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Description edit
In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
Interweaving elements of fantasy and history, this novel chronicles the adventures of Jordan, who lives with his mother by the Thames during the reign of Charles II, as he follows his dreams to the end of the world, and beyond
Quotes edit
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“M-a socat această conspirație a femeilor. Îmi plac femeile; sunt timid în fața lor, dar le respect nespus. Habar n-aveam cât de mult ne urăsc sau cât de milă le e de noi. Ele ne cred niște copii cu prea mulți bani de buzunar.”
Jordan -
“Se crede că apa sfințită, crucile, aerul de munte, paza sfinților și o dietă cu măcriș de baltă pot apăra specia umană de putreziciune. Dar ce poate apăra specia umană de iubire?”
Jordan -
“Poate că sunt cinic atunci când spun că rar se întâmplă ca cel iubit să fie mai mult decât o formă dată viselor celui îndrăgostit.”
Jordan -
“Văd că am fler pentru afaceri. L-am avut dintotdeauna, dar a fost înăbușit, cred, de pornirile mele materne și de nevoia presantă de a șterge nemernicii de pe fața pământului.”
Femeia cu Câini -
“... dacă nu avem suficientă forță cât să facem lumea întreagă să explodeze de cincizeci de ori, nu suntem în siguranță. Dacă avem, suntem.”
Femeia cu Câini -
“Islands are metaphors for the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise. My own heart, like this wild place, has never been visited, and I do not know whether it could sustain life.”
Jordan (p. 86) -
“Did my childhood happen? I must believe it did, but I don't have any proof. My mother says it did, but she is a fantasist, a liar and a murderer, though none of that would stop me loving her. I remember things, but I too am a fantasist and a liar <...>. I will have to assume I had a childhood, but I cannot assume to have had the one I remember.”
Jordan (p.102) -
“My experience of time is mostly like my experience with maps. Flat, moving in a more or less straight line from one point to another. Being in time, in a continuous present, is to look at a map and not see the hills, shapes and undulations, but only the flat form. There is no sense of dimension, only a feeling for the surface. Thinking about time is more dizzy and precipitous.Thinking about time is like turning the globe round and round, recognizing that all journeys exist simultaneously, that to be in one place is not to deny the existence of another, even though that other place cannot be felt or seen, our usual criteria for belief.Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular - an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning”
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“I've seen Puritans going past a theatre where all was merriment and pleasure and holding their starched linen to their noses for fear they might smell pleasure and be infected by it”
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“Like the angels, I can be invisible when there is work to be done.”
Dog Lady (p.98) -
“I want to be like my rip-roaring mother who cares nothing for how she looks, only for what she does. She has never been in love, no, and never wanted to be either. She is self-sufficient and without self-doubt. <...> She is silent, the way men are supposed to be. I often caught her staring at me as though she had never seen me before; she seemed to be learning me. I think she loves me but I don't know. She wouldn't say so; perhaps she doesn't know herself.”
Jordan (p.114) -
“The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help.”
Jordan (p.115)
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Was I searching for a dancer whose name I did not know or was I searching for the dancing part of myself?
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I may be cynical when I say that very rarely is the beloved more than a shaping spirit for the lover's dreams. And perhaps such a thing is enough. To be a muse may be enough. The pain is when the dreams change, as they do, as they must. Suddenly the enchanted city fades and you are left alone again in the windy desert. As for your beloved, she didn't understand you. The truth is, you never understood yourself.
Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers -
My own heart, like this wild place, has never been visited, and I do not know whether it could sustain life.
Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers -
I noticed that women have a private language. A language not dependent on the constructions of men but structured by signs and expressions, and that uses ordinary words as code-words meaning something other.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers -
for fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed. I should have killed her and found us a different story.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers -
But does it matter if the place cannot be mapped as long as I can still describe it?
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I don't hate men, I just wish they'd try harder. They all want to be heroes and all we want is for them to stay at home and help with the housework and the kids. That's not the kind of heroism they enjoy.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers -
Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?
Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers -
If you're a hero you can be an idiot, behave badly, ruin your personal life, have any number of mistresses and talk about yourself all the time, and nobody minds. Heroes are immune.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers -
But my mother, who lived only a while and was so light that she dared not go out in a wind, could swing me on her back and carry me for miles. There was talk of witchcraft but what is stronger than love?
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Setting & Locations edit
First Sentence edit
My name is Jordan.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Series & Lists edit
This is book 187 of 1272 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)
Preceded by A Disaffection, and followed by Moon Palace.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Jeanette Winterson (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: HUMANITAS
Country: Romania
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 978-973-689-314-8
Page Count: 209
Publisher: HUMANITAS
Country: Romania
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 978-973-689-314-8
Page Count: 209
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 823.914
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Links to Supplemental Material edit
- CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: Article "Gender in Winterson's Sexing the Cherry" by Paul Kintzele published in Volume 12 Issue 3 (September 2010) of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
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