Word: winterson
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Winterson's faith in her ability to craft language echoes throughout the book, but such faith is misplaced. A particularly nauseating section reads, "She thinks I'm holding on to pain. She thinks pain is a souvenir. Perhaps she thinks pain is the only way I can feel. As it is, the pain reminds me that my feelings are damaged." The only real pain comes from reading the maudlin sentimentality that resonates throughout the text...
...didn't know that Jeanette Winterson, author of The Powerbook, is actually considered to be quite an evil, pretentious and annoying person by most of the publishing world. But I assumed as much, for Winterson's leaps into multiple story and time lines, and her melodramatic attempts at eastern-sounding philosophy, are tremendously ostentatious and tremendously unappealing...
...biggest problem The Powerbook has is that Winterson thinks she can successfully shift time and place with a simple chapter heading. As a result, the book becomes entirely confusing; it is impossible to tell when the protagonist has changed age or gender, for often the protagonist will remain the same but the time, place and lover will be different. If Winterson's intent is to involve the reader in an interactive hunt to chase down the three or four occasionally similar story-lines, then she succeeds...
...answer, alas, is celebrity. Winterson is an infamous creature, obsessed with her own ability to shock the British literary world. Her childhood (which was spent in a Pentecostal home where the bible was taken quite literally) and her sexuality (she is an outspoken lesbian who has publicly outed many-a-closeted female of the publishing world) make her an intriguing oddball for the British gossip magazines...