A quick look through my library would tell you that I happen to truly enjoy (and I was tempted to use ‘love’) Winterson’s books. I enjoyed this one as well, though not as much. That part of her prose that makes her books feel almost magical was not there. This one was much more grounded in reality. Not that that is a bad thing, but I felt as if I wanted to read Winterson for what I had known her for.
She did, however set herself a very ambitious goal in this one, and executed it fairly well. ( )

I read this book for a class and it has become one of my favorites. I love how the narrator's sex is never mentioned striping it down to what it truly is, an amazing story of love and loss.

To be honest, Written on the Body is not my favorite of Winterson's works. It's maudlin, as another reviewer wrote, and I simply didn't care at all for the narrator. Too dramatic and bloated for my tastes. It's not bad, of course, nothing Winterson writes could ever be truly terrible, but it's so purple. ( )

Infatuated and Infatuating: This is barely a novel in the traditional sense.
The first-person narrator sounds at first like a man
then later, like a woman. He/she has no particular
characteristics of her/his own.
The plot is also barely there. Narrator is having an
affair with one woman, meets another, falls in love.
Lover leaves husband. Narrator learns that lover has
cancer and that only Estranged Husband can cure her.
(No surprise in an English novel, the semi-vile Husband
just happens to be Jewish.)
Narrator leaves lover, regrets her decision, goes looking
for her. Hero on a quest theme music. The End.

This lack of plot and person(ality) makes it easier
for her (we have to end up thinking of the narrator
as 'her')to observe the world without being particularly touched
by it. It also clears the way for some observations
about a deeply felt love that seems to spring up,
seize her by the throat and carry her off. Our narrator
barely acts, but she keeps a very sharp eye on that
which acts on her.

It is that eye, plus the poignancy of her analysis of what
she sees that makes this such a remarkable book. Love
and Loss are often partners-it's easy to imagine their
names painted on an office door-but in this book, they
are dancing partners. Love and Loss are the Fred and Ginger
that tease out the reader's recollections of the universal
feelings of being in love and take us quickly to our very
particular memories.

It's a pity that this book is printed in such an unattractive
paperback edition-it would make a perfect gift bound in leather,
no dust jacket and with a little pocket to hold a rose.


--Lynn Hoffman, author of [[ASIN:0131186361 New Short Course in Wine,The]] and
the completely infatuating [[ASIN:1601640005 bang BANG: A Novel]]

Achingly, passionately written, without being over the top. Absolutely relateable. This book, though short in pages, will stay with you for far longer than it takes to read it... ( )