Written on the Body

i'm glad to see that this holds up, even as the genderless narrator isn't radical in the way that it originally was when this was published, and for years afterward. still, the not knowing means that the reader is constantly making assumptions and bringing their own stuff into it. of course that's always true when we're reading, but it's just insistently in your face when reading this.

i didn't love this as much this time around, but i still really, really liked it. her references (she's so smart) her writing her meditations her ability to focus on the thing that most people don't. there is such exquisite beauty in this. so much to think about.

"I took them into the garden and burned them one by one and I thought how easy it is to destroy show more the past and how difficult to forget it."

"Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another's boundaries and make ourselves one nation. Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil. Eat of me and let me be sweet."

"I wasn't happy but the power of memory is such that it can lift reality for a time. Or is memory the more real place?"

on the clavicle: 'I cannot think of the double curve lithe and flowing with movement as a bony ridge, I think of it as the musical instrument that bears the same root. Clavis. Key. Clavichord. The first stringed instrument with a keyboard. Your clavicle is both keyboard and key. If I push my fingers into the recesses behind the bone I find you like a soft shell crab. I find the openings between the springs of muscle where I can press myself into the chords of your neck. The bone runs in perfect scale from sternum to scapula. It feels lathe-turned. Why should a bone be balletic?"

"Wisdom says forget, the body howls." (4 stars)

from nov 2013:
this book is simply and utterly gorgeous from the first word to virtually the last. it's a beautiful poem (but isn't poetry) that i read as slowly as i could to savor it. the parts that aren't lyrical are beautiful in their own and very different way, as she's talking about sickness and death, about the body decaying or functioning. this book, although even better in my memory of it (i remember swooning over it the first time) than in actuality, is truly wonderful.

but - it's not for everyone, as it's not a plot-heavy novel (although the plot isn't tenuous at all). it's simply the narrator's experience of love and loss, focusing on the most recent of the many loves in his/her life. (the gender of the narrator isn't clear, making this i guess theoretically more accessible to readers in general? although i found it distracting - because i was trying to label the narrator, not because she wrote it in a way that made it distracting. actually i thought she did a really incredible job making it totally plausible that the narrator could be either a man or a woman; it was written very naturally, she didn't seem to be trying to exclude language or detail.) the overwhelming love the narrator feels is so perfectly described. truly, just gorgeous all around.

this is a love letter to love (and sex) but also to language and words.

"I don't like to think of myself as an insincere person but if I say I love you and I don't mean it then what else am I? Will I cherish you, adore you, make way for you, make myself better for you, look at you and always see you, tell you the truth? And if love is not those things then what things?"

"Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another's boundaries and make ourselves one nation. Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil. Eat of me and let me be sweet."

"Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book."

"I've hidden those words in the lining of my coat. I take them out like a jewel thief when no-one's watching. They haven't faded. Nothing about you has faded. You are still the colour of my blood. You are my blood. When I look in the mirror it's not my own face I see. Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which?"

"My lover is an olive tree whose roots grow by the sea. Her fruit is pungent and green. It is my joy to get at the stone of her. The little stone of her hard by the tongue. Her thick-fleshed salt-veined swaddle stone.

Who eats an olive without first puncturing the swaddle? The waited moment when the teeth shoot a strong burst of clear juice that has in it the weight of the land, the vicissitudes of the weather, even the first name of the olive keeper.

The sun is in your mouth. The burst of an olive is breaking of a bright sky. The hot days when the rains come. Eat the day where the sand burned the soles of your feet before the thunderstorm brought up your skin in bubbles of rain.

Our private grove is heavy with fruit. I shall worm you to the stone, the rough swaddle stone."

and the last paragraph of the book, which has spoilers, sort of:
"This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields."

fucking gorgeous. (5 stars) show less

On the surface, this is a sensual, reflective, and sometimes humorous recollection of the narrator’s loves won and lost, compared with the current one. Unwelcome news triggers a difficult choice, with huge ramifications. It was made with love, but was it the right decision, and did the narrator even have the right to make it? It’s a curious amalgam of styles, yet unmistakably Winterson, including a set of short, more abstract sections, and the fact the bisexual narrator’s gender is unspecified.

But peel back the gilt and what’s beneath is not so straightforward. All the best literature has a unique message for every reader, on each encounter. Gilt reflects: what spoke to me is not what you will hear and respond to.

Image: show more Antique mirror (Source.)

I found this shockingly, painfully good. I knew it was about relationships and was ambiguous about gender, but I was unprepared for the raw dissection of loss. It punched hard, but was shot through with love. Definitely the right book at the right time for me.

“Why is the measure of love loss?”

The opening line, repeated later, brought tears. It’s the converse of my recent experience of grief as the price of love - love with nowhere to go. But nevertheless, and without question, “Love is worth it”.

"You don't get over it because 'it' is the person you loved."

Image: My father’s keys, his writing instantly recognisable from just four letters.
“No-one tells you in grief-counselling or books on loss what it will be like when you find part of the beloved unexpectedly.”

Love is…

“I went to church… I wanted the comfort of other people’s faith.”

The Bible of her childhood infuses atheist Winterson’s writing, and this is no exception: phrases, ideas, and liturgical repetition and rhythm. Here, it’s most obvious in how the “emotional nomad” writes about love:

“Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no.”
and
“No-one can legislate love; it cannot be given orders or cajoled into service. Love belongs to itself, deaf to pleading and unmoved by violence. Love is not something you can negotiate. Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.”

From 1 Corinthians 13, v4-8 (NIV):
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

But I don’t think the Bible is right: love can fail:
“What then kills love? Only this: neglect.”

The other message, from way back in 1992, is that gender doesn’t matter; there is no question or hand-wringing; it’s not relevant to the story.

Image: “Love is love” in current parlance. (Source.)

Marriage

“Is happiness always a compromise?”
“Contentment… are you sure it’s not an absence of feeling?”

In my teens, I remember my father quoting (allegedly) Prince Philip: “Marriage is the highest form of prostitution”. There is truth in that, touched on repeatedly here. We all exchange things for sex and love: our motives are mixed and rarely pure. And the promises of marriage can be hard to keep.

“Marriage is the flimsiest weapon against desire.”
“Cheating is easy… To borrow against the trust someone has placed in you costs nothing at first.”

The Translator, Translated

“Articulacy of the fingers… signing on the body body longing.”
“Your flesh is my flesh. You deciphered me and now I am plain to read.”

The narrator is a translator (there are many references to great literature, as usual for Winterson), but better in abstract than with those they love, let alone themself.

“Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights… In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille… I didn’t know that Louse would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.”

Bio-anatomical Prose Poetry

“I know the stigmata of presumption.”

There are no chapters, but two-thirds through, there are four short sections that defy easy description: semi-abstract musings on cells, skin, skeleton, and “special senses”, as the narrator agonises over anticipatory loss in a profound and sensual way.

“To remember you it’s my own body I touch.”

Ending

“Is this the proper ending? If not the proper then the inevitable?”

As I approached the end, I was nervous: I wasn’t sure what a happy ending would be, but knew I didn't want one. I need not have feared. It is everything and nothing - interpret as you like. I could quote the whole closing paragraph, without fear of spoilers.

In her brilliant autobiography, Why be Happy when you Could be Normal? (see my review HERE), Winterson categorises three types of ending: revenge, tragedy and forgiveness. Both books contain all three.

Other Quotes

Memory of Love
• “How easy is it to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it?”
• “Wisdom says forget. The body howls.”
• “I’ve tried to get you out of my head but I can’t seem to get you out of my flesh.”
• “I don’t want to be reminded of you, I want you.”
• “The power of memory is such that it can lift reality for a time.”

Relationships and Fallout
• “I used to think of marriage as a plate-glass window just begging for a brick.”
• “Odd that marriage, a public display and free to all, gives way to that most secret of liaisons, an adulterous affair.”
• “I had to keep my heart to myself in case I infected somebody” with “emotional clap”.
• “You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time.”
• “I had no dreams to possess you - but I wanted you to possess me.”
• “With old friends… you know one another as well as lovers do and you have less to pretend about” - so you’re more likely to be honest.

Dry Humour
• “The ultimate act of selfishness; a woman who put herself first.”
• “Her husband lies over her like a tarpaulin.”
• “The women wore their jewellery like medals… a palimpsest of love-affairs” on show at the opera.
• “I’d run my hands over her padded flesh with all the enthusiasm of a second-hand sofa dealer.”
• “They considered themselves to be Australian aristocracy, that is, they were descended from convicts.”
• “She had a steady hand but she like to spill. It made work for her daughter.”

Other
• “What you risk reveals what you value.”
• “People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.”

Winterson is queen of the extended metaphor. This is one of many (others include maps, animals, jigsaws):
“When she lifted the soup spoon to her lips how I longed to be that innocent piece of stainless steel… Let me be diced carrot, vermicelli, just so that you will take me in your mouth. I envied the French stick. I watched her break and butter each piece, soak it slowly in her bowl, let it float, grow heavy and fat, sink under the deep red weight and then be resurrected to the glorious pleasure of her teeth… I will taste you if only through your cooking.” show less

The unnamed narrator is a philanderer, conducting relationships with both men and women. We follow the narrator’s many exploits on a quest for love and self-knowledge. The narrator eventually falls in love with Louise, a married woman. The gender of the narrator is not revealed. The reader may choose, based on the reader’s own background, preferences, and experiences.

Winterson is a skilled writer. I was surprised at how much we got to know the narrator through actions and language. While the narrator initially seems aloof, personality traits emerge – selfishness, temper, inability to commit. But by the end, the narrator is changed profoundly. It is an examination of identity, love, and grief.

On love: “Sometimes I think of you show more and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.”

On grief: “Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return them even for a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the frame. I know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word was yours.”

It is a sensual novel, written poetically. There is a section in the middle that reads as an ode to the beloved’s body. It portrays the universality of love, loss, pain, grief, happiness, and joy. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. show less

this book is simply and utterly gorgeous from the first word to virtually the last. it's a beautiful poem (but isn't poetry) that i read as slowly as i could to savor it. the parts that aren't lyrical are beautiful in their own and very different way, as she's talking about sickness and death, about the body decaying or functioning. this book, although even better in my memory of it (i remember swooning over it the first time) than in actuality, is truly wonderful.

but - it's not for everyone, as it's not a plot-heavy novel (although the plot isn't tenuous at all). it's simply the narrator's experience of love and loss, focusing on the most recent of the many loves in his/her life. (the gender of the narrator isn't clear, making this i show more guess theoretically more accessible to readers in general? although i found it distracting - because i was trying to label the narrator, not because she wrote it in a way that made it distracting. actually i thought she did a really incredible job making it totally plausible that the narrator could be either a man or a woman; it was written very naturally, she didn't seem to be trying to exclude language or detail.) the overwhelming love the narrator feels is so perfectly described. truly, just gorgeous all around.

this is a love letter to love (and sex) but also to language and words.

"I don't like to think of myself as an insincere person but if I say I love you and I don't mean it then what else am I? Will I cherish you, adore you, make way for you, make myself better for you, look at you and always see you, tell you the truth? And if love is not those things then what things?"

"Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another's boundaries and make ourselves one nation. Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil. Eat of me and let me be sweet."

"Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book."

"I've hidden those words in the lining of my coat. I take them out like a jewel thief when no-one's watching. They haven't faded. Nothing about you has faded. You are still the colour of my blood. You are my blood. When I look in the mirror it's not my own face I see. Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which?"

"My lover is an olive tree whose roots grow by the sea. Her fruit is pungent and green. It is my joy to get at the stone of her. The little stone of her hard by the tongue. Her thick-fleshed salt-veined swaddle stone.

Who eats an olive without first puncturing the swaddle? The waited moment when the teeth shoot a strong burst of clear juice that has in it the weight of the land, the vicissitudes of the weather, even the first name of the olive keeper.

The sun is in your mouth. The burst of an olive is breaking of a bright sky. The hot days when the rains come. Eat the day where the sand burned the soles of your feet before the thunderstorm brought up your skin in bubbles of rain.

Our private grove is heavy with fruit. I shall worm you to the stone, the rough swaddle stone."

and the last paragraph of the book, which has spoilers, sort of:
"This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields."

fucking gorgeous. show less

Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Here, in this slim volume, Jeanette Winterson challenges that notion in lurid, languid, luxuriant language. Act I is desire. Act II is realization. Act III is regret. And yet, even as its narrator begs throughout to avoid cliché, what emerges is something that feels familiar, even as it begs to plunge new depths.

We know little about our nameless, genderless narrator except that, when it comes to amorous relations, they are experienced, both with loyalty and philandering. The novel begins in an unassuming enough manner, with the narrator recounting lost loves and meandering through memories like Proust with his madeleine. But then they show more meet Louise, who leaves a most indelible mark, first as unachievable and later as untamable. Louise challenges them to see a love beyond expectations, but between her (boring) marriage and later developments that I shan't spoil, it becomes clear that such love is destined only to be a memory.

Where Winterson shines is in the thoroughness of her prose to cover all the territories of deeply felt love: from desire to actualization, and from loss to remembrance, the narrator feels them all acutely. The plot is thin, but it need not be thicker: it exists just enough to bring us from meditation to meditation, providing appropriately sensuous interludes as we go. And when we've reached the end, it feels like perhaps the only moment in the book when we feel we as readers may have outstayed our welcome, even if only for a page or two.

It's a bit tough to get into this book, as it opens with abstraction before the folds of its story reveal itself. The journey, though, is well worth starting. And while the pleasure meets the pain in equal parts, even as it leans more toward the latter in its closing section, there's a catharsis here that transcends those dastardly clichés and manages to succeed in saying something radical and new about love and desire and longing and memory and grief and everything that fits in between. show less

Wow. This is a challenging, lyrical, elusive book. Jeanette Winterson draws from Graham Greene's The End of the Affair and Virginia Woolf's canon and then twists it even further away from story into an interior acknowledgment of sexuality. The genderless narrator is fascinating, for it provokes the reader into "reading" the body and acknowledging what comes out of these readings. I highly recommend this for fans of stream-of-consciousness or queer fiction. It's not an easy read, but the writing is gorgeous, and the payoff is, in my opinion, totally worth it.

Exactly the sort of precise, too-intimate writing that I love delving into and reading over and over, at points spending several minutes on a single paragraph. The plot itself is meandering, perhaps melodramatic, but the plot is secondary.

"'Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I'm free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon's wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know."