Sexing the CherryPerhaps the most interesting description of Sexing the Cherry is the one written by Jeanette Winterson on her website at www.jeanettewinterson.com/books/sexingthecherry This is the story of Jordan, an orphan found floating on the River Thames, and his keeper, The Dog Woman, a huge and monstrous creature with a powerful right hook and a wide vocabulary. She is perhaps the only woman in English fiction confident enough to use filth as a fashion accessory. I set this in the seventeenth century, around the beheading of Charles the First, because I had more to do exploring the past as energetic space. I wanted to build another word-dependent world, not restricted either by realism or contemporaneity. The past is strange. We have never been there and we can never go there. I have never recognised the past as a document, rather I understand it as a kind of lumber room, full of trunks of old clothes and odd mementoes. There are as many narratives as there are guesses. |
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arms Artemis asked began birds boat body brothel burn Christopher Columbus church clothes colour cranesbill Crown of Thorns dancer dancing dark dead dinner dogs door dress eyes face father feel feet fire fish flat floor Fortunata garden Golden Hind hair hands head heard heart hero husband Jack JEANETTE WINTERSON Jordan journey King knew laughed leave legs light live looked mind moon mother mouth Neighbour Firebrace never night pineapple Preacher Scroggs pulled Puritans Rapunzel remember river rope round Roundhead sail seemed seen ship silver city sisters sleep smell someone Spitalfields stars stood tell Thames There's thing thought told took tower Tradescant trees turned Twelve Dancing Princesses waited walked watch watercress Waterloo Bridge William the Bastard Wimbledon wind window wine lake woman women