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.
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From Amazon
Her first short story collection exhibits the multitude of talents that have made English novelist Jeanette Winterson not just admired but beloved by her many fans. There are the surprising, fresh little phrases minted expressly to convey the delicate realities of the made-up world. There's the humor, fierce and sly but always kind. There's the imagination that changes gender and historical epoch at whim, and does so convincingly; and the characters themselves, a sundry bunch of men and women not necessarily successful or commendable but always, somehow, likable. Best of all, by their very diversity, these stories reveal glimpses of the smart and enigmatic woman behind the work.
In "Atlantic Crossing," Winterson becomes a middle-aged businessman of the mid-20th century, accidentally assigned to share his second-class cabin with a young black woman on a transatlantic crossing. In the realm of event, little happens, but in its depth of perception and what it tells of the nuances of regret, the story is as rich as a novel in another writer's hands. A few scant pages later, Winterson becomes a kind of lost female Homer, telling Orion's story from Artemis's point of view: "When she returned she saw this huge rag of a man eating her goat, raw.... His reputation hung about him like bad breath." In "The Poetics of Sex," she creates a lesbian love story that evokes her characters' personalities as explicitly as their erotic pleasures. "The 24-Hour Dog," the story of a woman writer returning a puppy she had thought to adopt, is remorseless as a psychological thriller in the squirmy depths it plumbs: "I had made every preparation, every calculation, except for those two essentials that could not be calculated: his heart and mine." Read The World and Other Places twice, once for instruction, once for joy. --Joyce Thompson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The detached awareness of Winterson's characters, with their biblically informed psyches and receptivity to the paranormal, make the 17 stories of this collection more proverbial than narrative. When in her acknowledgments Winterson (Gut Symmetries) thanks those who have "bought or bludgeoned" them from her, she's quite right: there's nothing fulsome here. Her spare gestures reduce prose to an eerie elemental state. In "The 24-Hour Dog," the narrator's encounter with a two-month-old puppy purchased from a farmer transports her: "The Sistine Chapel is unpainted, no book has been written. There is the moon, the water, the night, one creature's need and another's response. The moment between chaos and shape and I say his name and he hears me." In other stories, such as "O'Brien's First Christmas," the alien intrudes in the form of a midnight visitation by a tutued fairy on a downcast shopgirl. The feminist allegory "Orion" recasts the myth of Artemis and her predatory paramour; "Disappearance I" imagines a futuristic dystopia in which sleep has become as taboo as red light sex. Though the aftertaste of this unflinchingly provocative and stringently witty collection is somewhat bitter, Winterson's stories reveal another facet of a writer much acclaimed for her virtuosity and complexity.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
Having read the rest of Winterson's in-print books this year, this volume of short stories proved a lovely, fitting end. Some were reflections found in her other works (Sexing the Cherry, Written on the Body), some were completely new to me. Just beautiful.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book is beautiful. Like all her work, it overflows with passion and poetry.
Format:Paperback
Jeanette Winterson and I have become friends. What a little gem of short stories. I picked this book up for $1.00 at a charity sponsored book sale and now I feel guilty for not paying more for it. Jeanette has had me laughing, hoping and remembering since page 1. Her whimsy and honest insight has kept me turning pages - and occassionally re-reading stories. Thanks Jeanette.
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4.4 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Juicy reading
I find Winterson's writing and style utterly electrifying. These various stories, some of which delve into the theme of what one risks reveals what one values, explore a variety of... Read more
Published on Oct 31 2000 by "blissengine"
3.0 out of 5 stars
Inventive is Sometimes a Good Thing...
...And other times it's just confusing.
I've always loved Jeanette Winterson's writing and her inventiveness, bravery, wit and amazing poetic voice. Read more
Published on Sep 21 2000 by Lisa Chun
5.0 out of 5 stars
perfect gems of stories
one of my favorite winterson books, ever. a magical twisting ride through fantastic landscapes. 17 lucious and sometimes bizarre stories transport you out of reality for awhile.
Published on July 21 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
perfect gems of stories
one of my favorite winterson books, ever. a magical twisting ride through fantastic landscapes. 17 lucious and sometimes bizarre stories transport you out of reality for awhile.
Published on July 21 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Read
Jeanette Winterson is acclaimed as the foremost lesbian writer today. Don't let this title fool you. Read more
Published on July 19 2000
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