I am (almost) speechless when my former students and current (best) friends get inspired and write about my favorite writers (after I nag them for a while :))
Here is Alle's review of Jeanette Winterson's "The Gap of Time", with a few annotations :)
If you give me a book, you give me a world. My fairy godmother knows that. She bought one for my birthday. Besides chocolate and some butterflies, thiiiiiiiis book had my name on it. She wrote some words on the first page. Those words became, by far, my favorite dedication written by this amazing woman! But... I keep it for myself until I become what she wrote there. Soon, I hope. So, dear, dear FG, I promise. I promise I'll do my best to become your favorite writer. Ooooops. I said it.
So, as I have already mentioned, this book, the present from my dearest fairy godmother was a challenge and something new. Jeanette Winterson is quite unique in style, point of view in matters of love and writing and existence, and her literature requires an open mind and acceptance, otherwise you will get bored. Maybe even annoyed. Her life and her past resulted in her writing style, so before judging an author, try to understand their lives.
I met Jeanette Winterson's literature pretty long time ago. I have this feeling because I cannot remember the things I did yesterday but years ago... Anyway. I remember something that she noticed and I agree with. She said that book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. True story. I know my own book-obsession-occupation-disease-addiction-fascination-absurdity-fate and I am glad that someone explained all these in a quote. She gave an answer to all those who judge us, the bookworms. Now I can defend my book-obsession-occupation-disease-addiction-fascination-absurdity-fate. Full stop and breathe.
Jeanette Winterson reinvented the Winter’s Tale. The characters are renamed and the action is placed in our modern world. King Leontes becomes Leo Kaiser in Jeanette's cover, a businessman who accuses his wife, MiMi (Hermione in Shakespeare's play) and his best friend, Polixene (who becomes Xeno) of adultery. The little girl, Perdita, is abandoned by Leo who blames his wife and his best friend for an untrue complicity. He is blinded by this idea and he abandons his own child.
The title tells us about the period which wasn't presented in Shakespeare's play. Jeanette Winterson manages to create new modern characters, people who live in their own controversial worlds and, at the same time, in a common world which unites their personal tragedies. The little girl opens and closes the gap. She is part of the destiny, the one who retrieves the characters' cobweb, settling down the chaos. The parable of the angel caught in the bonds of a building and the consequences of those only two choices he can make, demonstrates the difficulty of the matter, the choice which can destroy everything forever or can cause the beginning of something new, rebuilt.
Here are my favorite quotes:
Tears of rain. (Perfect!).
You were loved then and you are loved now. Isn’t that enough? (This might be the best. In my opinion).
There was a second, the kind that holds a whole world.
Isn't there always a history to the story?
Isn't there always a history to the story?
There's no shortage of heartbreak.
I have felt safe with you and that was unexpected.
She wanted to kiss the hesitation of his throat. (This is sooooooooo... makes me close my eyes and dream).
Leave it without a name but with something to begin the story.
The past is a grenade that explodes when thrown.
The whole day passed and then it was night and nothing had changed because everything had changed.
What is a memory anyway but a painful dispute with the past?
... sometimes you have to accept that your heart knows what to do. (But what if the heart is wrong?)
Moon’s gravitational pull means that earth doesn’t wobble too much. Scientists call it obliquity. The moon holds us fast.
You can pay Alle a visit here.
