Sexing the Cherry (Vintage International) - Softcover

Winterson, Jeanette

3.84

17,720 ratings by Goodreads

9780679733164: Sexing the Cherry (Vintage International)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679733167 ISBN 13: 9780679733164

Publisher: Vintage Books, 1991

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Interweaving elements of fantasy and history, this novel chronicles the adventures of Jordan, who lives with his mother by the Thames during the reign of Charles II, as he follows his dreams to the end of the world, and beyond

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Review:

Set in 17th century London, Sexing the Cherry is about the journeys taken by the boisterous Dog-Woman and her son Jordan: journeys across seas to find bananas and pineapples; journeys through time that weave snatches of the present with tales of Charles 1 and Oliver Cromwell; journeys in search of the self. As mothers go, the Dog-Woman takes some beating. She's a giant, wrapped in a skirt that could "serve as a sail for some wartorn ship" and strong enough to fling an elephant into the air. She's hideous too, with smallpox scars on her face where fleas live, a flat nose and black, broken teeth. To top it all, she's a "fantasist, a liar and a murderer". But her son, Jordan, is proud of her--who else has a mother who can hold a dozen oranges in her mouth at once?

Like the best of Winterson's writing, such as Oranges are not the Only Fruit and The Passion, the novel is engaging, ambitious and contrary. Alongside a hearty historical realism, young girls swoon in locked towers that don't exist, islands slip sideways in time and mysterious diseases wipe out towns and cities. Even though Sexing the Cherry is short, it is impossible to read it in a straight line--fairy tales and dreams run in and out of the text and it's hard to resist chasing them. There is an exceptional playfulness at work too--an unravelling of the most solid of historical facts and fantastically unconventional fairy tales in which princesses smash the skulls of their princes with silver candlesticks or become worn and grey "like old sweaters". --Jane Honey

Review:

"A book of innocence and bawdiness, fury and joy...needs to be read and re-read" (The Times)

"Read it and marvel. Jeanette Winterson's voice is startlingly original, and her imaginative feats are utterly dazzling" (Cosmopolitan)

"Simple prose shows the subtlest of minds behind it, swift, confident and dazzling" (Financial Times)

"Winterson juggles past and present, fantasy and reality, to produce an original and entertaining novel which invites us to re-examine our own perceptions of time" (Sunday Times)

"Her stories and characters levitate off the page into dancing life... A bold, bizarre and timely book" (Independent)

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