The World and Other Places: Stories - Softcover

Winterson, Jeanette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676972551 ISBN 13: 9780676972559

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2000

Synopsis

In this, her first collection of short stories, Jeanette Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. Whether transporting us to bizarre new geographies - a world where sleep is illegal, an island of diamonds where the rich wear jewellery made of coal - or recalling the joy and pain of owning a brand-new dog, Winterson proves herself a master of the short form. In prose that is almost tactile, full of imagery and word play, she creates worlds that are at once familiar yet shockingly strange. For anyone who has been moved by Jeanette Winterson's novels, The World and Other Places is essential reading: a grand celebration of Winterson's gifts that spans her entire literary career.

About this title

Review:

In Jeanette Winterson's first collection of short stories, we are confronted with characters so at odds with themselves and the world--whether our own, familiar world or one of the author's invention--that it is difficult to truly empathize with any of them.

The first story, "The 24 Hour Dog", is a lullaby of a tale compared to those that follow, yet still manages to leave behind the disconcerting notion that a human being who cannot even take responsibility for a tiny puppy has little chance of survival in the big, bad world.

From the voluptuous "The Poetics of Sex", so flush with earthy imagery and erotically charged word-play that the fever of desire rises from the page in an uncomfortable steam, to the frigidity of the "Stepford-Wife-like Newton", Winterson spins us around a breathless, off-centre world, leaving the reader dizzy and disturbed.

This challenging collection from the acclaimed author of Oranges are not the Only Fruit and "Sexing the Cherry" is a kaleidoscope of people and places, with some just a tad out of the reach of reality and others just within the boundaries of dreams. Yet all somehow manage to tug at the soul.

Review:

"A brilliant collection. . .speculative, philosophical and surreal. . . . You will fall in love with this writer." --The Baltimore Sun

"Winterson is a grand warrior. . .a modern writer, a modern thinker. . . . Her images are fantastic." --Los Angeles Times

"Like a literary periscope scanning island after island in the sea of Winterson's imagination." --Boston Book Review

"That Winterson is an original and important writer is surely by now beyond question. . . . One of the pleasures of this collection is that it allows the reader to map the gradual evolution of her writing." --The Boston Globe

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0676972551
• ISBN 13: 9780676972559
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240