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The World and Other Places
In this, her first collection of short stories, Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. In prose that is full of imagery and word-play, she creates physical and psychological worlds that are at once familiar and yet shockingly strange.
242 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 2, 1998
106 people are currently reading
2210 people want to read
About the author
Jeanette Winterson
128 books7,844 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews
April 24, 2016
You read a Jeanette Winterson story and immediately grasp its every word, its every angst, its every quirk. At one point you sympathize with a character or see yourself suddenly living in her magically-woven world. You taste intimacy in her prose. You get spellbound by the vividness of her wild imaginings—whether it’s about wanting a dog you will not adopt, a man and a woman on a cruise, a world where sleep is prohibited, an island king who wears a crown made of coal, or a pet tortoise named Psalms that drowns in the sea.
You don’t know how you’ve managed to interpret her language; you just do.
You can understand her forever, but cannot translate her to others.
***
My thoughts on this book?
Humorous. Insightful. Eccentric. In that order.
Three words I can’t even rationalize. But if you love Jeanette Winterson like I do, then perhaps you’ll understand why.
You don’t know how you’ve managed to interpret her language; you just do.
You can understand her forever, but cannot translate her to others.
***
My thoughts on this book?
Humorous. Insightful. Eccentric. In that order.
Three words I can’t even rationalize. But if you love Jeanette Winterson like I do, then perhaps you’ll understand why.
November 21, 2008
rhythmic. no solid beginning or endings.
felt dangerous somehow.
felt dangerous somehow.
July 24, 2012
I'm sure you all know the drill by now: I have difficulty with Jeanette Winterson. I'm pretty resigned to that now, though. I buy her books knowing that I'm going to love the words and have difficulty chasing the meanings; this time in particular I just sat back and let the prose-poetry wash over me, the images sometimes slapping me into paying that bit more attention, getting me with sharp edges by surprise.
Jeanette Winterson's collection of short stories is very characteristically her writing, and more so, distilled. If you find it hard to get a grip on her novels, it'll be harder to get a hold on these -- but then you might be able to approach them better as poetry.
Jeanette Winterson's collection of short stories is very characteristically her writing, and more so, distilled. If you find it hard to get a grip on her novels, it'll be harder to get a hold on these -- but then you might be able to approach them better as poetry.
January 14, 2020
تعجبني ونترسن فيما تكتب، تمزج الأسطورة والفلسفة والخيال والحكايات الخرافية والفكاهة، فيكون المزيج فريدًا لا يشبه أحدًا ولا يشبه شيئًا!!
July 25, 2016
An eccentric ragbag of stories, with some gems and some that flew by me. Winterson's work is as always is for me a "thing of threads and patches". My favourites are the simple less embroidered ones like the one about the dog who had to go back because he was too emotionally demanding. She is however a dazzling technician. I particularly like her use of metaphor and simile and classical allusion. She has the ability to entrance
June 4, 2024
Whenever I think of Jeanette Winterson I think of her more renowned works, such as Written on the Body (A firm favourite) or The Passion. This short story collection seems too short for my tastes, but I'm pretty biased, as I love Winterson, and I was rather envious of a Goodreads friend that went to the Hay Festival a week or so ago, and not only did he meet Winterson, he managed to get a hug from her, too!
This was a wonderfully poetic collection of stories, strangely intense at times, disjointedly delicious, but still, not quite hitting the mark of her novels. Again, for me, I think this is to do with my greediness for her words; it's kind of never enough.
I enjoyed the way Winterson writes as a person that is always on the outside looking in, never feeling like that person belongs living in normality, with only being able to escape through the mind. This is magical, and somehow rather soothing, too. I like it a lot.
I'm still very glad that I was introduced to Winterson and her intimate prose all those years ago, and over the years of experiencing her words, sometimes repeatedly, I have been spellbound by the extent of her imagination, the way she turns the almost everyday ordinary into something entirely wild that I can also taste is phenomenal.
(I still owe you that coffee, Jeanette.)
This was a wonderfully poetic collection of stories, strangely intense at times, disjointedly delicious, but still, not quite hitting the mark of her novels. Again, for me, I think this is to do with my greediness for her words; it's kind of never enough.
I enjoyed the way Winterson writes as a person that is always on the outside looking in, never feeling like that person belongs living in normality, with only being able to escape through the mind. This is magical, and somehow rather soothing, too. I like it a lot.
I'm still very glad that I was introduced to Winterson and her intimate prose all those years ago, and over the years of experiencing her words, sometimes repeatedly, I have been spellbound by the extent of her imagination, the way she turns the almost everyday ordinary into something entirely wild that I can also taste is phenomenal.
(I still owe you that coffee, Jeanette.)
June 6, 2017
I keep going back and forth on this collection. Four stars? Three and a half? All of these stories are told at least 75% in metaphor; many of them are nothing but. And when they're good they're very very good: incisive, clarifying, occasionally transcendent. A few stories (The Poetics of Sex, Orion, Psalms) were just like... ugh, god. Astonishing. But when they're bad they're... well. The sort of self-indulgent stream-of-consciousness wankery that comes out when you're free-writing trying to clear writer's block? I don't know, I'm trying to learn to be more receptive to more experimental/"non-traditional" short story structures, but in those cases I need a lot more poetry than what's on offer here. Or maybe I'm just too much of a philistine to get all the nuance. Sorry, Jeanette Winterson. It's not you, it's me.
August 2, 2016
As I was already a fan of Jeanette Winterson’s novels, I decided to try something a little different of hers: a volume of short stories. The World and Other Places is Winterson’s first collection, and I was incredibly interested to see how the genre suited her writing style.
There are a lot of different styles at play here; we have fairytale-esque shorts, those told from the perspective of men, stories set within imagined vistas, and real world slices of life to name but a few. That said, the tales within The World and Other Places are a little too varied; there is no sense of cohesion between them, and reading them feels like rather a jarring process in consequence.
Winterson is both an intelligent and perceptive author, but despite this, I was not entirely enamoured with the collection. There was no particular story which really stood out for me, or which I enjoyed, even. Nothing felt quite as strong as I had supposed it would; the characters are flat, and the backdrops are shadowy and not quite realistic. The World and Other Places is neither as interesting nor as engaging as I find her longer fiction. I love the way in which Winterson writes, but I cannot help but think that she is far better suited to longer literary forms in which she is able to fully exercise her prowess. Whilst I still really want to read the rest of her novels, I shall happily hang fire on any other short story collections which she has published to date.
There are a lot of different styles at play here; we have fairytale-esque shorts, those told from the perspective of men, stories set within imagined vistas, and real world slices of life to name but a few. That said, the tales within The World and Other Places are a little too varied; there is no sense of cohesion between them, and reading them feels like rather a jarring process in consequence.
Winterson is both an intelligent and perceptive author, but despite this, I was not entirely enamoured with the collection. There was no particular story which really stood out for me, or which I enjoyed, even. Nothing felt quite as strong as I had supposed it would; the characters are flat, and the backdrops are shadowy and not quite realistic. The World and Other Places is neither as interesting nor as engaging as I find her longer fiction. I love the way in which Winterson writes, but I cannot help but think that she is far better suited to longer literary forms in which she is able to fully exercise her prowess. Whilst I still really want to read the rest of her novels, I shall happily hang fire on any other short story collections which she has published to date.
May 25, 2024
obsessed with her writing style
June 25, 2023
it maybe could of been more stars, had my edition not been old and dusty and made me have an allergic reaction every time I picked it up. the most unenjoyable reading experience I think I’ve ever had
July 13, 2025
“All of one’s life is a struggle towards that; the narrow path between freedom and belonging. I have sometimes sacrificed freedom in order to belong, but more often I have given up all hope of belonging.”
Pure magic, I adored Winterson's writing as much as always. There is something so profoundly real about her prose. From the travellers "dressed in history" to the "reluctant darkness" of a summer's evening, her writing is vivid, full of life and feeling. Though I am not usually a fan of short stories, I think Winterson's prose is well-suited to this form. My favourite stories were Disappearance I and II, which have this wonderful nomadic feeling to them.
Pure magic, I adored Winterson's writing as much as always. There is something so profoundly real about her prose. From the travellers "dressed in history" to the "reluctant darkness" of a summer's evening, her writing is vivid, full of life and feeling. Though I am not usually a fan of short stories, I think Winterson's prose is well-suited to this form. My favourite stories were Disappearance I and II, which have this wonderful nomadic feeling to them.
May 11, 2011
"It was a solo experience even when there were two of
you," observes the narrator of the title story in
Jeanette Winterson's collection, "The World and Other
Places." The narrator is a lifelong model-plane
builder who eventually joins the Air Force, and the
"solo experience" he describes is a training flight
when he realizes that pursuing the frontiers of his
fantasies isolates him from other people. It's a
discovery made by many characters in the collection's
17 stories: the lonely department-store clerk whose
wish for blond hair is granted by a fairy ("O'Brien's
First Christmas"), the village "screwball" who reads
the underside of leaves ("Newton"), a professional
dreamer in a society that has banned sleeping
("Disappearance I"). There is plenty of humor in the
landscape of the "other places" Winterson evokes as
alternatives to the world we know (for example, the
young Bible scholar in "Psalms" is transfixed by the
vision of a demonic rabbit named Ezra). If Winterson's
fantastical brushstrokes trace the arc of a wry,
raised eyebrow, then her characters trace the arc of a
shut eyelid, sealed and dreaming. They are vulnerable
to the world without being fully part of it; they are
keenly exposed to the reader while ensconced in the
illusion of solitude.
There are three clear standouts in "The World and
Other Places”: "The Poetics of Sex," "The Green Man,"
and "A Green Square." In these stories Winterson uses
plain emotions as the bridge between her characters'
worldly surroundings and the strange terrain of their
minds. In "A Green Square," a suburban father's
despair about his undifferentiated days is our passage
to understanding the single memory that holds meaning
for him: a boat in clear water in which he rode as a
child on "the day when I had been happy." It's the
contrast between the father's reality (stopped-up
sewer pipes) and his fantasy--"a diving lake I never
dived in because I could never get there through the
mind's accumulations"--that wraps him in disaffection
while coaxing empathy from the reader. The contrast,
and therefore the empathy, is missing from stories
like "Turn of the World," in which allegorical islands
are described in the emotionless language of a tour
guide: "Deeper into the island, where the cable cars
stop and where the nimble ponies are left far behind,
the only way for anyone to travel is by story. Some
stories go farther than others." In this collection,
the stories that go furthest are the ones in which the
islands we explore are the archipelago of imagination
in a worldly consciousness. The stories that go
furthest are the ones in which the solo flight of
fantasy nevertheless invites the reader to travel
along in empathy.
you," observes the narrator of the title story in
Jeanette Winterson's collection, "The World and Other
Places." The narrator is a lifelong model-plane
builder who eventually joins the Air Force, and the
"solo experience" he describes is a training flight
when he realizes that pursuing the frontiers of his
fantasies isolates him from other people. It's a
discovery made by many characters in the collection's
17 stories: the lonely department-store clerk whose
wish for blond hair is granted by a fairy ("O'Brien's
First Christmas"), the village "screwball" who reads
the underside of leaves ("Newton"), a professional
dreamer in a society that has banned sleeping
("Disappearance I"). There is plenty of humor in the
landscape of the "other places" Winterson evokes as
alternatives to the world we know (for example, the
young Bible scholar in "Psalms" is transfixed by the
vision of a demonic rabbit named Ezra). If Winterson's
fantastical brushstrokes trace the arc of a wry,
raised eyebrow, then her characters trace the arc of a
shut eyelid, sealed and dreaming. They are vulnerable
to the world without being fully part of it; they are
keenly exposed to the reader while ensconced in the
illusion of solitude.
There are three clear standouts in "The World and
Other Places”: "The Poetics of Sex," "The Green Man,"
and "A Green Square." In these stories Winterson uses
plain emotions as the bridge between her characters'
worldly surroundings and the strange terrain of their
minds. In "A Green Square," a suburban father's
despair about his undifferentiated days is our passage
to understanding the single memory that holds meaning
for him: a boat in clear water in which he rode as a
child on "the day when I had been happy." It's the
contrast between the father's reality (stopped-up
sewer pipes) and his fantasy--"a diving lake I never
dived in because I could never get there through the
mind's accumulations"--that wraps him in disaffection
while coaxing empathy from the reader. The contrast,
and therefore the empathy, is missing from stories
like "Turn of the World," in which allegorical islands
are described in the emotionless language of a tour
guide: "Deeper into the island, where the cable cars
stop and where the nimble ponies are left far behind,
the only way for anyone to travel is by story. Some
stories go farther than others." In this collection,
the stories that go furthest are the ones in which the
islands we explore are the archipelago of imagination
in a worldly consciousness. The stories that go
furthest are the ones in which the solo flight of
fantasy nevertheless invites the reader to travel
along in empathy.
October 1, 2007
In much the same way as Kate Bush can get away with singing about the number Pi, Jeanette Winterson can write about pretty much anything and you know it will be well done, professionally. The question is: How interesting would it be? It’s why I don’t buy every new book by an author I’ve enjoyed in the past. I do not doubt their ability to write, it’s simply that the subject matter might not be to my taste.
The stories in The World and Other Places are variable, not in quality, but in style. In "O`Brien`s First Christmas" a woman is visited by a fairy for Christmas and is given new blond hair which bolsters her confidence. That reminded me of a play I saw many years ago where a prostitute is visited by the real Santa Claus. “Newton” describes a Stepford-Wives-esque town from the point of view of a “screwball”, Tom. “Psalms” narrates the brief life of a tortoise with an unusual name and would have worked as a subplot to Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. All these worked for me.
The ones I struggled with were “Turn of the World” with its quasi-mythological descriptions of four islands, “Orion”, again a tale rooted in mythology and “The Poetics of Sex” which meandered a bit too much for my tastes.
What some people won’t like is how little background she provides, characters are barely described, if at all; Dickens it certainly is not. Personally I prefer that and I’m not dependent on plot to enjoy a story either; none of these stories has much of one.
What did bother me was the realisation that I had read it before and virtually none of it had stuck; I was a bit sad about that as all her novels have been quite memorable.
The stories in The World and Other Places are variable, not in quality, but in style. In "O`Brien`s First Christmas" a woman is visited by a fairy for Christmas and is given new blond hair which bolsters her confidence. That reminded me of a play I saw many years ago where a prostitute is visited by the real Santa Claus. “Newton” describes a Stepford-Wives-esque town from the point of view of a “screwball”, Tom. “Psalms” narrates the brief life of a tortoise with an unusual name and would have worked as a subplot to Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. All these worked for me.
The ones I struggled with were “Turn of the World” with its quasi-mythological descriptions of four islands, “Orion”, again a tale rooted in mythology and “The Poetics of Sex” which meandered a bit too much for my tastes.
What some people won’t like is how little background she provides, characters are barely described, if at all; Dickens it certainly is not. Personally I prefer that and I’m not dependent on plot to enjoy a story either; none of these stories has much of one.
What did bother me was the realisation that I had read it before and virtually none of it had stuck; I was a bit sad about that as all her novels have been quite memorable.
April 10, 2019
2 días y 215 páginas después. El primer libro de la autora que leo, no la conocía. Fue una compra en Amazon por el descuento global que había.
La sinópsis de esta serie de cuentos, parecía muy llamativa y la verdad es que están bastante comunes, bueno, comunes no es la palabra correcta pero es la primera que se me viene a la mente. Digamos que no son genéricos pero su narrativa sí lo es. Son asperos y aunque todos saben a aleatoriedad, tienen algo de común. Me agradó que en algunos casos la protagonista fuera mujer, no todos son hombres ni todos son mujeres. Creo que la autora refleja bastante bien las realidades de ambos.
La mayoría están ok, asi nomás, no hay uno realmente malo, pero hay un par bastante buenos. Sin embargo dado a que casi todos son comunes tiene tres estrellas.
Me gustaron sobre todo los de la parte media, los de la parte final fueron los menos.
Buen ejercicio de cuentos, al ser de los pocos que he leído en este año.
Probablemente no habrá reseña.
La sinópsis de esta serie de cuentos, parecía muy llamativa y la verdad es que están bastante comunes, bueno, comunes no es la palabra correcta pero es la primera que se me viene a la mente. Digamos que no son genéricos pero su narrativa sí lo es. Son asperos y aunque todos saben a aleatoriedad, tienen algo de común. Me agradó que en algunos casos la protagonista fuera mujer, no todos son hombres ni todos son mujeres. Creo que la autora refleja bastante bien las realidades de ambos.
La mayoría están ok, asi nomás, no hay uno realmente malo, pero hay un par bastante buenos. Sin embargo dado a que casi todos son comunes tiene tres estrellas.
Me gustaron sobre todo los de la parte media, los de la parte final fueron los menos.
Buen ejercicio de cuentos, al ser de los pocos que he leído en este año.
Probablemente no habrá reseña.
September 2, 2024
Jeanette Winterson wrote one of my favorite books of this year “written on the body” and I was excited to read more from her, but this was very disappointing. I feel like short stories are always as abstract, vague and, weird as the author can make them and I only thoroughly enjoyed one of the 17 stories in this collection…. Can I be on a good reading streak pls???
April 5, 2019
Jeanette Winterson, despite that sentimental soft spot I will always have for her, has, I think, moved more from "hit" to "miss" in my head. It's too much first person. It's trying to be Steven Millhauser and absolutely failing. It's constantly writing heterosexual males when you're a lesbian. It's too much purple prose and insufficient editing.
The World and Other Places is a collection of short stories that aren't stories, that are self-indulgent, that rarely venture into full-fleshed or interesting territory. When she writes what she knows, it's beautiful; aside from that is drudgery. Jeanette, "Sappho", you're breaking my heart.
The World and Other Places is a collection of short stories that aren't stories, that are self-indulgent, that rarely venture into full-fleshed or interesting territory. When she writes what she knows, it's beautiful; aside from that is drudgery. Jeanette, "Sappho", you're breaking my heart.
October 23, 2007
The short stories at the beginning were brilliant. The last third of the book the stories were just okay for me. I was having trouble concentrating in general and maybe should have saved them for another time. The last short story was really well done. I think that this book would be a good way to introduce someone to J.W.'s work. It was full of good ideas and interesting commentary on society, make believe, future, present.
July 21, 2019
In questa raccolta di racconti brevi, la Winterson mostra tutta la sua abilità nel costruire, anche in poche pagine, storie che stanno in piedi; scrivere novelle è sempre difficile e non è detto che tutti ci riescano.
La Winterson c'è riuscita.
Si passa dalle atmosfere di un amore nato durante un viaggio, su una nave, a quelle fantasiose di un mondo fatto di isole, di elementi, di persone che si fissano negli occhi e vedono tutto ciò che è stato; si passa da un mondo in cui non si dorme e in cui il protagonista lavora dormendo per sognare ciò che agli altri non è permesso al mondo incantato della novella del titolo, Il mondo e altri luoghi, in cui vediamo un pilota d'aereo alle prese con i suoi sogni di volare dove nessuno è mai stato, sogni accarezzati fin da bambino nei giochi con la sua famiglia.
Vediamo poi un uomo che al luna park ha un'avventura con una zingara; e poi un ricco signore la cui casa ha stanze che si perdono, porte che vengono chiuse e poi spariscono; una rivisitazione del mito di Orione e poi la meravigliosa novella d'apertura, ideale per gli amanti degli animali, che descrive il rapporto di una persona con un cucciolo di cane che la sconvolge più di quanto avrebbe pensato.
E poi, come non parlare di The poetics of Sex?
In una novella nata dalle domande che i giornalisti le hanno rivolto riguardo alla sua omosessualità, o comunque dai luoghi comuni che riguardano le donne omosessuali, l'autrice ricostruisce la perfetta naturalità di un amore che da altri viene concepito come "diverso", "sbagliato", "manchevole": il sesso descritto in maniera esplicita ed implicita, le emozioni e i sentimenti, la capacità di questo amore di dare come solo l'amore può fare, come è normale che un amore faccia, qualunque esso sia. In una azzeccatissima metafora con la pittura (l'amante viene definita "Picasso"), vediamo questo rapporto dipingere sulla voce narrante dei nuovi orizzonti, e scopriamo che sono gli stessi orizzonti che sono stati dipinti su di noi dai nostri amori; vediamo come l'amore non ha sesso (concetto descritto anche in Scritto sul corpo , considerato il romanzo capolavoro della Winterson), è semplicemente amore.
Commovente e toccante.
E tutto, come sempre nella Winterson, ci viene descritto come se fosse perfettamente naturale, con uno stile impeccabile che si adatta a meraviglia ai contesti raccontati, sempre delicato e mai volgare.
Una citazione, tanto per invogliare alla lettura?
"Love is not the oil and I am not the machine. Love is you and here I am. Now."Recensione pubblicata su Amazing Readers: il piacere della lettura
La Winterson c'è riuscita.
Si passa dalle atmosfere di un amore nato durante un viaggio, su una nave, a quelle fantasiose di un mondo fatto di isole, di elementi, di persone che si fissano negli occhi e vedono tutto ciò che è stato; si passa da un mondo in cui non si dorme e in cui il protagonista lavora dormendo per sognare ciò che agli altri non è permesso al mondo incantato della novella del titolo, Il mondo e altri luoghi, in cui vediamo un pilota d'aereo alle prese con i suoi sogni di volare dove nessuno è mai stato, sogni accarezzati fin da bambino nei giochi con la sua famiglia.
Vediamo poi un uomo che al luna park ha un'avventura con una zingara; e poi un ricco signore la cui casa ha stanze che si perdono, porte che vengono chiuse e poi spariscono; una rivisitazione del mito di Orione e poi la meravigliosa novella d'apertura, ideale per gli amanti degli animali, che descrive il rapporto di una persona con un cucciolo di cane che la sconvolge più di quanto avrebbe pensato.
E poi, come non parlare di The poetics of Sex?
In una novella nata dalle domande che i giornalisti le hanno rivolto riguardo alla sua omosessualità, o comunque dai luoghi comuni che riguardano le donne omosessuali, l'autrice ricostruisce la perfetta naturalità di un amore che da altri viene concepito come "diverso", "sbagliato", "manchevole": il sesso descritto in maniera esplicita ed implicita, le emozioni e i sentimenti, la capacità di questo amore di dare come solo l'amore può fare, come è normale che un amore faccia, qualunque esso sia. In una azzeccatissima metafora con la pittura (l'amante viene definita "Picasso"), vediamo questo rapporto dipingere sulla voce narrante dei nuovi orizzonti, e scopriamo che sono gli stessi orizzonti che sono stati dipinti su di noi dai nostri amori; vediamo come l'amore non ha sesso (concetto descritto anche in Scritto sul corpo , considerato il romanzo capolavoro della Winterson), è semplicemente amore.
Commovente e toccante.
E tutto, come sempre nella Winterson, ci viene descritto come se fosse perfettamente naturale, con uno stile impeccabile che si adatta a meraviglia ai contesti raccontati, sempre delicato e mai volgare.
Una citazione, tanto per invogliare alla lettura?
"Love is not the oil and I am not the machine. Love is you and here I am. Now."Recensione pubblicata su Amazing Readers: il piacere della lettura
May 1, 2019
I really wanted to like this book more, because it has some beautiful paragraphs and I generally love Jeanette Winterson's writings, but I just couldn't get into the stories. However, here are some of the highlights:
"He circled along in his warm skin, happy again because he was free and because he belonged. All of one's life is a struggle towards that; the narrow path between freedom and belonging. I have sometimes sacrificed freedom in order to belong, but more often have I given up all hope of belonging.
It is no use trying to assume again the state of innocence and acceptance of the animal or the child. This time it has to be conscious. To circle about in such gladness as his, is the effort of a while lifetime."
(from 'The 24-Hour Dog' p. 11)
"What would it matter if she crossed the world and hunted down every living creature, as long as her separate selves eluded her? When no one was left she would have to confront herself. Leaving home left nothing behind. It came too, all of it, and waited in the dark. She realised that the only war worth fighting was the one that raged within; the rest were all diversions. In this small space, her hunting miles, she was going to bring herself home. Home was not a place for the faint-hearted; only the very brave could live with themselves."
(from 'Orion', p. 58)
"She's thinking about her dogs. They feel like home because she feels like home. The stars show her how to hang in space supported by nothing at all. Without medals or certificates or territories she owns, she can burn as they do, travelling through time until time stops and eternity changes things again. She has noticed that change doesn't hurt her."
(from 'Orion', p. 61)
"Luggage. Heaven or Hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. The ones who recognised that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed pastimes, will float free through the exit sign, their arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. The ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it with you. The joke is that you have to carry it yourself."
(from 'The World and Other Places', p. 91)
"When I hold you in the night-soaked bed it is courage for the day I seek. Courage that when the light comes I will turn towards it. It couldn't be simpler. It couldn't be harder. In this little night-covered world with you, I hope to find what I long for; a clue, a map, a bird flying south, and when the light comes we will get dressed together and go."
(from 'Disappearance I', p. 113)
"He circled along in his warm skin, happy again because he was free and because he belonged. All of one's life is a struggle towards that; the narrow path between freedom and belonging. I have sometimes sacrificed freedom in order to belong, but more often have I given up all hope of belonging.
It is no use trying to assume again the state of innocence and acceptance of the animal or the child. This time it has to be conscious. To circle about in such gladness as his, is the effort of a while lifetime."
(from 'The 24-Hour Dog' p. 11)
"What would it matter if she crossed the world and hunted down every living creature, as long as her separate selves eluded her? When no one was left she would have to confront herself. Leaving home left nothing behind. It came too, all of it, and waited in the dark. She realised that the only war worth fighting was the one that raged within; the rest were all diversions. In this small space, her hunting miles, she was going to bring herself home. Home was not a place for the faint-hearted; only the very brave could live with themselves."
(from 'Orion', p. 58)
"She's thinking about her dogs. They feel like home because she feels like home. The stars show her how to hang in space supported by nothing at all. Without medals or certificates or territories she owns, she can burn as they do, travelling through time until time stops and eternity changes things again. She has noticed that change doesn't hurt her."
(from 'Orion', p. 61)
"Luggage. Heaven or Hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. The ones who recognised that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed pastimes, will float free through the exit sign, their arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. The ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it with you. The joke is that you have to carry it yourself."
(from 'The World and Other Places', p. 91)
"When I hold you in the night-soaked bed it is courage for the day I seek. Courage that when the light comes I will turn towards it. It couldn't be simpler. It couldn't be harder. In this little night-covered world with you, I hope to find what I long for; a clue, a map, a bird flying south, and when the light comes we will get dressed together and go."
(from 'Disappearance I', p. 113)
November 1, 2024
Average rating: 3.7 (rounded to 4)
5-star: The World and Other Places, Disappearance I, The Green Man, Turn of the World, Psalms
4-star: The 24-hour Dog, The Poetics of Sex, O'Brien's First Christmas, Newton
3-star: Atlantic Crossing, Lives of Saints, Disappearance II, Holy Matrimony, A Green Square, Adventure of a lifetime
2-star: The Three Friends, Orion
5-star: The World and Other Places, Disappearance I, The Green Man, Turn of the World, Psalms
4-star: The 24-hour Dog, The Poetics of Sex, O'Brien's First Christmas, Newton
3-star: Atlantic Crossing, Lives of Saints, Disappearance II, Holy Matrimony, A Green Square, Adventure of a lifetime
2-star: The Three Friends, Orion
November 8, 2018
This was not my favorite work by Jeanette Winterson, most of the stories didn't catch my attention, and her prose didn't work for me at many occasions. I don't think short stories manage to convey as much of her talent as her novels.
November 30, 2023
Interestingly, Winterson's short stories are very like her novels--poetic, thoughtful, and somehow always a bit of a fizzle, falling just short of greatness. She's the best writer I know who has no masterpiece to show for it, only a long solid career of general excellence.
August 24, 2024
Nagyon érdekes gyűjtemény, Jeanette Winterson mondhatjuk: hozza a formáját. Néhány történet különösen kiemelkedett - érdekes módon pont az egyszerűbb, kevéssé kísérletező darabok tettek rám nagyobb benyomást.
March 26, 2025
Last few stories are immense!
November 6, 2016
I think I have a new author to add to my favorites after reading this, my second Winterson book. (Weight was the other, you can see my review here. While I did not love Weight, there were things Winterson did with language that I enjoyed immensely. With this set of short stories, she takes that use of language and gives life to a variety of subjects, from insecure pet parents to cheating husbands to the life of a lesbian. In addition, she handles the change of protagonist so very well that one could easily think this was a book written by several people rather than one talented author.
Her use of phrasing is amazing and shows up all over the place, stringing together analogies in a way that reminds me quite a bit of Margaret Atwood, though I don't want to draw a direct comparison, which is not fair to either of them. A few examples, taken completely out of context:
"I made him walk on a lead and he jumped for joy, the way creatures do, and children do, and adults don't do, and spend their lives wondering where the leap went."
"It takes some time for the [dead] body to stop playing house."
"Luggage. Heaven or Hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. The ones who recognized that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed pastimes, will float free through the exit sign, their arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. The ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it with you. The joke is that you have to carry it yourself."
"The Grim Reaper came to call. He took her husband from the bed but left the weekend chicken on the shelf."
I could fill a whole review with nothing but a few pull quotes and still have many more in the book that I think are examples of her find writing style. It is not rolling, sprawling prose like others who play with words. You can see that by these examples. Rather, it is the usage of common terms, put together in a way that makes them jump out of the page and into your brain, that I find engaging. I think that most readers will find that, too.
The stories themselves are all very short--I don't think any one of them goes on for more than twenty pages, if that--so if there is a particular story you don't care for, you've not lost a lot of time in the reading. There is also a frequent theme of having some sort of speculative element, which surprised me. Not science fiction, let's all go in a spaceship style spec fiction, but things that one could not call natural. I guess if you don't start out writing spec fiction, it's okay to dabble in it from time to time.
I liked all of them, with the exception of Holy Matrimony, about a world where the symbols of marriage are ruined, which I thought was only okay. My favorites:
"The 24 Hour Dog", which opens the anthology, features and owner that can't stand the innocence of a pet, and the knowledge burns his/her soul. The first quote I pulled came from this one.
"The Poetics of Sex", about a pair of lesbians who life a stylized life, set in an interview where the interviewer asks all the most inane questions of a gay person but the interviewee ignores them, and tells the story she wishes to tell.
"The Three Friends" which is an adult fairy tale, as well as "Orion" where Winterson tells the story of Orion and Artemis from a modern perspective, and does the job very well.
"Newton" is one of the spec stories, told about a town that takes Cartesian reductionism to an extreme, leaving the narrator to be befuddled and confused as he tries to react normally and read his Camus in peace.
"Psalms" closes the anthology with the story of a girl raised by a fundie Christian mother, who makes her buy a turtle and name it Psalms, so that she will be reminded all the time to be more religious. Sadly, like any prophet, Psalms' life is cut short in its prime.
Again, there are lots of good stories in here, and it was hard to choose the ones I liked best. If I were to do this review again tomorrow, Atlantic Crossing, a story of failing to take a chance at love, might make the list. Or perhaps the story of a man who is the only one left allowed to dream. This is a great book of short stories that I think deserves a nice winter afternoon with a hot cup of tea. (Library, 12/07)
Her use of phrasing is amazing and shows up all over the place, stringing together analogies in a way that reminds me quite a bit of Margaret Atwood, though I don't want to draw a direct comparison, which is not fair to either of them. A few examples, taken completely out of context:
"I made him walk on a lead and he jumped for joy, the way creatures do, and children do, and adults don't do, and spend their lives wondering where the leap went."
"It takes some time for the [dead] body to stop playing house."
"Luggage. Heaven or Hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. The ones who recognized that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed pastimes, will float free through the exit sign, their arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. The ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it with you. The joke is that you have to carry it yourself."
"The Grim Reaper came to call. He took her husband from the bed but left the weekend chicken on the shelf."
I could fill a whole review with nothing but a few pull quotes and still have many more in the book that I think are examples of her find writing style. It is not rolling, sprawling prose like others who play with words. You can see that by these examples. Rather, it is the usage of common terms, put together in a way that makes them jump out of the page and into your brain, that I find engaging. I think that most readers will find that, too.
The stories themselves are all very short--I don't think any one of them goes on for more than twenty pages, if that--so if there is a particular story you don't care for, you've not lost a lot of time in the reading. There is also a frequent theme of having some sort of speculative element, which surprised me. Not science fiction, let's all go in a spaceship style spec fiction, but things that one could not call natural. I guess if you don't start out writing spec fiction, it's okay to dabble in it from time to time.
I liked all of them, with the exception of Holy Matrimony, about a world where the symbols of marriage are ruined, which I thought was only okay. My favorites:
"The 24 Hour Dog", which opens the anthology, features and owner that can't stand the innocence of a pet, and the knowledge burns his/her soul. The first quote I pulled came from this one.
"The Poetics of Sex", about a pair of lesbians who life a stylized life, set in an interview where the interviewer asks all the most inane questions of a gay person but the interviewee ignores them, and tells the story she wishes to tell.
"The Three Friends" which is an adult fairy tale, as well as "Orion" where Winterson tells the story of Orion and Artemis from a modern perspective, and does the job very well.
"Newton" is one of the spec stories, told about a town that takes Cartesian reductionism to an extreme, leaving the narrator to be befuddled and confused as he tries to react normally and read his Camus in peace.
"Psalms" closes the anthology with the story of a girl raised by a fundie Christian mother, who makes her buy a turtle and name it Psalms, so that she will be reminded all the time to be more religious. Sadly, like any prophet, Psalms' life is cut short in its prime.
Again, there are lots of good stories in here, and it was hard to choose the ones I liked best. If I were to do this review again tomorrow, Atlantic Crossing, a story of failing to take a chance at love, might make the list. Or perhaps the story of a man who is the only one left allowed to dream. This is a great book of short stories that I think deserves a nice winter afternoon with a hot cup of tea. (Library, 12/07)
August 21, 2013
My muse, Jeanette Winterson, writing good stuff. These stories are philosophical, interior, magical. The collection does not, in my opinion, outshine Cherries or The Passion, but it does exemplify her obsessions as a writer, artist, and human being. The stories are always on the outside, peering in, presenting the multitudes of possibilities we ignore in favor of the arbitrary status quo. Yearning, yearning, yearning, never feeling right in the normal, and incapable of escaping any way other than the mind. Can't find a writer who can write so magically about dogs and fairies, giving them the same weight. Everything that is light is heavy, everything heavy is light. I'm so glad I got to shake her hand that one time.
January 1, 2016
Historias cortas con buena forma, pero muy poco fondo. Por lo que he podido comprobar a lo largo de los diecisiete relatos que componen esta colección, Jeanette Winterson es una autora que tiene la capacidad de intercalar una gran variedad de facetas: desde el realismo más visceral e íntimo hasta la mitología clásica, pasando por escenarios de corte futurista y cuentos eróticos que destilan una pasión desenfrenada. Sin embargo, apenas hay cuatro o cinco relatos que me hayan dejado un poso significativo; la mayoría de historias me han parecido banales e inconsecuentes, un simple ejercicio de buen estilo salpicado de alguna que otra frase contundente.
October 1, 2011
Jeanette Winterson crafts an eerily soothing set of tales in this volume. Opening with the a woman's decision to adopt - and then return - a puppy over the course of 24 hours, Winterson's tales are filled with a sad kind of hope and longing. A shopgirl's encounter with a fairy in her bedroom leads to the most subtle of wishes, a poetical essay on a lesbian couple mixes sex and wordplay, and the tale of Orion the Hunter is shared from the view of the goddess he raped. Overall, a good read that transports you to those titular "other places" in the world.
January 5, 2008
There are very few books I would mark essential even fewer written in this century, which seems to turn out more worthless banter than any century before---did I just say that out loud?
But I thought this book was/is brilliant and I want to be done with it so I can read it again and again. Because I'm sure that I missed some of the language while blinking or turning a page.
Essential, indeed.
But I thought this book was/is brilliant and I want to be done with it so I can read it again and again. Because I'm sure that I missed some of the language while blinking or turning a page.
Essential, indeed.
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