![]() ![]() The novel form is finished.” This ambition to transcend generic and temporal boundaries has given rise to the experimental virtuosity of her work. A form that is not ‘a poem’ as we usually understand the term, and not ‘a novel’ as the term is defined by its own genesis. ![]() In her 1995 manifesto “Art ,” Winterson writes: “What I am seeking to do in my work is to make a form that answers to 21st century needs. My confusion about where to go made me realize that I was on Winterson’s territory. “Gut feelings” I could follow, but “gut thinking” is a fork in the road, two paths that lead in seemingly opposite directions. One of the book’s three narrators calls the story a “journey through the thinking gut,” and again I came up against a question mark. Before I even laid hands on the book, I was drawn into its conundrum. The word gut, its physicality, its vulgarity, the fact that as a verb it means “to disembowel” has a disturbing effect when coupled with a word that indicates balance and order. ![]() Unlike Winterson’s other titles, which range from the elevated (“Art and Lies,” “Art ”) to the playful (“Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” “Boating for Beginners”) to the visceral (“Sexing the Cherry,” “Written on the Body”), this title poses a challenge. When I first heard the title of Jeanette Winterson’s new novel over the phone last fall, I thought I had a bad connection. “Gut Symmetries,” the title sticks in one’s throat, the clipped percussion of the first word clashing with the sibilant wave of its partner. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |