The Passion
by Jeanette Winterson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeanette WintersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-08-07
ISBN: 0802135226
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of The Passion
Book Review: "I'm telling you stories. Trust me"
Summary: 4 Stars
Set in the years between Napoleon's aborted attempt at crossing the Channel in 1805 and the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, Winterson's "The Passion" reads more like a fairy tale than a war story. Napoleon himself is offstage for most of this short novel; instead the narrative switches between Henri, a cook who satisfies the emperor's gluttonous appetite for chicken, and Villanelle, a web-footed daughter of a boatman who works above and beneath the law in Venice's casinos.
Villanelle loses her heart to a married woman, both figuratively and (yes) literally; the latter aspect underscores the book's fanciful nature. The fates of the two characters intertwine and they eventually traverse the continent together in a journey whose abridged horrors rival "Doctor Zhivago." Henri soon worships the remote Villanelle, yet his love, too, necessarily remains unrequited.
Both characters are storytellers; both know their stories may not be believed ("I'm telling you stories. Trust me" is the refrain). Indeed, Winterson pushes the notion of the unreliable narrator to its limit. But the "truth" is largely irrelevant to their stories; as Henri says, "I was learning not to ask her too many questions; truth or lie, they were usually unsatisfactory."
Winterson's prose is elegantly lyrical, but she often employs clipped, imprecise, recurring phrases to emphasize her themes (I found this quality a bit more grating now than I did when I first read the book nearly 20 years ago). Just when the repetition threatens to become soporific, the gruesome brutality of the war and of urban violence era interrupts the story's phantasmagorical romanticism. It's a strange, disconcerting blend of realism and fabulism and it's far too much for 160 pages, yet Winterson surprisingly pulls it off.
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