Poetry Masked as Fiction

I am currently rediscovering the works of Jeanette Winterson. I was hooked into her brand of fiction several years ago, when i first read and was blown away by “Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit”. Since then i began looking all over for her other works, and found myself hooked. I read “The Passion” and “Written on the Body” which is probably one of the smartest, most moving stories i’ve ever read. Just recently, i acquired a copy of “The Powerbook”, which was supposed to be the final book in “the cycle” that began with “Oranges…”

And i wasn’t disappointed. Winterson never fails, because it doesn’t matter how simple, or how her stories have been told many times before, how like characters i have met in other books. The thing is that when she writes, the words, the language she uses becomes the character.

The Powerbook is one masterpiece that mixes conversations, cover-versions, fairy tales, literature and history in one thought provoking, emotionally charged narrative. It is poetry masked as fiction. I found myself going “Wow…” each time i turn a page…for i am either overwhelmed by the enormity of the words or it just speaks to em and it hits home, or both.

This book is basically about love, it’s reason and its risks. I will not say anymore about how simply lovely this book is but i will just let some excerpts speak for itself.

“Love wounds. There is no love that does not pierce the hands and feet. Love’s exquisite happiness is also love’s exquisite pain. I do not seek pain but there is pain. I do not seek suffering but there is suffering. It is better not to flinch, not to try and avoid those things in love’s direction. It is not easy, this love, but only the impossible is worth the effort.”

“The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the titanic you go down. That’s the size of it, the immensity of it. It’s not proper, it’s not clean, it’s not containable.”

And just to give the uninitiated more ideas , more to let you know how beautifully she writes, here is the first part of “Written on the Body”, by Jeanette Winterson.

Why is the measure of love… loss? It hasn’t rained for three months. The trees are prospecting underground, sending reserves of roots into the dry ground, roots like razors to open any artery water-fat. The grapes have withered on the vine. What should be plump and firm, resisting the touch to give itself in the mouth, is spongy and blistered. Not this year the pleasure of rolling blue grapes between finger and thumb juicing my palm with musk. Even the wasps avoid the thin brown dribble. Even the wasps this year. It was not always so. I am thinking of a certain September: Wood pigeon Red Admiral Yellow Harvest Orange Night. You said, “I love you.” Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? “I love you” is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body. You taught me language and my profit on’t is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language. Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. It is no conservationist love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game. A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep changing? I shall call myself Alice and play crocket with the flamingoes. In Wonderland everyone cheats and love is Wonderland isn’t it? Love makes the world go round. Love is blind. All you need is love. Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You’ll get over it. It’ll be different when we’re married. Think of the children. Time’s a great healer. Still waiting for Mr. Right? Miss Right? and maybe all the little Rights? It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. A precise emotion seeks a precise expression. If what I feel is not precise then would I call it love? It is so terrifying, love, that all I can do is shove it under a dump bin of pink cuddly toys and send myself a greetings card saying `Congratulations on your Engagement’. But I am not engaged I am deeply distracted. I am desperately looking the other way so that love won’t see me. I want the diluted version, the sloppy language, the insignificant gestures. The saggy armchair of clichés. It’s all right, millions of bottoms have sat here before me. The springs are well worn, the fabric smelly and familiar. I don’t have to be frightened, look, my grandma and grandad did it, he in stiff collar and club tie, she in white muslin straining a little at the life beneath. They did it, my parents did it, now I will do it won’t I, arms outstretched, not to hold you, just to keep my balance, sleepwalking to that armchair. How happy we will be. How happy everyone will be. And they all lived happily ever after.

Isn’t that amazing?