Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

Book 2: Written on the Body

I thought I would usually begin my book reviews with some kind of summary of what the book was about. But this book is not about plot. It is about words themselves, and the ways that they interact with feelings, and the possibilities of the interactions between words and feelings.

Why you should not read this novel:

You really should read it. I suppose you wouldn’t like it if you hate romantic love poems. Or maybe if you were homophobic. The back of the book says it is an "ungendered" narrator, but I read her as definitively female. If you have a problem with length, be heartened! It's not even very long. It does, however, require some concentration, because it's not as breezy as a Murakami novel, for example. The sentences are very complex. But they are complex because they are beautiful! You should read it.

Why you should read this novel:

It reminds me of Cyrano de Bergerac, a play by Edmund Rostand that I read in high school, because it is an extended love poem. Written on the
Body is so descriptive, so creatively full of metaphors, that it gives me hope. I'd thought that writing about just plain old love had run out of words to describe it simply because it had been gone over so many times. That clearly isn't the case. On the very first, beautiful page, the narrator states, "Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. It is no conservationist love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game. A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep changing? I shall call myself Alice and play croquet with the flamingoes." It is so full of metaphors and pondering that it is almost difficult to see what actually happens at the end: does she find her lover or not?

What it sparks in me:

If you've read the above, you have some idea of what it sparks in me. But what I didn't mention was anger and worry. The narrator has been in many different relationships. I cannot help wondering: is her vision of life too romantic, such that she takes none of them seriously enough and her sense of love will eventually become jaded? She mentions many different love affairs, all that ended terribly. She concludes that the feeling of love is worth it, even the pain, which makes me wonder if perhaps she enjoys the pain too much. If you see life and love on these beautiful terms, is it because you have become separated from reality, such that such loves are not truly possible, but only bolstered by lovely language? This seems to be a central theme in my blog: should we be worried by literature and what it does for our psyches? (I am tempted to argue no, but perhaps that is unfounded.)

I love the way this book concludes: "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."

In fact, this is a removal from literature. It says: I am no longer looking for a 'story' in life, I am letting it happen in beautiful moments such as this. I don't even want to make a conclusion, I want to enjoy reality with you, my beautiful lover, so I am giving up writing now. So the conclusion of the novel is that novels are hopeless (but still pretty nice).