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς
January 12, 2024
“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligations but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”This is a magical book about a french soldier who cooks chicken for Napolean and a cross-dressing Italian boatwoman/casino dealer/courtesan who— Already I have given too much away. I went into this totally blind; I recommend you do the same. Not that there is anything to spoil; only that I had so much fun finding my bearings. Here is how it begins:
“It was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept his chefs working around the clock. What a kitchen that was, with birds in every state of undress; some still cold and slung over hooks, some turning slowly on the spit, but most in wasted piles because the Emperor was busy.Now, don’t you want to keep reading? I promise you, it only gets better and better!
Odd to be so governed by an appetite.
It was my first commission. I started as a neck wringer and before long I was the one who carried the platter through inches of mud to his tent. He liked me because I am short. I flatter myself. He did not dislike me. He liked no one except Joséphine and he liked her the way he liked chicken.”
December 22, 2020
The Passion is my introduction to Winterson's writing and it couldn't have been more auspicious.
This was original, imaginative and beautifully written. Set in the 1800s during Napoleon's reign, The Passion is written via two POVs, from Henry, a young French peasant who becomes Napoleon's butcher; the other perspective comes from a cunning, cross-dressing Venician woman, Villanette, who was quite adventurous.
At some point, their paths cross.
The plot wasn't the biggest jewel in the crown. The writing was evocative, lyrical, passionate and sensual. Winterson's talent shone through.
I'm looking forward to reading more by her.
This was original, imaginative and beautifully written. Set in the 1800s during Napoleon's reign, The Passion is written via two POVs, from Henry, a young French peasant who becomes Napoleon's butcher; the other perspective comes from a cunning, cross-dressing Venician woman, Villanette, who was quite adventurous.
At some point, their paths cross.
The plot wasn't the biggest jewel in the crown. The writing was evocative, lyrical, passionate and sensual. Winterson's talent shone through.
I'm looking forward to reading more by her.
November 12, 2017
Somewhere between fear and sex passion is.
This short novel packs in so much beauty in the intersecting stories of French soldier Henri and daughter of a Venetian boatman, Villanelle. Winterson is a sage, a poet, with each scene, each paragraph containing gorgeous words about love, and the gamble of life and choices made.
Set in the times of the Napoleonic wars, Henri was selected by Bonaparte himself to prepare and serve his nightly chicken. He did this with devotion, and saw horrific death, suffering, and disappointment which was rampant among the French devotees to Napoleon's cause. Villanelle is a web footed, free spirit. How I loved being immersed in her labyrinthine Venice. When the two stories intersect, oh my heart! Such beauty, such pain, such passion.
4.5 stars
Sequester my heart. Wherever love is, I want to be, I will follow it as surely as the land-locked salmon finds the sea.
Passion will not be commanded. It is no genie to grant us three wishes when we let it loose. It commands us and very rarely in the way we would choose.
This short novel packs in so much beauty in the intersecting stories of French soldier Henri and daughter of a Venetian boatman, Villanelle. Winterson is a sage, a poet, with each scene, each paragraph containing gorgeous words about love, and the gamble of life and choices made.
Set in the times of the Napoleonic wars, Henri was selected by Bonaparte himself to prepare and serve his nightly chicken. He did this with devotion, and saw horrific death, suffering, and disappointment which was rampant among the French devotees to Napoleon's cause. Villanelle is a web footed, free spirit. How I loved being immersed in her labyrinthine Venice. When the two stories intersect, oh my heart! Such beauty, such pain, such passion.
4.5 stars
Sequester my heart. Wherever love is, I want to be, I will follow it as surely as the land-locked salmon finds the sea.
Passion will not be commanded. It is no genie to grant us three wishes when we let it loose. It commands us and very rarely in the way we would choose.
March 19, 2019
This might be a simple case of bad timing: sometimes, you will cross paths with a book and quite simply not be in the mood for it. After hearing so many praises for Jeanette Winterson’s work, I was very curious, and after reading a big fat book set in the Napoleonic era, I figured an itty-bitty one in the same setting could be a nice change of pace.
The story of Henri and Villanelle is written in lovely, poetic prose, but somehow, it left me wanting. Wanting what exactly, I couldn’t tell you. What I do know is that I flipped the last page of “The Passion” feeling like I had been tricked. There was something that struck me as disingenuous and pretentious about the book: I think I was expecting something really deep and moving from this book, and what I got was a paddling pool of unfocused and immature feelings.
This fell disappointingly flat for me. Bummer.
The story of Henri and Villanelle is written in lovely, poetic prose, but somehow, it left me wanting. Wanting what exactly, I couldn’t tell you. What I do know is that I flipped the last page of “The Passion” feeling like I had been tricked. There was something that struck me as disingenuous and pretentious about the book: I think I was expecting something really deep and moving from this book, and what I got was a paddling pool of unfocused and immature feelings.
This fell disappointingly flat for me. Bummer.
June 10, 2018
The Passion is an intense kaleidoscope of a novel- an intertwining narrative of a solider and a Venetian woman during the Napoleonic Wars. This could be a thick historical novel but it is concentrated into a mere 160 pages. This is my first experience reading Jeannette Winterson and it won't be my last. Wintersons' writing is so vivid, it shimmers on the page.
June 20, 2017
I was not sure where this book was headed when I began, and I'm not sure where I landed at the end, but I do know I enjoyed the journey. This is only my second Jeanette Winterson book, and the first one was Christmas themed short stories. I enjoyed it enough to look for more, and picked this one up at a used book sale.
In this novel, you simply ride along on a river of magical prose until, every page or two, you hit the rapids with an awesome sentence or idea that whirls you around and leaves you breathless. A fairy tale of sorts about Henri, a Frenchman who was Napoleon's personal food server, and Villanelle, the daughter of a boatman in Venice, a magical city. How they meet in the Russian winter that defeated Napoleon is a story of gambling, passion, love and hate, cruelty and greed.
Winterson is 2 for 2 with me now. I'm off to find more.
In this novel, you simply ride along on a river of magical prose until, every page or two, you hit the rapids with an awesome sentence or idea that whirls you around and leaves you breathless. A fairy tale of sorts about Henri, a Frenchman who was Napoleon's personal food server, and Villanelle, the daughter of a boatman in Venice, a magical city. How they meet in the Russian winter that defeated Napoleon is a story of gambling, passion, love and hate, cruelty and greed.
Winterson is 2 for 2 with me now. I'm off to find more.
January 4, 2015
I don't even know where to begin with this, so I'll likely keep it brief. Basically all I can say is that Jeanette Winterson is officially my next obsession, that I'm absolutely thrilled that my adviser recommended her to me, and that this is one of the most invigorating novels I've read in a long time. Winterson reminds me a bit of Angela Carter here-not that they write in the same way, but in that they use magic and intertextuality in similar ways, and that each have a very blunt aesthetic that hits the reader's gut with a great deal of force.
I had to restrain myself and make sure I wasn't highlighting every last word-for they're all powerful, and I often found myself reading passages aloud to anyone close enough to listen. Henri and Villanelle are close enough to touch, the language is startling, the inquiries are brilliant, and the landscapes grab hold of you and don't let go. I'm not coherent writing of this, so the best I can say is that EVERYONE should read this. It's in-fucking-credible.
I had to restrain myself and make sure I wasn't highlighting every last word-for they're all powerful, and I often found myself reading passages aloud to anyone close enough to listen. Henri and Villanelle are close enough to touch, the language is startling, the inquiries are brilliant, and the landscapes grab hold of you and don't let go. I'm not coherent writing of this, so the best I can say is that EVERYONE should read this. It's in-fucking-credible.
January 16, 2023
✔️ داستانی خلق شده در اعماق تاریخ و جنگ های ناپلئون با چاشنی عشق و قمار و جنون !
✔️ شاعرانه و زیبا نوشته شده و در نوع خودش نثر زیبا و خواندنی داره .
✔️ نوشتن در مورد احساسات انسان کار راحتی نیست . تقریبا نویسنده خوب از عهده ش براومده اما همچنان #داستایفسکی رو برترین نویسنده در توصیف احساسات و فضاسازی میدونم ❤️
📖 بریده ای از کتاب :
عشاق درست سر بزنگاه در بهترین وضعیتشان نیستند دهانها خشک می،شود کف دستها عرق میکند گفت و گوها ملال آور میشود و قلب آدم طوری میکوبد که میترسی یک بار برای همیشه پر بکشد و از کالبدت خارج .شود دیده شده که عشاق دچار حمله قلبی میشوند از روی اضطراب بیش از حد مینوشند و نمیتوانند عملکرد خوبی داشته باشند. از خوردو خوراک میافتند و در میعادگاه وصال آتشینشان از هوش می روند گربه ی مورد علاقه ی معشوقشان را نوازش نمیکنند و آرایششان خراب میشود. این همه اش نیست لباسشان ،شامشان شعرشان و تمام چیزهای ارزشمندشان خراب میشود ...
🗯 پ.ن : استفاده از دو راوی به جذابیت کتاب کمک کرده اما اواخر کتاب داشت یکمی برام خسته کننده میشه و در کل نیمه ی اول رو پربار تر میدونم .
🗓 01/10/26
✔️ شاعرانه و زیبا نوشته شده و در نوع خودش نثر زیبا و خواندنی داره .
✔️ نوشتن در مورد احساسات انسان کار راحتی نیست . تقریبا نویسنده خوب از عهده ش براومده اما همچنان #داستایفسکی رو برترین نویسنده در توصیف احساسات و فضاسازی میدونم ❤️
📖 بریده ای از کتاب :
عشاق درست سر بزنگاه در بهترین وضعیتشان نیستند دهانها خشک می،شود کف دستها عرق میکند گفت و گوها ملال آور میشود و قلب آدم طوری میکوبد که میترسی یک بار برای همیشه پر بکشد و از کالبدت خارج .شود دیده شده که عشاق دچار حمله قلبی میشوند از روی اضطراب بیش از حد مینوشند و نمیتوانند عملکرد خوبی داشته باشند. از خوردو خوراک میافتند و در میعادگاه وصال آتشینشان از هوش می روند گربه ی مورد علاقه ی معشوقشان را نوازش نمیکنند و آرایششان خراب میشود. این همه اش نیست لباسشان ،شامشان شعرشان و تمام چیزهای ارزشمندشان خراب میشود ...
🗯 پ.ن : استفاده از دو راوی به جذابیت کتاب کمک کرده اما اواخر کتاب داشت یکمی برام خسته کننده میشه و در کل نیمه ی اول رو پربار تر میدونم .
🗓 01/10/26
September 6, 2022
Beautiful, moving, magical, incredible.
September 30, 2022
My third time reading it and even better than I remember it. I've got a soft spot for Jeanette Winterson's writing. There something very unique and emersive about it that I haven't found anywhere else. This is a short book but in its own way a masterpiece. Feel like doing a Jeanette Winterson reading binge after this
December 17, 2022
I’m a sucker for magical realism and this book was just wonderful
December 2, 2021
I loved this book. It’s not long, and it’s an easy read (you don’t need to be a literary critic to enjoy it!), but the style and world are so marvellous, I wanted to linger. There is history and love, but it’s not a historical romance.
In spite of some magical realism, it’s not really a fantasy either. In those days, unusual or exceptional talents may have been attributed to magic, so the lines between what’s supposed to be real and what the characters have imagined are pretty blurry.
It’s the very early 1800s, when Napoleon is rising to power and sacrificing his troops to foreign armies and the Russian winter. Our hero, Henri, adores him and has caught the great man’s eye, so he works in the “kitchen” (tent), where he gets a bit of food and warmth, while anyone who’s managed to escape horrific slaughter on the battlefield starves and freezes to death instead.
Meanwhile, Villanelle, our heroine (the author takes us back and forth), the wild young daughter of a Venetian boatman, roams the casinos, the alleys, and along the canals of Venice, picking pockets, carousing, and attracting trouble. She has inherited the webbed feet characteristic only of boatmen’s sons, which may account for her habit of cross-dressing and her unique talent for navigating the shifting canals and hidden streets.
Of course, Henri and Villanelle eventually cross paths. Their stories are full of love and loathing, revenge and murder, and although there are no happy endings, there are some understandable, satisfying conclusions.
Winterson’s writing is exceptional. Here, you can see that even our mysterious heroine, in spite of her special senses, is not immune to the terrors of the night.
“I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable. . . I don’t know why it is that one kind of dark can be so different from another. Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart. It gets in your eyes. When I have to be out late at night, it’s not knives and kicks I’m afraid of, though there are plenty of those behind walls and hedges. I’m afraid of the Dark. You, who walk so cheerfully, whistling your way, stand still for five minutes. Stand still in the Dark in a field or down a track. It’s then you know you’re there on sufferance. The Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air.”
In spite of some magical realism, it’s not really a fantasy either. In those days, unusual or exceptional talents may have been attributed to magic, so the lines between what’s supposed to be real and what the characters have imagined are pretty blurry.
It’s the very early 1800s, when Napoleon is rising to power and sacrificing his troops to foreign armies and the Russian winter. Our hero, Henri, adores him and has caught the great man’s eye, so he works in the “kitchen” (tent), where he gets a bit of food and warmth, while anyone who’s managed to escape horrific slaughter on the battlefield starves and freezes to death instead.
Meanwhile, Villanelle, our heroine (the author takes us back and forth), the wild young daughter of a Venetian boatman, roams the casinos, the alleys, and along the canals of Venice, picking pockets, carousing, and attracting trouble. She has inherited the webbed feet characteristic only of boatmen’s sons, which may account for her habit of cross-dressing and her unique talent for navigating the shifting canals and hidden streets.
Of course, Henri and Villanelle eventually cross paths. Their stories are full of love and loathing, revenge and murder, and although there are no happy endings, there are some understandable, satisfying conclusions.
Winterson’s writing is exceptional. Here, you can see that even our mysterious heroine, in spite of her special senses, is not immune to the terrors of the night.
“I like the early dark. It’s not night. It’s still companionable. . . I don’t know why it is that one kind of dark can be so different from another. Real dark is thicker and quieter, it fills up the space between your jacket and your heart. It gets in your eyes. When I have to be out late at night, it’s not knives and kicks I’m afraid of, though there are plenty of those behind walls and hedges. I’m afraid of the Dark. You, who walk so cheerfully, whistling your way, stand still for five minutes. Stand still in the Dark in a field or down a track. It’s then you know you’re there on sufferance. The Dark only lets you take one step at a time. Step and the Dark closes round your back. In front, there is no space for you until you take it. Darkness is absolute. Walking in the Dark is like swimming underwater except you can’t come up for air.”
January 28, 2011
After reading all the glowing reviews and then tackling the book for myself, I felt kind of like the child that wonders why the emperor has no clothes on. Everyone else can see the elaborate costume, why can't I?
Usually I can understand the love of a critically acclaimed book even if it's not my cup of tea but the writing in The Passion is something I just can't get past. This is an entire book of life changing ponders like "Is every snowflake different? No one knows," and repetitions of other brilliant adages in the attempt to make them seem more meaningful the third time around(spoiler alert: it didn't work). This book felt like a pretentious eight-year-old could have written it. And pretentious eight-year-olds are a nightmare.
But of course, this is just how it felt to me. "To me" the book fell flat, "to me" the writing felt self-conscious and pretentious. If you enjoyed the book, if it changed your life, I'm glad. Honestly, with so many people finding merit in this book I'm inclined to admit that I must be the one who is wrong.
The emperor has gorgeous clothes on. I just can't see them.
Usually I can understand the love of a critically acclaimed book even if it's not my cup of tea but the writing in The Passion is something I just can't get past. This is an entire book of life changing ponders like "Is every snowflake different? No one knows," and repetitions of other brilliant adages in the attempt to make them seem more meaningful the third time around(spoiler alert: it didn't work). This book felt like a pretentious eight-year-old could have written it. And pretentious eight-year-olds are a nightmare.
But of course, this is just how it felt to me. "To me" the book fell flat, "to me" the writing felt self-conscious and pretentious. If you enjoyed the book, if it changed your life, I'm glad. Honestly, with so many people finding merit in this book I'm inclined to admit that I must be the one who is wrong.
The emperor has gorgeous clothes on. I just can't see them.
September 30, 2022
"Я оповідаю казки. Вірте мені"
Пронизливо, химерно і сумно. Витонченість тексту конкурує тільки з його майстерністю. Якщо матиму змогу колись повернутися до нього, пірну в нього як в м’яку перину.
«Я спитав його, чому він став священником, і він відповів, що коли вже працюєш на когось, то найкраще, щоб твій хазяїн був завжди відсутній.»
Коли вже знаєш сюжет, помітнішою стає словесна гра. Якщо ж хочеться гри настільної, розкішне українське видання вам і таке дозвілля гарантує (прямо посеред книги!).
п.с. Переклад дивовижний, не могла не відмітити!
Пронизливо, химерно і сумно. Витонченість тексту конкурує тільки з його майстерністю. Якщо матиму змогу колись повернутися до нього, пірну в нього як в м’яку перину.
«Я спитав його, чому він став священником, і він відповів, що коли вже працюєш на когось, то найкраще, щоб твій хазяїн був завжди відсутній.»
Коли вже знаєш сюжет, помітнішою стає словесна гра. Якщо ж хочеться гри настільної, розкішне українське видання вам і таке дозвілля гарантує (прямо посеред книги!).
п.с. Переклад дивовижний, не могла не відмітити!
June 24, 2022
I've had trouble putting a review of this book into words. It's one of those serendipitous finds that will stay in my mind for a long time, probably destined to become one of my all-time-favourites. I've since purchased my own copy of the book to enable re-reading.
Driving to one of my daughter's post-school commitments one day, I happened to hear part of an interview with Mark Seymour, frontman of perennial Australian rock group Hunters & Collectors. He was relating the story of how he'd written the band's iconic song "Holy Grail" after being inspired by reading a slim volume set during Napoleon's march on Moscow, a story that resonated with him as the band were at the time struggling to break into the US music market. The book he was referring to was The Passion. I was sufficiently intrigued to immediately place a request for the book at my local library, and collected it a week or so later.
Seymour is right (and here I'm paraphrasing the lyrics of his song) - "it's a short song [book], but it's a hell of a story". Within the first page, I realised this was a book to be luxuriated through, not rushed. The prose is lyrical and occasionally complex, and I found myself placing sticky tabs next to memorable passages. By the time I finished the book, there was a veritable paper forest spilling out the side of the pages.
I won't go into the plot specifically, as the story is so much more than that - it is a real exploration of the characters and the varying nature of passion - for a person, an ideal, a place - its birth, sustenance and decline. Having recently visited Venice, I found the author's homage to that city beautiful and nostalgic, all the more an achievement as apparently she'd yet to set eyes on the city herself at the time she wrote this book.
I'm not sure The Passion would be to everyone's taste, and you've probably got to be in a receptive headspace to make the most of it, but it's definitely one I'll cherish for a long time and look forward to re-reading soon.
Driving to one of my daughter's post-school commitments one day, I happened to hear part of an interview with Mark Seymour, frontman of perennial Australian rock group Hunters & Collectors. He was relating the story of how he'd written the band's iconic song "Holy Grail" after being inspired by reading a slim volume set during Napoleon's march on Moscow, a story that resonated with him as the band were at the time struggling to break into the US music market. The book he was referring to was The Passion. I was sufficiently intrigued to immediately place a request for the book at my local library, and collected it a week or so later.
Seymour is right (and here I'm paraphrasing the lyrics of his song) - "it's a short song [book], but it's a hell of a story". Within the first page, I realised this was a book to be luxuriated through, not rushed. The prose is lyrical and occasionally complex, and I found myself placing sticky tabs next to memorable passages. By the time I finished the book, there was a veritable paper forest spilling out the side of the pages.
I won't go into the plot specifically, as the story is so much more than that - it is a real exploration of the characters and the varying nature of passion - for a person, an ideal, a place - its birth, sustenance and decline. Having recently visited Venice, I found the author's homage to that city beautiful and nostalgic, all the more an achievement as apparently she'd yet to set eyes on the city herself at the time she wrote this book.
I'm not sure The Passion would be to everyone's taste, and you've probably got to be in a receptive headspace to make the most of it, but it's definitely one I'll cherish for a long time and look forward to re-reading soon.
January 23, 2018
"Somewhere between fear and sex passion is. Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny."
This is only my second Jeanette Winterson novel, and holy shit, she did not disappoint.
This is a short read, but as I was devouring this book, it felt quite a bit longer.
The Passion, follows two protagonists in their search for love and passion. That sounds pretty dull right? Wrong!! Winterson's writing style is captivating and unique, and it's not alike to anything I've read before. She explores gender, sexuality, passion and with this she expertly combines magical realism, some slight humour and historical fiction.
This is such an unusual read. Some may even call it an oddity. Considering Winterson was not even thirty years old when she wrote this, I am hugely impressed. She shows such knowledge about history, love and life.
I strongly believe this is a book that contains layers. Each time I read this book, I will uncover a new layer that I had yet to uncover before.
This is only my second Jeanette Winterson novel, and holy shit, she did not disappoint.
This is a short read, but as I was devouring this book, it felt quite a bit longer.
The Passion, follows two protagonists in their search for love and passion. That sounds pretty dull right? Wrong!! Winterson's writing style is captivating and unique, and it's not alike to anything I've read before. She explores gender, sexuality, passion and with this she expertly combines magical realism, some slight humour and historical fiction.
This is such an unusual read. Some may even call it an oddity. Considering Winterson was not even thirty years old when she wrote this, I am hugely impressed. She shows such knowledge about history, love and life.
I strongly believe this is a book that contains layers. Each time I read this book, I will uncover a new layer that I had yet to uncover before.
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