Another Gap of Time

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?

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. 

"White Feathers in the Snow"

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; 
The worlds revolve like ancient women 
Gathering fuel in vacant lots. (Preludes)

I have heard the key 

Turn in the door once and turn once only 

We think of the key, each in his prison 

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison 

Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours 

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus. (The Waste Land)

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still. (Ash Wednesday) 

What a better start of the New Year than with Jeremy Irons reading poetry on BBC Radio 4 and Jeanette Winterson introducing T.S. Eliot's work in the first three parts of the radio show? Such a fantastic insight into Eliot's work and a mesmerising rendition of his lines by Mr. Irons! I simply love it! 

T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) was a famous American born poet, essayist and playwright who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Back in 1927 he became a British citizen. "The Waste Land" (1922) is considered by many to be the most influential poetic work of the twentieth century. In-between 1930-1960 he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English speaking world. 

You can listen to the 5 parts for free this month here. 

Becoming Jeanette Winterson

Today my favorite writer turns 57. Happy Birthday to you, Jeanette Winterson! May you remain the same incredibly inspiring writer who is not afraid to speak her mind! 

You all know that Brexit happened but you may not be aware how vocal she has been about it and how she no longer thinks that Britain, with all the ugly changes, is her country. I love the fact that, while revisiting classic stories such as Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" in her latest novel "The Gap of Time" (2015) she can still remain grounded in the present and not shy away from having a pertinent opinion about what happens in Britain and around the world. 

In an article she wrote this June, she states something that now seems clear for most of us:

"I am an optimist by nature. I believe in solutions. We need solutions to the absolute failure of the neoliberal Project Few, whereby capitalism has been hijacked to serve the rich, where investing for the long term has been replaced by short-term profiteering, and where globalisation has been allowed to wreck local economies in the name of free trade."

She has a willingness to take risks and challenge herself and her readers that has remained constant throughout her career of more than 30 years. She is one of the most ambitious and inventive writers I have come across and I can't wait to (re)read her creative writing! 

"My two pillars are art and love and I had to learn both." 

Here is a short interview with her in Australia this May, at the Sydney Writers' Festival:

p.s. The black 'creature' in the picture is her cat, Nero. 

Happy Birthday, Jeanette!

Look! A Red Feather!

THE GAP OF TIME - Jeanette Winterson

The Hogarth Shakespeare series will launch in October 2015 with The Gap of Time – Jeanette Winterson’s reinvention of The Winter’s Tale. This major international project will see Shakespeare’s plays reimagined by some of today’s bestselling and most celebrated writers. The books will be true to the spirit of the original plays, while giving authors an exciting opportunity to do something new.

Winterson said of The Winter’s Tale: ‘All of us have talismanic texts that we have carried around and that carry us around. I have worked with The Winter’s Tale in many disguises for many years. This is a brilliant opportunity to work with it in its own right. And I love cover-versions.’

Other writers involved in the project and whose books will appear in 2016: Tracy Chevalier, who will be retelling Othello, Gillian Flynn (Hamlet), Margaret Atwood (The Tempest). 

My Literary Affair

It has been a busy month for Jeanette Winterson. At he beginning of August she flew to Australia together with her partner and personal therapist, Susie Orbach to attend Byron Bay Writers' Festival where she spoke about her struggles as a writer and the way she coped with loss and depression: "I’d always had enough fuel and energy to push me forward, and find a way through using language and writing (...) It caused me to go into a place that was completely terrifying because I’d lost language… I lost any sense of being able to describe what was happening to me.”
Then, just a few days ago she published two articles for The Guardian, both as part of a series whose topics are "My Hero" and the weekend special "The One that Got Away".
I quite enjoyed discovering who my hero's hero is... and it is Kate Bush, the one who gave Jeanette's "19 year old self a strategy for life and art" and I can empathize with the impatience of looking forward to seeing her in a concert this very week, 35 years after the revelatory moment. Kate offered Jeanette "salvation of a different kind", and this is what true heroes do, don't they?

The article on lost love is simply a beautiful gem, a piece of writing whose words you would like to remember forever because they show Jeanette's genius in recreating a piece of her past, love related, without naming anyone in particular.

"I realised a few years ago that the script I was running through all my relationships was a narrative of loss. Either I chose, or let myself be chosen by, people who weren't free (those were the exciting ones), or I had bouts of duty where I tried to settle down in a way guaranteed to find me secret-sighing over someone else. Changing that story changed my relationship with myself – which is, after all, the relationship all other relationships must negotiate." 

These words reminded me of her lines from "The Powerbook":
"The alphabet of my DNA shapes certain words, but the story is never told. I have to tell it myself.
What is it I have to tell myself again and again?
That there is always a new beginning, a different end.
I can change the story. I am the story.
Begin."
If you are familiar with her attempt of committing suicide after one of her relationships had ended (subject she talks about in her memoir "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?") then reading this optimistic take on her past love and loss is quite uplifting and it shows how much she evolved emotionally.

"Love is hard work. We don't hear enough about that. Falling in love is the easy part – it's why affairs are so exciting and attractive – none of the toil, all of the fun. I used to have a lot of affairs until I realised it was like growing cress on a flannel – instant results, no roots."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEANETTE! Thank you for being a neverending inspiration! :) 
P.S. Madonna attended the same concert last night in London, how cool and 'coming full circle' that is? :)

Jeanette Winterson on Love

Jeanette Winterson was kindly asked to define love. Here are her impressions: 

St. John of the Cross: “In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love alone.” 

W. H. Auden: “Let no one say I Love until aware / What huge resources it will take to nurse / One ruining speck, one tiny hair / That casts a shadow through the universe.” 

Freud: “Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved.” 

From 19th-century novels, that love and money are fatally bartered as interchangeable currencies. 

From poetry, that love is a language that has to be learned. 

From the Bible, that love is as strong as death. 

From my novel “Written on the Body”: “Why is the measure of love loss?”

But 20 years later I discovered that love could be as reliable as the sun. And that there is one other thing in a world infatuated by wealth. Love never counts the cost.

Christmas with Jeanette

It is turning quite into a habit, Jeanette posting a few words on Christmas Eve, and this time, she has written a Christmas ghost story... and it somehow reminds me of Susan Hill's "Woman in Black".

You can read it by visiting The Guardian site here, or you can read about her thoughts on celebrating Christmas here.

Merry Christmas! :)

Finding Company for Your Soul

Love (III) - George Herbert

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack,
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd anything.

 It is quite uplifting to discover new writers, even if they were born centuries ago, and new music, even if it may not be the ordinary music you listen to, and all this thanks to your favorite writer, in my case, Jeanette Winterson.

On the 11th of November Jeanette spoke on BBC Radio 4 about George Herbert's poetry and Sir John Tavener's elating music. Herbert's poems attract a new audience mainly because his message states that love must come before God, which seems quite controversial for a 17th century poet.

Taverner, who unfortunately died last month at the age of 69, is famous for his mystical music and the liturgical traditions that influenced his major works. How the two can mix is described in the podcast. You can listen to it here, for more insight on how the two creative minds can be related, but simply listening to "The Protecting Veil" can give you the feeling of having been touched by the wings of an angel :)

What my Favorite Writer Is Reading...

Have you ever wondered what your favorite writers are reading? I have, and weeks ago Jeanette Winterson wrote about what she recommended as some of the best releases of this year. All five are memoirs and this was quite foreseeable mainly because Jeanette herself wrote a wonderful memoir two years ago - Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - and I am sure she wanted to check if others are better at this :) Jeanette, without doubt yours is the best :)
I checked what the five books are all about and there are two that I may think about reading somewhere in the future: "She Left Me the Gun" and "A Fort of Nine Towers". The rest don't seem to intrigue me...

The Wave A profoundly moving, piercingly frank memoir of learning to live with grief--that begins in Sri Lanka on Dec. 26, 2004, when the author lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived.
A Fort of Nine Towers A young Afghan man's searing and redemptive memoir of his family and country. Omar survived imprisonment and opened a secret carpet factory to provide work for girls who were forbidden to go to leave their homes. Inflected with folktales, steeped in poetry, this book is a life-affirming triumph.
Bad Boy Renowned American artist Fischl has written a penetrating, often searing exploration of his coming of age as an artist, and his search for a fresh narrative style in the highly charged and competitive New York art world in the 1970s and 1980s.
She Left Me the Gun When Emma Brockes was ten years old, her mother said 'One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed.' Growing up in a tranquil English village, Emma knew very little of her mother's life before her. She knew Paula had grown up in South Africa and had seven siblings.
I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp The sharp, lyrical, and no-holds-barred memoir of the iconoclastic writer and musician--progenitor of American and British punk rock--which charts the coming of age of an artist and an indelible era in rock & roll history.

It's all about Ali!

It's all about Ali! by biaa on Storybird Don't mind the biaa thing, it is just a cover-up :) 

The Daylight Gate - Six Word Sum Up

This is the first time I haven't been blown away by a Jeanette Winterson book and I even know the reason to my "un-amazement": it is neither the subject - hunting down the Pendle witches, which can be quite thrilling, nor the idea of Jeanette experimenting with a horror novella for the first and last time, in her words... It is, in fact, the change in her writing style, which I simply used to adore. I kept on reading the short novel, waiting for a glimpse of her style, but it felt like I was reading a book by an ordinary writer who had nothing to do with the mesmerizing way in which Jeanette usually writes. And when I came to the line "Do you remember?", which also appears in the story "Goldrush Girl" I even smiled, but that was it... the falcon has flown away never to return (read the story to understand the meaning). I really hope her next literary piece will be a return to her famous, non-conformist style, with or without Shakespeare being mentioned :) For those who love horror stories, the book is a must.

Are all clever women powerful witches?

"She heard wings. She held out her arm. It was her bird. He scarred her arm where she had no glove but she did not care because she loved him and she knew that love leaves a wound that leaves a scar."

To read more about the book, click here. 
Read for the LGBT reading event, hosted by Roof Beam Reader.

"Love matters."

Jeanette Winterson is interviewed by the Australian television ABC about her latest book, "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" 
First aired on the 31st of July 2012.

 P.S. Happy Birthday, Jeanette! I hope the weather is fantastic in Paris! :)

Popcorn for the Soul

Me, Myself and Jeanette

“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.” This may seem incredible - and it actually is - but tomorrow I will be (hopefully live) on the BBC radio , asking Jeanette Winterson questions about her first novel, published in 1985, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit". How out of this world that is? :) Am I over the moon? Yes. Am I worried I will be too nervous and make a fool of myself? Oh, yes. Is this a dream come true? Definitely. I will update the post after the interview to keep you posted about how my fascination with JW has reached new heights :)

 UPDATE: No live chat due to my work schedule, but my question has been answered. What question and what answer? You'll have to wait till the 2nd of June, when the podcast will be available :)  
UPDATE 2: Here's the podcast!

E Scris Pe Trup ...

- Eu sunt Bing.
- Eu sunt Elefana, nu ti-am spus? De peste un an de zile imi comand cartile de pe Elefant.ro, cea mai mare librarie online, pentru ca ofera cele mai bune preturi din Romania, au carti in romana si engleza, ebooks, muzica si filme cat cuprinde. Poti chiar sa citesti pagini din carti inainte de a le cumpara si ghici ce? De cateva saptamani poti comanda doar cu un click, e o metoda foarte simpla, rapida si eficienta.
- Serios? Un site ce ofera servicii grozave, asta e chiar o noutate pentru voi!
- Da, cred ca vorbesti in cunostinta de cauza, calatorind peste tot…
- Nu chiar peste tot, dar hai sa zicem ca am vazut cam tot ce era de vazut prin galaxie.
- Si cu lectura cum stai?
- Lectura e cool(tura), parca asa ziceti voi, nu?
- Da, pana la urma, ignoranta poate fi un pacat, deci citim mult.
- Si cam ce cititi voi?
- Noi? E scris pe trup.
- Scris pe trup? Cum adica?
- Vezi tu, Scris pe trup e o carte ce vorbeste despre ce e mai frumos pentru noi, oamenii: dragostea, o dragoste pe care nu o poti uita, o dragoste care ramane cu tine si isi lasa amprentele in suflet.
- Suflet? Nu cunosc notiunea.
- Iti explic mai tarziu. Acum hai sa-ti vorbesc despre dragostea obsedanta, pe care o pierzi, si crezi ca ai pierdut totul. Hmm, oare “de ce masura iubirii este pierderea ei?”
- “De ce ti-e atat de frica de mine?”
- “Frica? Da, asa e, mi-e frica de tine. Ma tem ca s-ar putea sa ai o usa pe care nu o pot vedea, ca in orice clipa aceasta usa se poate deschide si dus vei fi.”
- “Pune-ti trei dorinte, si se vor implini toate. Pune-ti trei sute de dorinte, si eu ti-o voi indeplini pe fiecare din ele.”
- “Nu-ti dai niciodata inima cu totul; o imprumuti doar, din cand in cand. Daca nu ar fi asa, atunci cum ai putea sa ti-o iei inapoi fara sa ceri voie nimanui?”
- “Problema ta e ca vrei sa traiesti intr-un roman.”
- “Esti un inger cazut, dar nemiscat, asa cum sunt ingerii; trupul iti e usor ca de libelula, ai aripi mari aurii, taiate din soare...”

“Aici incepe povestea, in aceasta camera aproape goala. Atunci cand vom pleca, vom putea lua lumea cu noi, si soarele sub brat.” E Scris pe trup.

Post scris pe blog, nu pe trup, pentru sufletul meu si blogalinitiative.ro :)

Always Jeanette

Venice Reading Challenge - The Passion

There is no better combination than to read your favorite author while reading for a challenge involving Venice! Does it matter that it is my fourth read of The Passion, by Jeanette Winterson? Not at all. :)


I first read this enchanting novel more than ten years ago and it is still in my top five favorite books. You may surely wonder what is so special about it? Here's a short list:

~ Jeanette's style is incomparable to any other author, dead or alive;
“Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.”

~ the (love)story that gradually unravels between Henri, Napoleon's cook and Villanelle, the mysterious Venetian:
“In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.'Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest.
Feel for yourself.”

~ the key phrases will follow you long after you finish reading the book and you may find yourself quoting them now and then.
"I'm telling you stories. Trust me."
"You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. What you risk reveals what you value."



~ Venice, described as the "city of mazes", where one can lose one's way, where nothing is certain and everything is unfolding into another thing:
"This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route. If you do so, it will be by mistake. Your bloodhound nose will not serve you here. Your course in compass reading will fail you. Your confident instructions to passers-by will send them to squares they have never heard of, over canals not listed in the notes."

~ magic realism, which gives you the feeling that one day you could live (in) this fairy tale yourself: "Rumour has it that the inhabitants of this city walk on water. That, more bizarre still, their feet are webbed. Not all feet, but the feet of the boatmen whose trade is hereditary."

~ the switch in narrative voice which, if you are not careful, can make you lose yourself between the lines, just like you might lose your way on the small streets of Venice;

~ crossing boundaries and transgression: Villanelle can be as mysterious and provoking as Venice itself.

~ in short,it's a book about loving so/too much: “Whoever it is you fall in love with for the first time, not just love but be in love with, is the one who will always make you angry, the one you can't be logical about.”

Venice will taste, feel and smell even better after you've read The Passion!

Read for the Venice Challenge and the European Reading Challenge

4 Is Not a Crowd

A few days ago I read an interesting post here and it made me seriously ask myself the same question: What writers should I invite to my (fancy) dinner?. The tricky thing is that they have to be from different centuries, so after I struggled with a list of 10 or so writers, I decided to have a "ladies' night" with three of the most inspiring women writers. EVER.

Jeanette Winterson (21st century, born in 1959)


~ first encounter with her work: 2001
~ adopted by Pentecostal parents, she used to hide in order to be able to read books.
~ she wrote her first and probably her most talked-about novel "Oranges are not the only fruit" at 23, which she published in 1985.
~ owns an eco-shop in London, called "Verdes".
~ has just started using twitter and is about to have her first autobiography published - "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?".
~ her best book, in my opinion: "The Passion".
Everything she writes feels enchanting and yet, utterly true and about myself :)

Anais Nin (20th century, 1903 - 1977)


~ first encounter with her work: 2002
~ probably most famous for her tumultuous affair with Henry Miller.
~ of French-Cuban origin, she also used to live by herself, although she was married, on a boat on the Seine.
~ studied psychoanalysis and briefly practiced as a lay therapist in New York; she was a patient of Carl Jung for a time as well.
~ was an obscure literary figure until 1966, when her diary in ten volumes was published.
~ her best creation (IMHO): the love letters addressed to Miller in "A Literary Passion".
Her journal is incredibly sultry and passionate.

George Sand (19th century, 1804 - 1876)


~ first encounter with her work: 1997
~ her real name was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant
~ her reputation turned scandalous when she started smoking cigars, wearing men's clothing in public and all this after she had left her husband.
~ visited Venice in 1834 with her lover Alfred de Musset and stayed at Hotel Danieli, then known as "Albergo Reale".
~ fought for women's role in political life and took part in the events of June 1848 in Paris.
~ my favorite work: "Histoire de ma vie".
As Musset, her lover, said, she was "the most womanly woman."

All I know about Gertrude Stein

"Sometimes I have affairs. But though I enjoy the bed, I feel angry at the fraud; the closeness without the cost. I know what the cost is: the more I love you, the more I feel alone."

This is not Jeanette Winterson's first encounter with the British literary journal GRANTA - in fact, it is her fourth - nor with Gertrude Stein, whose work and daring attitude are analyzed in "Art Objects" and this short story is available entirely to be read on their site here as part of the 115th issue devoted to Feminism (which is not such a bad word, after all :) )



As with other short stories in which Winterson mingles her passions and interest with the almighty creativity (in "Goldrush Girl" she mixes parts of Puccini's opera "La Fanciulla del West - one of her favorite operas - with the story of the two lovers) here, in "All I know about Gertrude Stein" she sets her story in Paris - Jeanette has been musing for a long time whether to settle or not in the city of lights - and names her character Louise (that's a clue for the more avid Winterson readers), while she also juxtaposes anecdotes from the lives of Stein and her lover, Alice B. Toklas.
If you want to discover how women can love you will truly savour this short story and why not, become a Winterson fan, just like myself.

"But love has no limits. Love seems to be a continuous condition like the universe. But the universe is remote except for this planet we call home, and love means nothing unless it is real and in our hands."