The Passion (Penguin fiction) - Softcover

Winterson, Jeanette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140108319 ISBN 13: 9780140108316

Publisher: Penguin, 1988

Synopsis

Winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize , this psychological fantasty is about two disillusioned young people who seek to revive their former passions. The book is concerned with gambling, madness and androgynous sexuality amidst the dark, deceptive canals of Venice. Jeanette Winterson's first novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" won the 1985 Whitbread Award for the Best First Novel.

About this title

Review:

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson won the Whitbread Award for best first fiction for the semi-autobiographical Oranges are not the Only Fruit, an often wry exploration of lesbian possibility bumping up against evangelical fanaticism. She was 25. Two years later, The Passion, her third novel, appeared, the fantastical tale of Henri--Napoleon's cook--and Villanelle, a Venetian gondolier's daughter who has webbed feet (previously an all-male attribute), works as a croupier, picks pockets, cross-dresses and literally loses her heart to a beautiful woman. Written in a lyrical and jolting combination of fairy-tale diction and rhythm and the staccato, the book would be a risky proposition in lesser hands. Winterson has said that she wanted to look at people's need to worship and examine what happens to young men in militaristic societies. The question was, how to do so without being polemical and didactic? Only she could have come up with such an exquisite answer. In the end, Henri, incarcerated on an island of madmen, becomes aware that his passion, "even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else." --Amazon.com

Review:

"It's a fantasy, a vivid dream... inventive and brilliant" (Guardian)

"As moving and funny as it is skilful, and reflects the author's formidable appetite for life" (Sunday Times)

"A book of great imaginative audacity and assurance...brilliantly physical (and funny) detail" (Times Literary Supplement)

"Its concentrated, beautifully detailed prose recalls the diction of fairy tales; its plot incorporates their magic, their shrewd wit and brutality...a deeply imagined and beautiful book, often arrestingly so" (New York Times)

"Lyrical prose penetrates to the heart of things... She knows how to speak plain truth and at the same time satisfy our longing for the fabulous. She's telling you stories. Trust her" (Washington Post)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0140108319
• ISBN 13: 9780140108316
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176