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Lighthousekeeping
Lighthousekeeping tells the tale of Silver ("My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal, part pirate."), an orphaned girl who is taken in by blind Mr. Pew, the mysterious and miraculously old keeper of a lighthouse on the Scottish coast. Pew tells Silver stories of Babel Dark, a nineteenth-century clergyman. Dark lived two lives: a public one mired in darkness and deceit and a private one bathed in the light of passionate love. For Silver, Dark's life becomes a map through her own darkness, into her own story, and, finally, into love.
One of the most original and extraordinary writers of her generation, Jeanette Winterson has created a modern fable about the transformative power of storytelling.
One of the most original and extraordinary writers of her generation, Jeanette Winterson has created a modern fable about the transformative power of storytelling.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published March 25, 1997
250 people are currently reading
10004 people want to read
About the author
Jeanette Winterson
122 books7,625 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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July 28, 2025
‘If you tell yourself like a story,’ the narrator is told in Lighthousekeeping, ‘it doesn’t seem so bad.’ Storytelling is a defining aspect of humanity, an act that connects us, passes on history, interprets culture and helps us process existence, and here Jeanette Winterson turns their own masterful storytelling toward creating a moving and postmodern ode to the lasting power of storytelling. This novel gripped me from the very start and is certainly a favorite read of the year for the remarkable blend of prose, whimsy and chaotic brilliance that recalls Winterson’s early work but stands alone as a remarkable achievement. Central to the novel is the lighthouse, a dynamic metaphor of stability and a ‘known point in darkness,’ where a young orphan named Silver lives with Pew, the blind lighthouse keeper of indeterminate (or maybe impossible) age. Pew teaches her how to ‘keep the light,’ in which we see the lighthouse not only functions to keep ships from being dashed upon the rocks but that the stories told there keep lives from running aground as well. Told through a cavalcade of stories that crash into each other like waves at sea, Winterson nests the life story of Babel Dark—a preacher caught in a dual existence of light and darkness—into the story of Silver and, though elegant language and intertextuality, crafts a tale that serves as a testament to the lasting power of storytelling.
‘Tell me a story, Pew
What story, Child?
One that begins again.
That’s the story of life.
But is it the story of my life?
Only if you tell it.’
‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live,’ wrote Joan Didion, ‘we look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five.’ Human’s create narratives from our lives like an existential search for meaning. This idea was studied in a 1944 experiment where students were shown an abstract video of moving geometric shapes: most responses to it defined it in terms of a narrative, ascribing emotions and purpose to the images on the screen. Lighthousekeeping is an expression of this existential narrative towards meaning and the novel is structured in a way that reflects that. As is to be expected in Winterson-land, the novel shifts across time and I was frequently reminded of the rejection of linear time and the boisterous humor and historical settings of Sexing the Cherry, the novel that feels closest to Lighthousekeeping. ‘A beginning, a middle and an end is the proper way to tell a story. But I have difficulty with that method,’ Silver tells us, and the narrative comes from all angles of stories punctuating stories with other stories that map out meaning like constellations where each star is a different moment in a life. ‘The stories I want to tell you will light up part of my life, and leave the rest in darkness,’ Silver says, ‘You don’t need to know everything. There is no everything. The stories themselves make the meaning.’ Only small bits of a life are revealed, but done so in a way that assumes a sweeping epic of existence, one that feels empathetic and instructive, such as the lessons learned from Pew’s stories of Babel Dark inform Silver in her own life.
‘Every light had a story—no, every light was a story, and the flashes themselves were the stories going out over the waves, as markers and guides and comfort and warning.’
It is through telling stories that Silver learns to cling to life, such as the sailor lost at sea does by spending his time adrift narrating his own life in a way that he transcends the self and becomes a story that can survive the elements. Born on literally uneven and unsteady ground and quickly orphaned, she essentially becomes another wandering soul drawn to the lighthouse light when Silver and her dog, DogJim, is taken in by Pew. It is here she learns the tradition of storytelling where the lightkeeper would tell stories to the sailors as they ate, then the sailors would tell theirs back. ‘A good keeper was one who knew more stories than the sailors.’ I love this grounding in the idea of interchanging stories, people knowing places by their tales more than their spot on a map, and the passing oral tradition. It seems only natural that this would eventually become central in a Winterson novel, as in her memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? she frequently talks about the power of stories on her life and society:
This is paralleled by Silver who says ‘My life is a hesitation in time. An opening in a cave. A gap for a word.’ Feeling like some of the light in her life went out with the loss of her mother, she seeks to be, like a lighthouse, light shining out into the world.
‘Pew taught me that nothing is gone, that everything can be recovered, not as it was, but in its changing form.’
There is a duality to everything in this novel, such as light and dark or life and death, established even before the novel begins with the dual epigraphs ‘Remember you must die’ from Muriel Spark and ‘Remember you must live’ Ali Smith. in typical Wintersonian fashion there is also a dual narrative interweaving across time. While we learn of Silver in the lighthouse and later as an adult stealing birds and romantically entangled with a woman, we also hear the story of Babel Dark as told by Pew. Babel is born into the family that built Pew’s lighthouse 100 years prior along with the Stevenson family (a later generation Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson, figures prominently in the novel) and spends his life caught between two existences. He is an unhappily married preacher aside from 2 months each year when he leaves to Bristol to secretly stay with Molly, the love of his youth with whom he had a child. His dual life is implied to inspire Stevenson to write Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and even Molly completes the dark/light metaphor traveling under the fake name Tenebris (Latin for darkness) and living under the name Lux.
‘ I must teach you how to keep the light…The stories. That’s what you must learn.’
Winterson uses the opportunity to juxtapose Babel and Molly with Tristan and Isolde as well (perhaps the most beautiful writing in the whole book) as Silver and her unnamed partner, which also opens another duality of the novel (and typical element in Winterson): real people/stories interacting with fictional ones. This intertextuality is key to the idea of storytelling, because stories and myths become cultural artifacts and reference points that people can recognize. Hence the popularity of retellings because there is already an established idea to be reworked. Winterson uses allusions and real people such as Charles Darwin or Stevenson to ground the novel in the real and elaborate on their ideas (quick note: Silver, DogJim and Pew all seem a reference of Stevenson’s well-known Treasure Island that features the characters Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins and Blind Pew), as well as examine characters through the lens of already-established narrative framings (another way of Winterson ‘keeping the light’, I suppose). The lighthouse here is certainly in reference to Virginia Woolf’s (Winterson has referred to themself as the literary heir of Woolf) To the Lighthouse, particularly as both novels use it in similar allegorical fashion and as a symbol of stability. We even have Silver state ‘I couldn’t go back. There was only forward, northwards into the sea. To the lighthouse,’ and multiple characters in both refer to themselves as timed to the flashes of light in the lighthouse. Yet again the flashes of light are embedded in the narrative style ‘'the continuous narrative of existence is a lie... there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.’
‘Every wife and sailor had to believe that the unpredictable waves could be calmed by a dependent god.
Suppose the unpredictable wave was God?’
Perhaps the most noteworthy intertextual reference is that of the Bible, with allusions to the Tower of Babel and the Flood and the existential undercurrents that plague Babel Dark and his inability to commit. When Babel finds a cave embedded with fossils, it throws his entire perspective of life askew only made more tumultuous by Dawin’s theories.
If the world is turmoil, if God is the rogue wave that can break the bow, then what to cling to? The answer, simply, is stories. The lighthouse. The known point in the darkness. The method of turning one’s life into a story that will outlive you. It is a love song to literature and the ways we shape reality through our narratives, something Winterson has long addressed such as noting that even Time is a narrative in Sexing the Cherry or the assurance of the refrain ‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.’ in The Passion.
‘The world was made so that we could find each other in it.’
While the novel states ‘this is not a love story,’ it is only because ‘love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.’ Winterson’s reflections on love here are only rivaled by the soaringly gorgeous lines in The Passion (my personal favorite) and the movements towards—and failures of—acts of love is the lighthouse to the stormy seas of disparate stories in the book. From Babel’s inability to trust and show love, Silver learns she must speak it, and the lessons from stories live on to inform further generations. It is such a moving expression of how storytelling passes down lessons, warnings, cultural beliefs and more, but also an opportunity for passages that will reorder your heart into a narrative of Winterson’s choosing:
GOD DAMN.
Another aspect of Winterson novel that truly moves me is how much of Winterson there always is in them. The adventures of Silver post-lighthouse dwelling make her one of my favorite Winterson protagonists (she steals books and birds in a few comical scenes), but the adult Silver reflecting on the love they feel with a woman while hidden away at a cottage in the woods is what hits hardest. It is gorgeously romantic and vibrates with the prose from Written on the Body. While Winterson swears their work is always fiction, the elements of their being that seep in can always be detected and make for some of my favorite moments.
‘I am splintered by great waves. I am coloured glass from a church window long sin ce shattered. I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them.’
Honestly, this novel left me breathless. I basked in the light flashes from Winterson and saw the world in a new context and this one is easily one of my favorite Winterson novels. They can work absolute magic with their narratives, taking what would otherwise seem slight or weak connections but connecting them in such an ephemeral burst of brilliance that it hangs on. One should not expect a direct answer to anything, and the final pages of this novel might seem to be lackluster plot-wise but is also one of my favorite passages of their work, giving you no answers but all the answers at the same time. The lack of concreteness only adds to the effect that the essence of life is ineffable but that we, through our stories, cast wide nets to contain the glow of reality and must not keep it for ourselves but pass it on as a guiding light in the darkness for all lost or weary souls. This one reminded me a lot of Winterson’s first few novels, but with a prose that shines even brighter and a boldness for experimentation with language that shows it can do more than ever expected. Lighthousekeeping is a beacon in the night and a shining work of literature.
5/5
‘We're here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.’
‘Tell me a story, Pew
What story, Child?
One that begins again.
That’s the story of life.
But is it the story of my life?
Only if you tell it.’
‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live,’ wrote Joan Didion, ‘we look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five.’ Human’s create narratives from our lives like an existential search for meaning. This idea was studied in a 1944 experiment where students were shown an abstract video of moving geometric shapes: most responses to it defined it in terms of a narrative, ascribing emotions and purpose to the images on the screen. Lighthousekeeping is an expression of this existential narrative towards meaning and the novel is structured in a way that reflects that. As is to be expected in Winterson-land, the novel shifts across time and I was frequently reminded of the rejection of linear time and the boisterous humor and historical settings of Sexing the Cherry, the novel that feels closest to Lighthousekeeping. ‘A beginning, a middle and an end is the proper way to tell a story. But I have difficulty with that method,’ Silver tells us, and the narrative comes from all angles of stories punctuating stories with other stories that map out meaning like constellations where each star is a different moment in a life. ‘The stories I want to tell you will light up part of my life, and leave the rest in darkness,’ Silver says, ‘You don’t need to know everything. There is no everything. The stories themselves make the meaning.’ Only small bits of a life are revealed, but done so in a way that assumes a sweeping epic of existence, one that feels empathetic and instructive, such as the lessons learned from Pew’s stories of Babel Dark inform Silver in her own life.
‘Every light had a story—no, every light was a story, and the flashes themselves were the stories going out over the waves, as markers and guides and comfort and warning.’
It is through telling stories that Silver learns to cling to life, such as the sailor lost at sea does by spending his time adrift narrating his own life in a way that he transcends the self and becomes a story that can survive the elements. Born on literally uneven and unsteady ground and quickly orphaned, she essentially becomes another wandering soul drawn to the lighthouse light when Silver and her dog, DogJim, is taken in by Pew. It is here she learns the tradition of storytelling where the lightkeeper would tell stories to the sailors as they ate, then the sailors would tell theirs back. ‘A good keeper was one who knew more stories than the sailors.’ I love this grounding in the idea of interchanging stories, people knowing places by their tales more than their spot on a map, and the passing oral tradition. It seems only natural that this would eventually become central in a Winterson novel, as in her memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? she frequently talks about the power of stories on her life and society:
’Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It is a version, but never the final one. And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold.’
This is paralleled by Silver who says ‘My life is a hesitation in time. An opening in a cave. A gap for a word.’ Feeling like some of the light in her life went out with the loss of her mother, she seeks to be, like a lighthouse, light shining out into the world.
‘Pew taught me that nothing is gone, that everything can be recovered, not as it was, but in its changing form.’
There is a duality to everything in this novel, such as light and dark or life and death, established even before the novel begins with the dual epigraphs ‘Remember you must die’ from Muriel Spark and ‘Remember you must live’ Ali Smith. in typical Wintersonian fashion there is also a dual narrative interweaving across time. While we learn of Silver in the lighthouse and later as an adult stealing birds and romantically entangled with a woman, we also hear the story of Babel Dark as told by Pew. Babel is born into the family that built Pew’s lighthouse 100 years prior along with the Stevenson family (a later generation Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson, figures prominently in the novel) and spends his life caught between two existences. He is an unhappily married preacher aside from 2 months each year when he leaves to Bristol to secretly stay with Molly, the love of his youth with whom he had a child. His dual life is implied to inspire Stevenson to write Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and even Molly completes the dark/light metaphor traveling under the fake name Tenebris (Latin for darkness) and living under the name Lux.
‘ I must teach you how to keep the light…The stories. That’s what you must learn.’
Winterson uses the opportunity to juxtapose Babel and Molly with Tristan and Isolde as well (perhaps the most beautiful writing in the whole book) as Silver and her unnamed partner, which also opens another duality of the novel (and typical element in Winterson): real people/stories interacting with fictional ones. This intertextuality is key to the idea of storytelling, because stories and myths become cultural artifacts and reference points that people can recognize. Hence the popularity of retellings because there is already an established idea to be reworked. Winterson uses allusions and real people such as Charles Darwin or Stevenson to ground the novel in the real and elaborate on their ideas (quick note: Silver, DogJim and Pew all seem a reference of Stevenson’s well-known Treasure Island that features the characters Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins and Blind Pew), as well as examine characters through the lens of already-established narrative framings (another way of Winterson ‘keeping the light’, I suppose). The lighthouse here is certainly in reference to Virginia Woolf’s (Winterson has referred to themself as the literary heir of Woolf) To the Lighthouse, particularly as both novels use it in similar allegorical fashion and as a symbol of stability. We even have Silver state ‘I couldn’t go back. There was only forward, northwards into the sea. To the lighthouse,’ and multiple characters in both refer to themselves as timed to the flashes of light in the lighthouse. Yet again the flashes of light are embedded in the narrative style ‘'the continuous narrative of existence is a lie... there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.’
‘Every wife and sailor had to believe that the unpredictable waves could be calmed by a dependent god.
Suppose the unpredictable wave was God?’
Perhaps the most noteworthy intertextual reference is that of the Bible, with allusions to the Tower of Babel and the Flood and the existential undercurrents that plague Babel Dark and his inability to commit. When Babel finds a cave embedded with fossils, it throws his entire perspective of life askew only made more tumultuous by Dawin’s theories.
’Why would God make a world so imperfect that it must be continually righting itself? …now he was faced with a maverick God who had made a world for the fun of seeing how it might develop ...Perhaps there was no God at all.’
If the world is turmoil, if God is the rogue wave that can break the bow, then what to cling to? The answer, simply, is stories. The lighthouse. The known point in the darkness. The method of turning one’s life into a story that will outlive you. It is a love song to literature and the ways we shape reality through our narratives, something Winterson has long addressed such as noting that even Time is a narrative in Sexing the Cherry or the assurance of the refrain ‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.’ in The Passion.
‘The world was made so that we could find each other in it.’
While the novel states ‘this is not a love story,’ it is only because ‘love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.’ Winterson’s reflections on love here are only rivaled by the soaringly gorgeous lines in The Passion (my personal favorite) and the movements towards—and failures of—acts of love is the lighthouse to the stormy seas of disparate stories in the book. From Babel’s inability to trust and show love, Silver learns she must speak it, and the lessons from stories live on to inform further generations. It is such a moving expression of how storytelling passes down lessons, warnings, cultural beliefs and more, but also an opportunity for passages that will reorder your heart into a narrative of Winterson’s choosing:
‘I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.’
GOD DAMN.
Another aspect of Winterson novel that truly moves me is how much of Winterson there always is in them. The adventures of Silver post-lighthouse dwelling make her one of my favorite Winterson protagonists (she steals books and birds in a few comical scenes), but the adult Silver reflecting on the love they feel with a woman while hidden away at a cottage in the woods is what hits hardest. It is gorgeously romantic and vibrates with the prose from Written on the Body. While Winterson swears their work is always fiction, the elements of their being that seep in can always be detected and make for some of my favorite moments.
‘I am splintered by great waves. I am coloured glass from a church window long sin ce shattered. I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them.’
Honestly, this novel left me breathless. I basked in the light flashes from Winterson and saw the world in a new context and this one is easily one of my favorite Winterson novels. They can work absolute magic with their narratives, taking what would otherwise seem slight or weak connections but connecting them in such an ephemeral burst of brilliance that it hangs on. One should not expect a direct answer to anything, and the final pages of this novel might seem to be lackluster plot-wise but is also one of my favorite passages of their work, giving you no answers but all the answers at the same time. The lack of concreteness only adds to the effect that the essence of life is ineffable but that we, through our stories, cast wide nets to contain the glow of reality and must not keep it for ourselves but pass it on as a guiding light in the darkness for all lost or weary souls. This one reminded me a lot of Winterson’s first few novels, but with a prose that shines even brighter and a boldness for experimentation with language that shows it can do more than ever expected. Lighthousekeeping is a beacon in the night and a shining work of literature.
5/5
‘We're here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.’
Read
July 17, 2020Yesterday I finally stepped out of the enchanted circle in La Mancha where I'd spent the last three weeks, and I thought about perhaps and maybe and possibly attempting to read another book, a different book, but sadly not an enchanted book because I had no more such books, and I wasn’t happy about that.
So I picked this book. My initial feeling was that there couldn't be two books as diametrically opposed as Don Quixote and Lighthousekeeping. One is set in the sun-filled plains of early seventeenth-century Spain, and treats of the adventures of chivalric knights and fair ladies. The other is set in mid twentieth-century Scotland among the sailors and fisherfolk of a wind-blown, cliff-perched town on a rocky coast. One is rich in words and chapters and volumes, the other as sparely written as if every word had cost a small fortune and must do the work of a hundred.
Then I came to page 107 of Jeanette Winterson’s book, and the phrase Only connect.
Suddenly I was propelled out of the book I was reading and into other books I'd read in the past, into Forster and Woolf, and much to my surprise, right back to Cervantes. That subtle prompt had made me realise that Lighthousekeeping is full of stories just as Cervantes' great epic is full of stories, and that one of the main stories Winterson chooses to tell is none other than 'The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious', the long short story inserted into the first volume of Don Quixote. It took me a while to see the connection between the two versions but when I did, it was abundantly clear: both versions tell of men who have found love but who can't be content until their unreasonable jealousies have turned their love into loss.
Both books are also divided into distinct halves, the second half, though very different from the first in each case, nevertheless expands and continues the first. Only connect.
Both books are concerned with the repeated sallying forth of their heroes, towards new adventures in one, towards new beginnings in the other.
And there is a certain enchantment in Lighthousekeeping after all: solid becomes liquid, silver becomes mercury, light becomes dark, Jekyll becomes Hyde.
But those unexpected parallels between the two titles aren’t the only coincidence around the reading of this book. If I picked up Lighthousekeeping yesterday, it's because I recently found it shelved among books I read years ago. Only connect.
When I found it, I remembered why I had bought it. I had been to a book reading where Jeanette Winterson spoke about her writing, and read from some of her work. One of the things she read was the first few pages of Lighthousekeeping. She explained a little of how she came to write it and spoke of the care she'd taken with word choices, that if a story is set on a rocky coast, then the imagery must be that of ships and the sea and the wind. Until I read it for myself, I could never have appreciated how beautifully she followed that plan and how well it works.
This book is as petite and enchanting as the fossilized impression of a seahorse. If I could keep it in my pocket, I would.
.........................................................................................
Only connect. As a result of reading this book, I must now read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I love when one book leads to another.
So I picked this book. My initial feeling was that there couldn't be two books as diametrically opposed as Don Quixote and Lighthousekeeping. One is set in the sun-filled plains of early seventeenth-century Spain, and treats of the adventures of chivalric knights and fair ladies. The other is set in mid twentieth-century Scotland among the sailors and fisherfolk of a wind-blown, cliff-perched town on a rocky coast. One is rich in words and chapters and volumes, the other as sparely written as if every word had cost a small fortune and must do the work of a hundred.
Then I came to page 107 of Jeanette Winterson’s book, and the phrase Only connect.
Suddenly I was propelled out of the book I was reading and into other books I'd read in the past, into Forster and Woolf, and much to my surprise, right back to Cervantes. That subtle prompt had made me realise that Lighthousekeeping is full of stories just as Cervantes' great epic is full of stories, and that one of the main stories Winterson chooses to tell is none other than 'The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious', the long short story inserted into the first volume of Don Quixote. It took me a while to see the connection between the two versions but when I did, it was abundantly clear: both versions tell of men who have found love but who can't be content until their unreasonable jealousies have turned their love into loss.
Both books are also divided into distinct halves, the second half, though very different from the first in each case, nevertheless expands and continues the first. Only connect.
Both books are concerned with the repeated sallying forth of their heroes, towards new adventures in one, towards new beginnings in the other.
And there is a certain enchantment in Lighthousekeeping after all: solid becomes liquid, silver becomes mercury, light becomes dark, Jekyll becomes Hyde.
But those unexpected parallels between the two titles aren’t the only coincidence around the reading of this book. If I picked up Lighthousekeeping yesterday, it's because I recently found it shelved among books I read years ago. Only connect.
When I found it, I remembered why I had bought it. I had been to a book reading where Jeanette Winterson spoke about her writing, and read from some of her work. One of the things she read was the first few pages of Lighthousekeeping. She explained a little of how she came to write it and spoke of the care she'd taken with word choices, that if a story is set on a rocky coast, then the imagery must be that of ships and the sea and the wind. Until I read it for myself, I could never have appreciated how beautifully she followed that plan and how well it works.
This book is as petite and enchanting as the fossilized impression of a seahorse. If I could keep it in my pocket, I would.
.........................................................................................
Only connect. As a result of reading this book, I must now read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I love when one book leads to another.
February 23, 2017
Tell me a story, reader.
What story?
About reading this book and what it means.
Okay, then I will tell you about light and dark, sun and shadows, about the power of story telling in times of despair, about how two different people can inhabit the same person, like Jekyll and Hyde and about how sometimes fate throws in a curve and brings us full circle.
If you have read this you will understand the above sentences, if not I'll just say, Winterson is often challenging, beautiful sentences, mixed with the frustration of trying to understand what she is trying to convey. Non linear, not at all straightforward strytelling,, fragmented thoughts and paragraphs with many side roads and detours, like reading an Ali Smith novel. Yet, put together an amazing story and a different way of telling one. Brilliant in ways, but definitely not for everyone.
As Pew tells Silver, " Never rely on what you can see. Not everything can be seen."
What story?
About reading this book and what it means.
Okay, then I will tell you about light and dark, sun and shadows, about the power of story telling in times of despair, about how two different people can inhabit the same person, like Jekyll and Hyde and about how sometimes fate throws in a curve and brings us full circle.
If you have read this you will understand the above sentences, if not I'll just say, Winterson is often challenging, beautiful sentences, mixed with the frustration of trying to understand what she is trying to convey. Non linear, not at all straightforward strytelling,, fragmented thoughts and paragraphs with many side roads and detours, like reading an Ali Smith novel. Yet, put together an amazing story and a different way of telling one. Brilliant in ways, but definitely not for everyone.
As Pew tells Silver, " Never rely on what you can see. Not everything can be seen."
December 3, 2021
An extraordinary, lyrical book that is about the power of storytelling in - and about - our lives.
Other themes are light/dark/blindness (literal and metaphorical), outcasts, and the contrast between permanence and immobility (symbolised by the lighthouse) and change (people and the sea).
The fictional characters (one of whom has strong parallels with Winterson - see below) have some interaction with real characters and their works (Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wagner), and a broadly realistic story is sprinkled with slightly fairytale-like qualities, especially at the start, which also has comical aspects! Yet somehow, Winterson conjures this odd medley into something coherent, beautiful and profound.
Plot
There are two main narrative strands, both set in the small and remote Scottish village of Salts, and its lighthouse: mysterious Victorian priest, Babel Dark, and Silver, a girl orphaned in 1969.
Silver is the narrator, and the opening chapters reminded me of a Roald Dahl's children's story: she and her shamed mother live outside the village, in a house cut into the hill such that it has a sloping floor, furniture has to be nailed down, they can only "eat food that stuck to the plate", and their dog has developed back legs shorter than the front.
A tragi-comic accident leaves Silver an orphan. After a short spell with a Dahlian spinster, she goes to live with Pew the blind lighthousekeeper, and the book loses the comedy, but retains some magic. "Some of the light went out of me, it seemed proper that I should go and live in a place where all the light shone outwards."
Narrative structure, stories, storytelling
Don't expect a single, linear narrative of a consistent style. "A beginning, a middle and an end is the proper way to tell a story. But I have difficulty with that method." It doesn't matter because "The continuous narrative of existence is a lie... there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark."
Pew is a master storyteller, and Silver weaves his stories into the one she is telling. The boundaries of fact and fiction are often blurred within her world (as in this book itself, with its mention of real historical figures): Pew will describe doing something that happened before he was born, and when challenged, dismisses it as his second sight or "well, the Pew that was born then", whilst retaining the suggestion that in some mysterious way it was actually him.
Perhaps part of the reasons for Silver's blending of fact and fiction was prompted by this: a psychiatrist defines psychosis as being out of touch with reality, and her response is "Since then, I have been trying to find out what reality is, so that I can touch it."
The musings on stories are the most lyrical and magical aspects, and suggest the tangled ways in which they thread through our lives. "In fairy stories, naming is knowledge" and that is reflected in this story in several key ways.
Most stories never finish, "There was an ending - there always is - but the story went on past the ending - it always does". Similarly, "There's no story that's the start of itself, any more than a child comes into the world without parents."
"All the stories must be told... Maybe all stories are worth hearing, but not all stories are worth telling... The stories themselves make the meaning."
If you had forty minutes to tell your life story, what would you say? (This isn't a long book, but there's more than forty minutes' worth.)
The final chapters are more overtly philosophical, with less actual story. I think they're none the worse for that, but some may be disconcerted by the chane.
Silver as Winterson?
Winterson's first book, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), was explicitly a fictionalised version of her childhood, and recently, she published the more factual "Why be Happy when you Could be Normal?" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), but there are many aspects of Winterson in this as well: an orphan born in 1959, who finds solace in stories and libraries, "had to grow up on my own", and forges her own life. Some of the problems Silver encounters in later life also echo Winterson's own . She also finds the positive in the hardest circumstances, "We are lucky, even the worst of us, because daylight comes" (in "Why be Happy", she is grateful that the church taught her how important it is to concentrate on good things).
It goes further: the beloved mother in this "longed for me to be free, and did everything she could to make sure it never happened", and in "Why be happy", she makes an identical observation about the awful Mrs W (quoted in my review, linked above).
Weaknesses
For such a carefully crafted book, it is a little heavy-handed at times. These are rare, minor faults in the overall context and content, and are recorded here more for my personal records than to spoil it for anyone else, hence the spoiler tag.
Quotes and new idioms
* "A silent, taciturn clamp of a man."
* "She was one of those people for whom yes is always an admission of guilt or failure. No was power."
* "I was not much longer than my socks."
* "The wind was strong enough to blow the fins off a fish."
* "Our business was light, be we lived in darkness... The darkness had to be brushed away... Darkness squatted on the chairs and hung like a curtain across the stairway... I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own."
* "As dull as a day at sea with no wind."
* "Someone whose nature was as unmiraculous as a bucket."
* "He turned as pale as a skinned plaice."
* "The fossil record is always there, whether or not you discover it. The brittle ghosts of the past. Memory is not like the surface of water - either troubled or still. Memory is layered."
* When contemplating writing Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson posits (in this book) that all men have atavistic qualities: "Parts of themselves that lay like developed negatives? Shadow selves, unpictured but present?"
* "Women raising empty forks to glossy famished lips".
* "The light was as intense as a love affair."
* "I went outside, tripping over slabs of sunshine the size of towns. The sun was like a crowd of people, it was a party, it was music. The sun was blaring through the walls of the houses and beating down the steps. The sun was drumming time into the stone. The sun was rhythming the day."
See also
One of the magical stories in Daisy Johnson's Fen features a female lighthouse keeper. I think it's a story Winterson would like, and may have been slightly inspirational for. See my review HERE.
Other themes are light/dark/blindness (literal and metaphorical), outcasts, and the contrast between permanence and immobility (symbolised by the lighthouse) and change (people and the sea).
The fictional characters (one of whom has strong parallels with Winterson - see below) have some interaction with real characters and their works (Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wagner), and a broadly realistic story is sprinkled with slightly fairytale-like qualities, especially at the start, which also has comical aspects! Yet somehow, Winterson conjures this odd medley into something coherent, beautiful and profound.
Plot
There are two main narrative strands, both set in the small and remote Scottish village of Salts, and its lighthouse: mysterious Victorian priest, Babel Dark, and Silver, a girl orphaned in 1969.
Silver is the narrator, and the opening chapters reminded me of a Roald Dahl's children's story: she and her shamed mother live outside the village, in a house cut into the hill such that it has a sloping floor, furniture has to be nailed down, they can only "eat food that stuck to the plate", and their dog has developed back legs shorter than the front.
A tragi-comic accident leaves Silver an orphan. After a short spell with a Dahlian spinster, she goes to live with Pew the blind lighthousekeeper, and the book loses the comedy, but retains some magic. "Some of the light went out of me, it seemed proper that I should go and live in a place where all the light shone outwards."
Narrative structure, stories, storytelling
Don't expect a single, linear narrative of a consistent style. "A beginning, a middle and an end is the proper way to tell a story. But I have difficulty with that method." It doesn't matter because "The continuous narrative of existence is a lie... there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark."
Pew is a master storyteller, and Silver weaves his stories into the one she is telling. The boundaries of fact and fiction are often blurred within her world (as in this book itself, with its mention of real historical figures): Pew will describe doing something that happened before he was born, and when challenged, dismisses it as his second sight or "well, the Pew that was born then", whilst retaining the suggestion that in some mysterious way it was actually him.
Perhaps part of the reasons for Silver's blending of fact and fiction was prompted by this: a psychiatrist defines psychosis as being out of touch with reality, and her response is "Since then, I have been trying to find out what reality is, so that I can touch it."
The musings on stories are the most lyrical and magical aspects, and suggest the tangled ways in which they thread through our lives. "In fairy stories, naming is knowledge" and that is reflected in this story in several key ways.
Most stories never finish, "There was an ending - there always is - but the story went on past the ending - it always does". Similarly, "There's no story that's the start of itself, any more than a child comes into the world without parents."
"All the stories must be told... Maybe all stories are worth hearing, but not all stories are worth telling... The stories themselves make the meaning."
If you had forty minutes to tell your life story, what would you say? (This isn't a long book, but there's more than forty minutes' worth.)
The final chapters are more overtly philosophical, with less actual story. I think they're none the worse for that, but some may be disconcerted by the chane.
Silver as Winterson?
Winterson's first book, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), was explicitly a fictionalised version of her childhood, and recently, she published the more factual "Why be Happy when you Could be Normal?" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), but there are many aspects of Winterson in this as well: an orphan born in 1959, who finds solace in stories and libraries, "had to grow up on my own", and forges her own life. Some of the problems Silver encounters in later life also echo Winterson's own . She also finds the positive in the hardest circumstances, "We are lucky, even the worst of us, because daylight comes" (in "Why be Happy", she is grateful that the church taught her how important it is to concentrate on good things).
It goes further: the beloved mother in this "longed for me to be free, and did everything she could to make sure it never happened", and in "Why be happy", she makes an identical observation about the awful Mrs W (quoted in my review, linked above).
Weaknesses
For such a carefully crafted book, it is a little heavy-handed at times. These are rare, minor faults in the overall context and content, and are recorded here more for my personal records than to spoil it for anyone else, hence the spoiler tag.
Quotes and new idioms
* "A silent, taciturn clamp of a man."
* "She was one of those people for whom yes is always an admission of guilt or failure. No was power."
* "I was not much longer than my socks."
* "The wind was strong enough to blow the fins off a fish."
* "Our business was light, be we lived in darkness... The darkness had to be brushed away... Darkness squatted on the chairs and hung like a curtain across the stairway... I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own."
* "As dull as a day at sea with no wind."
* "Someone whose nature was as unmiraculous as a bucket."
* "He turned as pale as a skinned plaice."
* "The fossil record is always there, whether or not you discover it. The brittle ghosts of the past. Memory is not like the surface of water - either troubled or still. Memory is layered."
* When contemplating writing Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson posits (in this book) that all men have atavistic qualities: "Parts of themselves that lay like developed negatives? Shadow selves, unpictured but present?"
* "Women raising empty forks to glossy famished lips".
* "The light was as intense as a love affair."
* "I went outside, tripping over slabs of sunshine the size of towns. The sun was like a crowd of people, it was a party, it was music. The sun was blaring through the walls of the houses and beating down the steps. The sun was drumming time into the stone. The sun was rhythming the day."
See also
One of the magical stories in Daisy Johnson's Fen features a female lighthouse keeper. I think it's a story Winterson would like, and may have been slightly inspirational for. See my review HERE.
April 28, 2021
Sometimes the story is not what matters most. The ambiance, the pulse of storytelling, the cadence of poetic imagery swaying gently in and out, almost imperceptibly, is what makes the difference, what lingers on your mind long after you have turned the last page.
In other occasions, the story itself becomes the true protagonist, more than the characters or the setting or the narrative style.
Winterson achieves both things at once in this highly unusual novel. And what might seem a blatant contradiction is nothing but a brilliant accomplishment; to elevate the power of storytelling above the actual story, allowing other narrative elements to shine for themselves.
Told in the form of frame narrative with a main story nested within side stories that go several layers deep, Winterson speaks about the complexity of love in its multiple forms. Romantic love. Parental love. Forbidden love.
And orphan becomes the daughter of a blind mind who sees beyond time.
A reverend leads a double life, one dark, one full of light.
A desiccated seahorse unravels a chain of events that bring progress in a small seaside town and enormous loss to a mysterious lighthouse keeper.
There is no beginning and no end, the stories ebb and flow in the reader’s consciousness echoing the signal pattern of a lighthouse, and all notion of time or reality is lost in the art of storytelling itself, leaving no space for rationality.
I was a bit put off by Winterson’s fragmented style at first but the more I think about the novel, the more I realize its unique quality. It brings the magic of poetry and storytelling together using delightful metaphoric images to makes us ponder about the complexities of love in its most splendorous and darkest sides, leaving an open space to let the reader’s imagination fly, forgetting about the limitations that time and reality impose on us.
I can’t think of a better or more beautiful way to prove the power of storytelling, and only for that I’ll return to Winterson’s spellbinding world with gusto.
In other occasions, the story itself becomes the true protagonist, more than the characters or the setting or the narrative style.
Winterson achieves both things at once in this highly unusual novel. And what might seem a blatant contradiction is nothing but a brilliant accomplishment; to elevate the power of storytelling above the actual story, allowing other narrative elements to shine for themselves.
Told in the form of frame narrative with a main story nested within side stories that go several layers deep, Winterson speaks about the complexity of love in its multiple forms. Romantic love. Parental love. Forbidden love.
And orphan becomes the daughter of a blind mind who sees beyond time.
A reverend leads a double life, one dark, one full of light.
A desiccated seahorse unravels a chain of events that bring progress in a small seaside town and enormous loss to a mysterious lighthouse keeper.
There is no beginning and no end, the stories ebb and flow in the reader’s consciousness echoing the signal pattern of a lighthouse, and all notion of time or reality is lost in the art of storytelling itself, leaving no space for rationality.
I was a bit put off by Winterson’s fragmented style at first but the more I think about the novel, the more I realize its unique quality. It brings the magic of poetry and storytelling together using delightful metaphoric images to makes us ponder about the complexities of love in its most splendorous and darkest sides, leaving an open space to let the reader’s imagination fly, forgetting about the limitations that time and reality impose on us.
I can’t think of a better or more beautiful way to prove the power of storytelling, and only for that I’ll return to Winterson’s spellbinding world with gusto.
February 27, 2008
I kind of wanted to like this more than I did; I really love Winterson's writing, and her language here is as beautiful as ever. The problem I had with the novel is that it felt that there were several stories going on here, none of which were ever fully fleshed out or made real to me. I greatly enjoyed reading it, but when I finished I didn't feel like I had read a full novel; instead, it felt more like a series of vignettes waiting to be fleshed out.
December 22, 2021
Sea. Salt. Light. Dark. Lighthouse. Blindness. Fossils. Darwin. Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. Beginnings. Endings. Scotland. Greece. Love. Sex. God. Books. Stories. Evolution. History.
Gorgeously written, but transitory, fleeting, the story always just out of reach, always about to begin. Quickly loses steam near the end when the events of the first half, Babel Dark and his history, Pew and the lighthouse, have run their course. It never quite settles, but perhaps like the tide, or that light along the ahore, flashing and then gone, flashing, gone, it was never meant to.
Gorgeously written, but transitory, fleeting, the story always just out of reach, always about to begin. Quickly loses steam near the end when the events of the first half, Babel Dark and his history, Pew and the lighthouse, have run their course. It never quite settles, but perhaps like the tide, or that light along the ahore, flashing and then gone, flashing, gone, it was never meant to.
December 22, 2021
I bought my copy of this book secondhand. I bought it two months into my arrival in England, homesick for Winterson's way with words. I bought it because a boarding stub pressed between pages 200 and 201 told me it had once been in the hands of a Mr. Andrew Binns on a BA flight from London to Glasgow, and that Mr. Binns likely never finished reading it. This gave me an urge to imagine why, and what his journey was like—to make up a story. And Lighthousekeeping is a story about stories.
More importantly, it is a story about how stories never finish or run out, but go beyond and flow into each other, and how we are most honest when we "tell ourselves like stories." It holds a lot of that dear enmeshing of light, lyricism, and darkness that readers like myself seek Winterson out for. It has a pulse, a heart—it is set to the rhythm of the sea, by whose side the protagonist, Silver, is born, orphaned, and raised; by whose side her parallel, Dark, damns himself to live out.
It is also a story of love: love lost, lovelorn, love as a guiding light—and lighthouses, for we can not navigate such choppy waters without lighthouses. Love in this story is not like the waves breaking upon the sea but rather like its depths, and richness resides in the telling more than the tale itself. The plot is slippery despite the salt and grit, but to Winterson's credit its effect washes over and along the reader like a blinkering from the shore: on again, off again, much like the beam from Cape Wrath.
3.5 stars
More importantly, it is a story about how stories never finish or run out, but go beyond and flow into each other, and how we are most honest when we "tell ourselves like stories." It holds a lot of that dear enmeshing of light, lyricism, and darkness that readers like myself seek Winterson out for. It has a pulse, a heart—it is set to the rhythm of the sea, by whose side the protagonist, Silver, is born, orphaned, and raised; by whose side her parallel, Dark, damns himself to live out.
It is also a story of love: love lost, lovelorn, love as a guiding light—and lighthouses, for we can not navigate such choppy waters without lighthouses. Love in this story is not like the waves breaking upon the sea but rather like its depths, and richness resides in the telling more than the tale itself. The plot is slippery despite the salt and grit, but to Winterson's credit its effect washes over and along the reader like a blinkering from the shore: on again, off again, much like the beam from Cape Wrath.
3.5 stars
July 6, 2017
" I am a glass man, but there is no light in me that can shine across the sea. I shall lead no one home, save no lives, not even my own."
My second time reading Lighthousekeeping. It's a beautiful quiet tale that begins in a lighthouse in Scotland, with Pew and an orphan named Silver in the 1800s.
Though not rich in plot, this story focuses on people and our different sides, and the stories we tell to both ourselves and each other. Telling stories within a story. The main story we hear from Pew is about a man called Babel Dark and the two lives he lives.
"Darkness was a presence. I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own."
Robert Louis Stevenson and Darwin also both make appearances.
The writing in this book is wonderful - it enthrals and completely transports you.
I find a kind of peace when I go into this tale, and it's one I will return to again and again.
"Don't regret your life child, it will pass soon enough."
My second time reading Lighthousekeeping. It's a beautiful quiet tale that begins in a lighthouse in Scotland, with Pew and an orphan named Silver in the 1800s.
Though not rich in plot, this story focuses on people and our different sides, and the stories we tell to both ourselves and each other. Telling stories within a story. The main story we hear from Pew is about a man called Babel Dark and the two lives he lives.
"Darkness was a presence. I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own."
Robert Louis Stevenson and Darwin also both make appearances.
The writing in this book is wonderful - it enthrals and completely transports you.
I find a kind of peace when I go into this tale, and it's one I will return to again and again.
"Don't regret your life child, it will pass soon enough."
March 12, 2025
من از جنت وینترسن کتابهای نوشتههای روی تن، اشتیاق، هنر معترض، چرا خوشبخت باشی وقتی میتونی معمولی باشی، رو خوندم و وقتی ازشون میگفتم که دوستشون داشتم یه بنده خدایی گفت میدونی جنت وینترسن فلان و بهمان ... و من اصلا متوجه نمیشدم که خب این چه ربطی داره.... من قلمش رو دوست دارم حس آمیختهی شوق زندگی با غم و حس شاعرانهی جملاتش رو دوست دارم... حس بیان دغدغهها، روزمرگیها، عشق و دوست داشتن که در نوشتههاش آمیخته با حس تنهایی، فقر احساسی و زوال میشه رو دوست دارم...
این کتاب فانوس دریایی نام داره که من اصلا نتونستم پیداش کنم توی کتابفروشیها و به طور اتفاقی از جایی یافتمش و خیلی بابتش خوشحال شدم...
.
از کتاب: من پدر ندارم. این موضوع چندان غریب نیست _ حتی بچههایی که پدر دارند اغلب از دیدن آنها متعجب میشوند. پدرم از دریا آمد و به همان جا برگشت. او جاشوی یک قایق ماهیگیری بود، قایقی که در شبی طوفانی، وقتی امواج صدای خرد شدن شیشهای را میدادند، کنار ما پناه گرفت. بدنهی خرد شدهی قایق آنقدر او را نگه داشت تا بتواند کنار مادرم لنگر بیندازد.
گلهی بچه ماهیها برای زندگی با یکدیگر رقابت میکنند. من برنده شدم.
- در این قسمت متوجه میشویم که راوی دختر یتیمی است به نام سیلور که نحوهی آشنایی پدر و مادرش هم نوشته شده... او بعد از مرگ مادرش، طبق تصمیم اهالی به پیرمردی به نام پیو که
در یک فانوس دریایی زندگی میکند، سپرده میشود...
آقای پیو او را با دنیای قصهها آشنا میکند.
داستانهایی که راوی از زمان بودن با پیو و بعد از آن برای خواننده تعریف میکند...
او میگوید: سالتز، زادگاه من. با دریایی پرتلاطم، صخرههای بسیار و ماسه. آه، و یک فانوس دریایی.
.
از کتاب: زندگی من تاملی در زمان است. سرآغازی در یک شکاف. فاصلهای برای یک کلمه. اینها قصههای من بودند _ جرقههایی در امتداد زمان. صدایت خواهم کرد، و آتشی روشن خواهیم کرد و یکدیگر را در جایی که مال ماست، خواهیم شناخت. صبر نکن. گفتن قصه را به تاخیر نینداز. زندگی بسیار کوتاه است. دریا و شنها، قدم زدن در ساحل، قبل از آنکه امواج آنها را بپوشاند، از آن به ماست.
دوستت دارم.
مشکلترین کلمات در دنیا.
ولی چه چیز دیگری میتوانم بگویم؟
این کتاب فانوس دریایی نام داره که من اصلا نتونستم پیداش کنم توی کتابفروشیها و به طور اتفاقی از جایی یافتمش و خیلی بابتش خوشحال شدم...
.
از کتاب: من پدر ندارم. این موضوع چندان غریب نیست _ حتی بچههایی که پدر دارند اغلب از دیدن آنها متعجب میشوند. پدرم از دریا آمد و به همان جا برگشت. او جاشوی یک قایق ماهیگیری بود، قایقی که در شبی طوفانی، وقتی امواج صدای خرد شدن شیشهای را میدادند، کنار ما پناه گرفت. بدنهی خرد شدهی قایق آنقدر او را نگه داشت تا بتواند کنار مادرم لنگر بیندازد.
گلهی بچه ماهیها برای زندگی با یکدیگر رقابت میکنند. من برنده شدم.
- در این قسمت متوجه میشویم که راوی دختر یتیمی است به نام سیلور که نحوهی آشنایی پدر و مادرش هم نوشته شده... او بعد از مرگ مادرش، طبق تصمیم اهالی به پیرمردی به نام پیو که
در یک فانوس دریایی زندگی میکند، سپرده میشود...
آقای پیو او را با دنیای قصهها آشنا میکند.
داستانهایی که راوی از زمان بودن با پیو و بعد از آن برای خواننده تعریف میکند...
او میگوید: سالتز، زادگاه من. با دریایی پرتلاطم، صخرههای بسیار و ماسه. آه، و یک فانوس دریایی.
.
از کتاب: زندگی من تاملی در زمان است. سرآغازی در یک شکاف. فاصلهای برای یک کلمه. اینها قصههای من بودند _ جرقههایی در امتداد زمان. صدایت خواهم کرد، و آتشی روشن خواهیم کرد و یکدیگر را در جایی که مال ماست، خواهیم شناخت. صبر نکن. گفتن قصه را به تاخیر نینداز. زندگی بسیار کوتاه است. دریا و شنها، قدم زدن در ساحل، قبل از آنکه امواج آنها را بپوشاند، از آن به ماست.
دوستت دارم.
مشکلترین کلمات در دنیا.
ولی چه چیز دیگری میتوانم بگویم؟
February 10, 2017
I read Lighthousekeeping thanks to a recommendation of an editor I met some time ago and I still remember when she said to me: you have to read this book because it has something special that I know you'll appreciate. The truth is that I had never read any of the books of Jeanette Winterson, but the words of the publisher made me feel very curious.
The story caught me instantly. The book was almost like a love at first sight, in which each of the pages dragged me like a giant octopus into the depths of this gentle character, innocent and yet strangely unsettling. Lighthouse keeping is an unpretentious novel but full of a subtle narrative and deep characters had made that this book becomes one of my favorite ones. I recommend it to all those readers who like diving into simple stories, almost like a fairy tale, but full of subtleties, fuzzy feelings, and subtle thoughts. For me, it's a little gem of the contemporary literature.
Spanish version:
Leí la niña del faro gracias a la recomendación de una editora que conocí hace tiempo. Recuerdo que me dijo: tienes que leer este libro porqué tiene algo especial que te encantará. La verdad es que no había leído nunca nada de la autora Jeanette Winterson pero las palabras de la editora me picaron mucho la curiosidad.
Me atrapó al instante. El libro fue casi como un enamoramiento a primera vista, en que cada una de las páginas me arrastraba como un pulpo gigante a las profundidades de un personaje tierno, inocente y a la vez, extrañamente inquietante. La niña del Faro es una novela sin demasiadas pretensiones pero su narración y personajes han hecho que se convierta en uno de mis libros favoritos. Lo recomiendo a todos aquellos a quién les guste zambullirse en historias sencillas, casi como si fueran cuentos, pero repletas de sutilezas, sensaciones difusas y sutiles pensamientos. Para mí es una pequeña joya de la literatura contemporánea.
The story caught me instantly. The book was almost like a love at first sight, in which each of the pages dragged me like a giant octopus into the depths of this gentle character, innocent and yet strangely unsettling. Lighthouse keeping is an unpretentious novel but full of a subtle narrative and deep characters had made that this book becomes one of my favorite ones. I recommend it to all those readers who like diving into simple stories, almost like a fairy tale, but full of subtleties, fuzzy feelings, and subtle thoughts. For me, it's a little gem of the contemporary literature.
Spanish version:
Leí la niña del faro gracias a la recomendación de una editora que conocí hace tiempo. Recuerdo que me dijo: tienes que leer este libro porqué tiene algo especial que te encantará. La verdad es que no había leído nunca nada de la autora Jeanette Winterson pero las palabras de la editora me picaron mucho la curiosidad.
Me atrapó al instante. El libro fue casi como un enamoramiento a primera vista, en que cada una de las páginas me arrastraba como un pulpo gigante a las profundidades de un personaje tierno, inocente y a la vez, extrañamente inquietante. La niña del Faro es una novela sin demasiadas pretensiones pero su narración y personajes han hecho que se convierta en uno de mis libros favoritos. Lo recomiendo a todos aquellos a quién les guste zambullirse en historias sencillas, casi como si fueran cuentos, pero repletas de sutilezas, sensaciones difusas y sutiles pensamientos. Para mí es una pequeña joya de la literatura contemporánea.
May 3, 2021
4 ★
Nobody writes quite like Jeanette Winterson. Even when I lose the plot literally, which I did, I enjoy reading her. It’s a mix of stories, and I’m not sure I got all the connections. I enjoyed the blend for the first three quarters of the book but seemed to drift off at the end. Still, she’s a 4★ read.
10-year-old Silver and her single mum live in a house on a hillside so steep that they sleep in hammocks and eat food that will stick to the plate (peas roll away forever), and they tie themselves together to get up to the house.
When Silver is orphaned, she is fostered out in the tiny village of Salts to Pew, a blind lighthouse keeper. Yes, blind. But he says to her once, “You have the handicap of sight, it’s true. . . . Never rely on what you can see. Not everything can be seen.”
She falls in love with Pew’s stories, with books and the library, which she’s not allowed to join. She is so frustrated at borrowers checking out books she’s only started, that she finally steals one.
Alongside this story, we follow the tale of Babel Dark, a philandering preacher in Salts in the 1800s who, much to the delight of Charles Darwin, discovers fossils high on the seaside cliffs, evidence that supports Darwin’s The Origin of Species, leading to fame for the village.
Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author (Treasure Island, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) was the grandson of Robert Stevenson who built this and other lighthouses, which opens up discussion about lighthouses and the nature of man - the light and the dark.
On the whole, a mystifying, thought-provoking book..
P.S. An example of her style from near the end, in Silver’s adulthood:
The boat was vacuum-packed with Albanians, four generations to a family: great-grandmother, air-dried like a chilli pepper, deep red skin and a hot temper; grandmother, all sun-dried tomato, tough, chewy, skin split with the heat; getting the kids to rub olive oil into her arms; mother, moist as a purple fig, open everywhere – blouse, skirt, mouth, eyes, a wide-open woman, lips licking the salt spray flying from the open boat. Then there were the kids, aged four and six, a couple of squirts, zesty as lemons.
Love it!
Nobody writes quite like Jeanette Winterson. Even when I lose the plot literally, which I did, I enjoy reading her. It’s a mix of stories, and I’m not sure I got all the connections. I enjoyed the blend for the first three quarters of the book but seemed to drift off at the end. Still, she’s a 4★ read.
10-year-old Silver and her single mum live in a house on a hillside so steep that they sleep in hammocks and eat food that will stick to the plate (peas roll away forever), and they tie themselves together to get up to the house.
When Silver is orphaned, she is fostered out in the tiny village of Salts to Pew, a blind lighthouse keeper. Yes, blind. But he says to her once, “You have the handicap of sight, it’s true. . . . Never rely on what you can see. Not everything can be seen.”
She falls in love with Pew’s stories, with books and the library, which she’s not allowed to join. She is so frustrated at borrowers checking out books she’s only started, that she finally steals one.
Alongside this story, we follow the tale of Babel Dark, a philandering preacher in Salts in the 1800s who, much to the delight of Charles Darwin, discovers fossils high on the seaside cliffs, evidence that supports Darwin’s The Origin of Species, leading to fame for the village.
Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author (Treasure Island, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) was the grandson of Robert Stevenson who built this and other lighthouses, which opens up discussion about lighthouses and the nature of man - the light and the dark.
On the whole, a mystifying, thought-provoking book..
P.S. An example of her style from near the end, in Silver’s adulthood:
The boat was vacuum-packed with Albanians, four generations to a family: great-grandmother, air-dried like a chilli pepper, deep red skin and a hot temper; grandmother, all sun-dried tomato, tough, chewy, skin split with the heat; getting the kids to rub olive oil into her arms; mother, moist as a purple fig, open everywhere – blouse, skirt, mouth, eyes, a wide-open woman, lips licking the salt spray flying from the open boat. Then there were the kids, aged four and six, a couple of squirts, zesty as lemons.
Love it!
May 19, 2018
"Love is an unarmed intruder."
I don't care what anybody says, nobody writes like Jeanette Winterson. I have read quite a few books from Winterson now, and I can safely say she is certainly one of my favourite authors.
Even at times where I lost track of the plot a little and I trailed off course, I still enjoyed the writing. It is powerful and mystifying and it's like just a mere sentence from this author, can speak to my soul.
This book was not as strong as "Written on the body" or "The Passion" but that is not a complaint. This book was stunning in it's own beautiful way, and it reminds me why Winterson seems to effortlessly take my breath away, with every book she has written.
"There was an ending - there always is - but the story went on past the ending - it always does."
I don't care what anybody says, nobody writes like Jeanette Winterson. I have read quite a few books from Winterson now, and I can safely say she is certainly one of my favourite authors.
Even at times where I lost track of the plot a little and I trailed off course, I still enjoyed the writing. It is powerful and mystifying and it's like just a mere sentence from this author, can speak to my soul.
This book was not as strong as "Written on the body" or "The Passion" but that is not a complaint. This book was stunning in it's own beautiful way, and it reminds me why Winterson seems to effortlessly take my breath away, with every book she has written.
"There was an ending - there always is - but the story went on past the ending - it always does."
July 13, 2007
really can't get enough of winterson. this is a delicious little book, very easy to read...i finished it in a day.
favorite excerpts:
"What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you."
"I know that the real things in life, things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a cafe. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do."
"I looked back at you. These moments that are talismans and treasure. Cumulative deposits - our fossil record - and the beginnings of what happens next. They are the beginning of a story, and the story we will always tell."
favorite excerpts:
"What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you."
"I know that the real things in life, things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a cafe. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do."
"I looked back at you. These moments that are talismans and treasure. Cumulative deposits - our fossil record - and the beginnings of what happens next. They are the beginning of a story, and the story we will always tell."
May 12, 2017
This is exactly the kind of morose and drilling of the fact that life is impermanent exercise that I probably dislike far more than 90% of other poor writing experiments for every degree of word craft and skill in their telling.
Yes, it is poetic at times and the story, when it was there or re-arrived, held an interest or two. But as I noted in the comment written as I approached the very end- not a fan. Do I lack imagination? Most probably. Do I like structure in a tale about tales. Absolutely.
She can write. And I've liked some of her stuff when she sticks to a structure.
Yes, it is poetic at times and the story, when it was there or re-arrived, held an interest or two. But as I noted in the comment written as I approached the very end- not a fan. Do I lack imagination? Most probably. Do I like structure in a tale about tales. Absolutely.
She can write. And I've liked some of her stuff when she sticks to a structure.
June 12, 2024
I read this in 2019 right before my life changed into something positive and great. And I remeberd fondly my first reading experience of this as I was so invested and emotional about the book. I decided to reread it and I enjoyed it just as much. The writing style is diffrent but so beautiful in a way.
September 17, 2016
After having finished "Lighthousekeeping" which I've had recommended to me by several friends, I'm left with an overall impression of vague disappointment. The novel simply didn't live up to my high expectations, and I have a theory why that is.
The writing in this novel is absolutely impeccable! Especially the first couple of chapters took my breath away, and there is no doubt that Jeanette Winterson knows her craft. However, whenever I sit down to read a novel I want to be told a story that drags me in. Beautiful writing is always a plus, but not when the story becomes too messy and intricate, and I felt like that was the case with "Lighthousekeeping". In this novel, we are taken back and forth between several lives and destinies which all entertwine, but to be honest I was most interested in reading about the protagonist Silver and I unfortunately didn't get as many pages on her as I was hoping for.
This novel has definitely intrigued me to read more by Jeanette Winterson. It's unique, and it deals with some interesting topics such as loss, memory and identity. I quite liked this novel (hence my 3-star-rating), I just didn't love it as much as I was hoping for, but I hope that'll be the case with one of her other books I'm going to read.
The writing in this novel is absolutely impeccable! Especially the first couple of chapters took my breath away, and there is no doubt that Jeanette Winterson knows her craft. However, whenever I sit down to read a novel I want to be told a story that drags me in. Beautiful writing is always a plus, but not when the story becomes too messy and intricate, and I felt like that was the case with "Lighthousekeeping". In this novel, we are taken back and forth between several lives and destinies which all entertwine, but to be honest I was most interested in reading about the protagonist Silver and I unfortunately didn't get as many pages on her as I was hoping for.
This novel has definitely intrigued me to read more by Jeanette Winterson. It's unique, and it deals with some interesting topics such as loss, memory and identity. I quite liked this novel (hence my 3-star-rating), I just didn't love it as much as I was hoping for, but I hope that'll be the case with one of her other books I'm going to read.
March 24, 2013
well I gave it 4 stars before I finished as I loved the way it challenges standard narrative...BUT the last 2 chapters kind of blew that....like she just chucked in a few pages from her journal... so downgrading it to 3 stars.
14/03/13 1 of 19 books for $10
***********QUOTES ********* SPOILERS****************
He doubted her. You must never doubt the one you love.
but they might not be telling you the truth.
What do you mean?
you can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own.
So what should I say?
When?
When I love someone?
You should say it.
A problem shared was a problem doubled, he thought. people tried to help, but all they did was interfere. better to keep trouble contained, like a mad dog. Then he remembered the dog. They were his thoughts. he wouldn't tell anyone, ever.
Do you know the story of Jekyll and Hyde?
Of course.
Well then – to avoid either extreme, it is necessary to find all the lives in between.
Are we so utterly lacking in self-knowledge do you think?
I wouldn’t put it like that, Dark: a man may know himself, but he prides himself on his character, his integrity – the word says it all – integrity – we use to mean virtue, but it means wholeness too, and which of us is that?
This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, loves is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.
We’re here, there,, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.
There’s a booth in Grand Central Station where you can go and record your life. You talk. It tapes. It’s the modern-day confessional – no priest, just your voice in the silence. What you were, digitally saved for the future. Forty minutes is yours.
Now the sky was a dead sea, and the stars and the planets were memory-points, like Darwin’s fossils. There were archives of catastrophe and mistake.
The fossil record is always there, whether or not you discover it. The brittle ghosts of the past. Memory is not like the surface of the water – either troubled or still. Memory is layered. What you were was another life, but the evidence is somewhere in the rock – your trilobites and ammonites, your struggling life-forms, just when you thought you could stand upright.
Before he wrote on the origin of Species, Darwin spent five years as a naturalist, aboard HMS Beagle. In nature he found not past, present and future as we recognise them, but an evolutionary process of change – energy never rapped for too long – life always changing.
Darwin said something to me once for which I was grateful. I had been trying to forget, trying to stop my mind reaching for a place where it can never home. He knew my agitation, though he did not know the cause, and he took me up to (Am Parbh) – the Turning point. Nothing can be forgotten. Nothing can be lost. The universe itself is one vast memory system. Look back and you will find the beginnings of the world.
I wish I could be clearer, I wish I could say “ My life has no light. My life was eating me alive”
The rest of my life. I have never rested always run, run so fast that the sun can’t make a shadow. Well, here I am – mid-way, lost in a dark wood – the selva oscura without a torch, a guide, or even a bird.
In 1859 Darwin published on the Origin of the Species. Wagner completed the opera Tristan and Isolde. Both are about the beginnings of the world.
In Tristan the world shrinks to a boat, a bed, a lantern, a love-potion, a wound. The world is contained within a word – Isold. The Romantic solipsism that nothing exists but the two of us, could not be further from the multiplicity and variety of Darwin’s theory of the natural world. Here, the world and everything in it forms and is re-formed tirelessly and unceasingly. Nature’s vitality is amoral and unsenti-mental: the weak die, the strong survive.
In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth’s crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors show nothing of their hearts. There last meal is sometimes preserved n peat or in ice, but their thoughts and feelings are gone.
Some wounds never heal.
The second time the sword went in, I aimed it at the place of the first. I am weak there – the place where I had been found out before. My weakness was skinned over by your love. I knew when you healed me that the wound would open again. I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice. The love-potion? I never drank it? Did you?
I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is as extravagant as a world can be. We are the ones obsessed by measurement. The world just pours it out.
I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution.I don’t think of love as the a force of nature – as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought making as it I life giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.
My little orbit of life circles love. I daren’t get any closer. I’m not a mystic seeking final communion. I don’t go out with SPF5. I protect myself.
14/03/13 1 of 19 books for $10
***********QUOTES ********* SPOILERS****************
He doubted her. You must never doubt the one you love.
but they might not be telling you the truth.
What do you mean?
you can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own.
So what should I say?
When?
When I love someone?
You should say it.
A problem shared was a problem doubled, he thought. people tried to help, but all they did was interfere. better to keep trouble contained, like a mad dog. Then he remembered the dog. They were his thoughts. he wouldn't tell anyone, ever.
Do you know the story of Jekyll and Hyde?
Of course.
Well then – to avoid either extreme, it is necessary to find all the lives in between.
Are we so utterly lacking in self-knowledge do you think?
I wouldn’t put it like that, Dark: a man may know himself, but he prides himself on his character, his integrity – the word says it all – integrity – we use to mean virtue, but it means wholeness too, and which of us is that?
This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, loves is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.
We’re here, there,, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.
There’s a booth in Grand Central Station where you can go and record your life. You talk. It tapes. It’s the modern-day confessional – no priest, just your voice in the silence. What you were, digitally saved for the future. Forty minutes is yours.
Now the sky was a dead sea, and the stars and the planets were memory-points, like Darwin’s fossils. There were archives of catastrophe and mistake.
The fossil record is always there, whether or not you discover it. The brittle ghosts of the past. Memory is not like the surface of the water – either troubled or still. Memory is layered. What you were was another life, but the evidence is somewhere in the rock – your trilobites and ammonites, your struggling life-forms, just when you thought you could stand upright.
Before he wrote on the origin of Species, Darwin spent five years as a naturalist, aboard HMS Beagle. In nature he found not past, present and future as we recognise them, but an evolutionary process of change – energy never rapped for too long – life always changing.
Darwin said something to me once for which I was grateful. I had been trying to forget, trying to stop my mind reaching for a place where it can never home. He knew my agitation, though he did not know the cause, and he took me up to (Am Parbh) – the Turning point. Nothing can be forgotten. Nothing can be lost. The universe itself is one vast memory system. Look back and you will find the beginnings of the world.
I wish I could be clearer, I wish I could say “ My life has no light. My life was eating me alive”
The rest of my life. I have never rested always run, run so fast that the sun can’t make a shadow. Well, here I am – mid-way, lost in a dark wood – the selva oscura without a torch, a guide, or even a bird.
In 1859 Darwin published on the Origin of the Species. Wagner completed the opera Tristan and Isolde. Both are about the beginnings of the world.
In Tristan the world shrinks to a boat, a bed, a lantern, a love-potion, a wound. The world is contained within a word – Isold. The Romantic solipsism that nothing exists but the two of us, could not be further from the multiplicity and variety of Darwin’s theory of the natural world. Here, the world and everything in it forms and is re-formed tirelessly and unceasingly. Nature’s vitality is amoral and unsenti-mental: the weak die, the strong survive.
In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth’s crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors show nothing of their hearts. There last meal is sometimes preserved n peat or in ice, but their thoughts and feelings are gone.
Some wounds never heal.
The second time the sword went in, I aimed it at the place of the first. I am weak there – the place where I had been found out before. My weakness was skinned over by your love. I knew when you healed me that the wound would open again. I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice. The love-potion? I never drank it? Did you?
I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is as extravagant as a world can be. We are the ones obsessed by measurement. The world just pours it out.
I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution.I don’t think of love as the a force of nature – as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought making as it I life giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.
My little orbit of life circles love. I daren’t get any closer. I’m not a mystic seeking final communion. I don’t go out with SPF5. I protect myself.
May 16, 2018
Η μεγάλη μαγεία σ’ αυτό το μικρό βιβλιαράκι είναι στην αφήγηση. Είναι τόσο ιδιαίτερη κι όσο γυρνούσα τις σελίδες ήμουν σίγουρη ότι τη συγγραφέα την έχω ξαναδιαβάσει. Δε θυμόμουν όμως πού, πότε και τι είχα διαβάσει κι άρχισα να ψάχνω στο διαδίκτυο τα βιβλία της. Από τους ξενόγλωσσους τίτλους- γιατί μόνο τρία έχουν μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά και το ένα από αυτά δεν υπάρχει πουθενά ούτε ως αναφορά- δεν μπόρεσα να το βρω. Όμως έλεγα μέσα μου ότι δεν μπορεί να κάνω τόσο λάθος. Την έχω ξαναδιαβάσει. Τελικά άρχισα να ψάχνω μέσα στα ράφια μου κι ύστερα από αρκετή ώρα το βρήκα. Ακόμα και το όνομά της σε κείνο ήταν γραμμένο αλλιώς. Στο «Βάρος» που έχω στη βιβλιοθήκη μου αναφέρεται ως Ζινέτ. Δεν θα έκανα ποτέ το συνειρμό, όταν το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο το αγόρασα τυχαία σε ένα παζάρι πριν δυο χρόνια και το διάβασα τότε.
Φανταστείτε το πόσο ιδιαίτερη κι εντυπωσιακή είναι η γραφή της, ώστε να την αναγνωρίζω από ένα άλλο της βιβλίο, πριν δυο χρόνια.
Φανταστείτε το πόσο ιδιαίτερη κι εντυπωσιακή είναι η γραφή της, ώστε να την αναγνωρίζω από ένα άλλο της βιβλίο, πριν δυο χρόνια.
June 6, 2022
Uit met een zucht, ik hou van dit verhaal ❤️
[herlezen en nog steeds een favoriet + wat een zegen als een boek goed vertaald is]
[herlezen en nog steeds een favoriet + wat een zegen als een boek goed vertaald is]
'Kijk daar: het licht over het water. Jouw verhaal. Het mijne. Het zijne. Het moet gezien worden om te worden geloofd. En het moet worden aangehoord. Temidden van het eindeloze gebabbel, het dagelijkse rumoer ten spijt, wacht het verhaal om aangehoord te worden.
Sommige mensen zeggen dat de beste verhalen geen woorden hebben. Die hebben niet voor vuurtorenwachter geleerd. Het is waar dat woorden te kort schieten en dat de belangrijke dingen vaak ongezegd blijven. De belangrijkste dingen kom je te weten door gezichten, door gebaren, niet door onze geblokkeerde tong. De ware dingen zijn te groot of te klein of hebben in ieder geval altijd de verkeerde grootte om te passen in het sjabloon dat taal heet.
Dat weet ik. Maar ik weet ook iets anders, omdat ik geleerd heb voor vuurtorenwachter. Temper het dagelijkse rumoer, en eerst is er dan de opluchting van de stilte. En vervolgens keert heel stil, zo stil als het licht, de betekenis terug. Woorden zijn het deel van de stilte dat uit te spreken is.'
January 19, 2024
The first half of the book is mostly intriguing, engaging, and enigmatic with its time bouncings.
The second half is mostly dull and perplexing with its self-indulgent opacity, its melodramatic romance, and its soft-erotica that seems unrelated to the rest of the story and that reads like journal entries plopped randomly into the book.
The whole is beautiful in language and imagery with islands of astounding, insightful paragraphs separated by unclear, disconnected narrative.
Moved/engaged by some of it, bored and/or confused by the rest.
The second half is mostly dull and perplexing with its self-indulgent opacity, its melodramatic romance, and its soft-erotica that seems unrelated to the rest of the story and that reads like journal entries plopped randomly into the book.
The whole is beautiful in language and imagery with islands of astounding, insightful paragraphs separated by unclear, disconnected narrative.
Moved/engaged by some of it, bored and/or confused by the rest.
June 1, 2017
Without a doubt, Jeanette Winterson is one of the finest writers of contemporary literary fiction. “Lighthousekeeping” is a story about a young orphan girl taken in by a blind and mysterious lighthouse keeper who tells stories about a 19th century clergyman who leads a double life: “a public one mired in darkness and deceit, and a private one bathed in the light of passionate love.” As I write in my own novel, “The Reality of Being Lovers,” “Lighthousekeeping” is a love story, but you don’t know that until the end.
August 27, 2021
He terminado un libro que no se calificar. Me ha encantado. Como me gustan esos libros raros que creo que he entendido a medias pero me ha enamorado su prosa, su caos, su poesía, sus sentencias... Su crudeza y al mismo tiempo su ternura. La historia de silver, esa vida, esa línea temporal repleta de otras historias como la de Bable Dark que acompaña a la historia principal en paralelo de principio a fin. Un libro para volver a leer porque estoy segura de que me he perdido muchos matices.
July 15, 2022
2nd read: 11th July - 15th July 2022
Imagine finishing a novel with: I love you. The three most difficult words in the world. But what else can I say? and expect me to survive and not be changed at an elemental level. This is my 2nd favourite book by Winterson, and in a list of read books longer than ten, it means something. Just beauty and love, love and beauty.
1st read: 15th May - 16th May 2021
After over a month of obsessively thinking about this novel, I think it's time to bump up the rating.
Metaphors can feel like a hug, like a nod of understanding sometimes, and I think only Winterson would be able to pull off something like that.
Imagine finishing a novel with: I love you. The three most difficult words in the world. But what else can I say? and expect me to survive and not be changed at an elemental level. This is my 2nd favourite book by Winterson, and in a list of read books longer than ten, it means something. Just beauty and love, love and beauty.
1st read: 15th May - 16th May 2021
After over a month of obsessively thinking about this novel, I think it's time to bump up the rating.
Metaphors can feel like a hug, like a nod of understanding sometimes, and I think only Winterson would be able to pull off something like that.
May 1, 2023
Jeanette Winterson is such a well known name, familiar to just about everybody but me. A contrarian that I am, I avoided her books for the longest time, and even this little volume, on my shelves for years didn’t really tempt me. But recently I listened to “Speaking volumes”, Australian journalist’s Ramona Koval‘s compilation of her interviews with some remarkable authors. Jeanette Winterson was one of them and something in hearing her speak, perhaps the way she talked about her upbringing and her attitude to the experiences from that time, convinced me that I wanted to see what her writing was like.
And now I am surprised that it was such joy to read and a little bit ashamed that I was so obstinate for such a long time. There will be definitely more of Ms Winterson in my reading curriculum, in the future.
And now I am surprised that it was such joy to read and a little bit ashamed that I was so obstinate for such a long time. There will be definitely more of Ms Winterson in my reading curriculum, in the future.
January 4, 2025
I didn’t think it was possible to love Jeanette any more than I do already, but this book CHANGED SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME.
Jeanette’s writing is truly like no other. Reading this book felt like that satisfying feeling of when you finally quench your thirst after a long summer day in the heat.
“𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧.”
Lighthousekeeping doesn’t necessarily have a plot (like majority of Jeanette’s work) but it follows a young girl called Silver, who is motherless and lost. She is eventually taken in by Mr Pew, who is the keeper of the Cape Wrath Lighthouse.
The book is explorative and fun. It’s magical realism and intertextuality all in one. Jeanette Winterson is famously known for embedding a variety of themes within her work, and it’s no different in this book.
Throughout the novel, Winterson highlights the power of imagination and perception. Where/what is reality, what is imagination, and how do we make this distinctive line between the both?
But this isn’t just a story about a girl who has no identity; this book is a collection of stories about stories.
It eats at the core of mankind’s curiosity about the meaning of existence, the search for longing and community, and how solitude is inevitable.
Though we try to avoid it like the plague, throughout the majority of our lives we will feel misunderstood and unseen. How do we deal with all of this pain, this confusion, this desire for something more than this human experience?
We read. We write. We love. We create. But most importantly, we tell stories.
This was just SO GOOD!! I devoured it and I wanted to cry when I realised the book ended.
This book is like waking up from a dream that you never wanted to end, and suddenly you’re forced to deal with your disappointing reality.
Jeanette always makes me travel to different worlds when reading her books, and afterwards I come out of the novel as a changed woman.
It’s almost as if opening the book she inserted me within the pages, forced to live a fairytale that would change the trajectory of my life.
Lighthousekeeping is more than a book, it is an experience.
Are you up for the challenge?
some quotes:
“𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐦, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲.” what??
“𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧, 𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐬 𝐠𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜, 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞-𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬.”
“𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭— 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬, 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.”
Jeanette’s writing is truly like no other. Reading this book felt like that satisfying feeling of when you finally quench your thirst after a long summer day in the heat.
“𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧.”
Lighthousekeeping doesn’t necessarily have a plot (like majority of Jeanette’s work) but it follows a young girl called Silver, who is motherless and lost. She is eventually taken in by Mr Pew, who is the keeper of the Cape Wrath Lighthouse.
The book is explorative and fun. It’s magical realism and intertextuality all in one. Jeanette Winterson is famously known for embedding a variety of themes within her work, and it’s no different in this book.
Throughout the novel, Winterson highlights the power of imagination and perception. Where/what is reality, what is imagination, and how do we make this distinctive line between the both?
But this isn’t just a story about a girl who has no identity; this book is a collection of stories about stories.
It eats at the core of mankind’s curiosity about the meaning of existence, the search for longing and community, and how solitude is inevitable.
Though we try to avoid it like the plague, throughout the majority of our lives we will feel misunderstood and unseen. How do we deal with all of this pain, this confusion, this desire for something more than this human experience?
We read. We write. We love. We create. But most importantly, we tell stories.
This was just SO GOOD!! I devoured it and I wanted to cry when I realised the book ended.
This book is like waking up from a dream that you never wanted to end, and suddenly you’re forced to deal with your disappointing reality.
Jeanette always makes me travel to different worlds when reading her books, and afterwards I come out of the novel as a changed woman.
It’s almost as if opening the book she inserted me within the pages, forced to live a fairytale that would change the trajectory of my life.
Lighthousekeeping is more than a book, it is an experience.
Are you up for the challenge?
some quotes:
“𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐦, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲.” what??
“𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧, 𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐬 𝐠𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜, 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞-𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬.”
“𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭— 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬, 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.”
August 26, 2018
Un libro precioso, recubierto por un halo de emociones de principio a fin.
December 24, 2020
I will edit my rambling into a more coherent form later but this was truly so so good I want to reread it already
March 30, 2007
If you've never read any Winterson before, this might be a good place to start, even though it's one of her most recent books. It's a fairly short novel, and the text is rather spare, but Winterson is skilled at creating memorable passages with just a few words. The novel encompasses several stories, opening with the tale of orphaned Silver, who is sent off to live with an old blind man named Pew in a lighthouse on the coast of northwest Scotland. Pew tells Silver different tales while he teaches her how to tend the lighthouse. The foremost story he tells is of the preacher Babel Dark, a tormented man who may have been the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
The novel has many twists and turns, and the story of Silver and the story of Dark become intertwined, with a surprising bit of the Tristan and Isolde story thrown in at the end to further illuminate Winterson's overall theme of love and relationships. This is one of the most unique novels I've read in a long time, and if you like Modernist literature, you will probably enjoy this book. If you prefer straightforward narrative, then this is probably not the book for you.
The novel has many twists and turns, and the story of Silver and the story of Dark become intertwined, with a surprising bit of the Tristan and Isolde story thrown in at the end to further illuminate Winterson's overall theme of love and relationships. This is one of the most unique novels I've read in a long time, and if you like Modernist literature, you will probably enjoy this book. If you prefer straightforward narrative, then this is probably not the book for you.
April 6, 2019
De lo mejor que he leido últimamente. Ningún comentario que pueda hacer creo que le vaya a hacer justicia. Pura poesía en prosa.
Y no es una lectura fácil en el sentido de que no es una historia lineal; son muchas historias, que son la misma, pero diferentes; en la que hay saltos temporales, personajes distintos, escenarios diferentes, pero siempre un mismo anhelo, el amor. Y ese amor -su búsqueda y su pérdida, el saberse merecedor del mismo (o no) o el saber cómo transmitirlo, cómo recibirlo, cómo decirlo- creo que es el hilo conductor de este libro.
La relación de Silver y Pew es una delicia; dos personas solitarias que se encuentran por el azar, aunque probablemente estuvieran destinadas, y que construyen una relación a base de rutinas, historias y amor. Las historias que cuenta Pew, que más tarde construye Silver y que no son otra cosa que la vida de personas que existieron, tal y como se cuenta en cada historia... o no.
La vida es la historia que contamos de nosotros mismos. Contar historias es construir vidas.
Un libro absolutamente recomendable
Jeanette Winterson (segundo libro que leo de ella) pasa a ser una de mis escritoras favoritas
Y no es una lectura fácil en el sentido de que no es una historia lineal; son muchas historias, que son la misma, pero diferentes; en la que hay saltos temporales, personajes distintos, escenarios diferentes, pero siempre un mismo anhelo, el amor. Y ese amor -su búsqueda y su pérdida, el saberse merecedor del mismo (o no) o el saber cómo transmitirlo, cómo recibirlo, cómo decirlo- creo que es el hilo conductor de este libro.
La relación de Silver y Pew es una delicia; dos personas solitarias que se encuentran por el azar, aunque probablemente estuvieran destinadas, y que construyen una relación a base de rutinas, historias y amor. Las historias que cuenta Pew, que más tarde construye Silver y que no son otra cosa que la vida de personas que existieron, tal y como se cuenta en cada historia... o no.
La vida es la historia que contamos de nosotros mismos. Contar historias es construir vidas.
Un libro absolutamente recomendable
Jeanette Winterson (segundo libro que leo de ella) pasa a ser una de mis escritoras favoritas
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