Lighthousekeeping - Hardcover

Winterson, Jeanette

3.87

9,376 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007181515 ISBN 13: 9780007181513

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2004

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‘A child born of chance might imagine that Chance was its father, in the way that gods fathered children, and then abandoned them, without a backward glance, but with one small gift. I wondered if a gift had been left for me. I had no idea where to look, or what I was looking for, but I know now that all important journeys start that way.’

Motherless and anchorless, Silver is taken in by the timeless Mr. Pew, keeper of the Cape Wrath lighthouse. Pew tells Silver ancient tales of longing and rootlessness, of ties that bind and of the slippages that occur throughout every life. One life, Babel Dark’s, a 19th-century clergyman, opens like a map that Silver must follow. Caught in her own particular darknesses, she embarks on an Ulyssean sift through the stories we tell ourselves, stories of love and loss, of passion and longing, stories of unending journeys that move through places and times, and the bleak finality of the shores of betrayal. But finally,
“I love you. The most difficult words in the world. But what else can I say?” A story of mutability, of talking birds and stolen books, of Darwin and Stevenson and of the Jekyll and Hyde in all of us, ‘Lighthousekeeping’ is a way in to the rooms of our own that we secretly inhabit. Jeanette Winterson is one of the most extraordinary and original writers of her generation and this shows her at her lyrical best.

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Review:

"...brilliant, glittering piece of work that makes you gasp out loud at the sheer beauty of the language." -- Independent

"A marvellously skilful juggling act of ideas and emotion ...Winterson's prodigious talent brings the book alive." -- Evening Standard

"An entrancing, gleaming crystal of a book, which left me bereft when it was over." -- Independent on Sunday

"This blasted maritime setting is a triumph.You want to savour every salt-decayed description..." -- Guardian

'Dark's passion for Molly, Silver's passion for her unnamed lover have a transporting, transcendent quality that is all Winterson's own.' -- Daily Telegraph

'Flashes of brilliance and her confidence in her idiom is impressive.' -- Sunday Telegraph

'Perfect for storm-tossed lovers everywhere.' -- Daily Mail

'Poetic and funny' -- Mail on Sunday

'Such a delight.... Perfect for curling up with on dark, lonely nights.' -- Daily Express

'Winterson has reverted to the accessible narrative of works such as The Passion. Lighthousekeeping is all the better for it.' -- Michele Roberts, Financial Times

From the Back Cover:

"An inspired meditation on myth and language." --The New Yorker

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 the 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 lives 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.
"Pew's yarns, and later Silver's, are not just about love and loss . . . but about narrative itself, and the ways in which life refuses to conform to the boundaries of a story, just as desire rebels at the limits of the world." Village Voice

"Intimate, romantic, elegant and charmingly literary, Winterson s new novel is a poetic narrative that reaffirms the power of storytelling to provide hope when times are most desperate, and to give life--and light--when matters seem most dark." Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Winterson weaves a beautiful and coherent tapestry . . . she achieves a quality that justly can be called visionary." Los Angeles Times

Jeanette Winterson is the author of eight novels, a short-story collection, a book of essays, and a children s picture book. She has won numerous awards, including the Whitbread First Novel Award, the John Llewelyn Rhys Prze, and the E. M. Forster Award. She lives in Oxfordshire and London.
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