Status
Available
Publication
Atlantic Monthly Press (1985), Edition: 1st, 176 pages
Description
Fiction. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction.) HTML:The New York Timesâ??bestselling author's Whitbread Prizeâ??winning debutâ??"Winterson has mastered both comedy and tragedy in this rich little novel" (The Washington Post Book World). When it first appeared, Jeanette Winterson's extraordinary debut novel received unanimous international praise, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Winterson went on to fulfill that promise, producing some of the most dazzling fiction and nonfiction of the past decade, including her celebrated memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?. Now required reading in contemporary literature, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a funny, poignant exploration of a young girl's adolescence. Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette's insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mindâ??and on reporting them with wit and passionâ??makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood. "If Flannery O'Connor and Rita Mae Brown had collaborated on the coming-out story of a young British girl in the 1960s, maybe they would have approached the quirky and subtle hilarity of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical first novel. . . . Winterson's voice, with its idiosyncratic wit and sensitivity, is one you've never heard before." â??… (more)
Media reviews
Narratively, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is built on a particular irony - a contradiction in which it takes some sly delight....The novel may be a story of self-liberation for a secular age, but it recalls a traditional sense that a person's story is made significant by reference to the Bible.
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Why should any individual's story matter, after all? Because it follows the pattern of God-given precept and God-directed narrative. All the early heroes and heroines of the English novel - Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa - make sense of their peculiar lives by reference to the Bible Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member janeajones
I found ORANGES funny, moving, intriguing. I love myth and fairytales so that aspect of the book was delightful. I was surprised by the really genuine love and affection among the community of women, their quirkiness, and even their individuality. I had expected a tale of a childhood of oppression
In addition to Winterson's interweaving of Biblical and fairytale motifs, I was particularly interested in her use of Arthurian motifs. In checking her bio on her website, she states that one of the six books in the house in which she grew up was Malory's Morte Darthur. Of course, it's Perceval and the Grail Quest that pops up in her book, but she twists it in an interesting way. She does realize that it is the Grail quest that caused the disintegration of Camelot, and she seems to parallel her own quest with that of Perceval's -- so her childhood community is a kind of Camelot.....
In the Deuteronomy chapter -- I found the last two pages contrasting history and story , the collector of curios and the curious fairly revealing, if a bit jumbled.
The book has all the joys and perils of not only a coming-of-age story, but a true Kunstlerroman -- the artist is emerging.
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and stricture and instead found one of a rather quirky charm -- until the horror of "deviant" sexuality arose.In addition to Winterson's interweaving of Biblical and fairytale motifs, I was particularly interested in her use of Arthurian motifs. In checking her bio on her website, she states that one of the six books in the house in which she grew up was Malory's Morte Darthur. Of course, it's Perceval and the Grail Quest that pops up in her book, but she twists it in an interesting way. She does realize that it is the Grail quest that caused the disintegration of Camelot, and she seems to parallel her own quest with that of Perceval's -- so her childhood community is a kind of Camelot.....
In the Deuteronomy chapter -- I found the last two pages contrasting history and story , the collector of curios and the curious fairly revealing, if a bit jumbled.
The book has all the joys and perils of not only a coming-of-age story, but a true Kunstlerroman -- the artist is emerging.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 5* of five
The Book Description: Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche.
Brought up in a working-class Pentecostal family, up North, Jeanette follows the path her Mam has set for her. This involves Bible quizzes, a stint as a tambourine-playing Salvation Army officer and a future as a missionary in Africa, or some other "heathen state". When Jeanette starts going to school ("The Breeding Ground") and confides in her mother about her feelings for another girl ("Unnatural Passions"), she's swept up in a feverish frenzy for her tainted soul. Confused, angry and alone, Jeanette strikes out on her own path, that involves a funeral parlour and an ice-cream van. Mixed in with the so-called reality of Jeanette's existence growing up are unconventional fairy tales that transcend the everyday world, subverting the traditional preconceptions of the damsel in distress.
In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson knits a complicated picture of teenage angst through a series of layered narratives, incorporating and subverting fairytales and myths, to present a coherent whole, within which her stories can stand independently. Imaginative and mischievous, she is a born storyteller, teasing and taunting the reader to reconsider their worldview. --Nicola Perry
My Review: I was twenty-five when I read this for the first time, and now upon re-reading it at fifty-three, I am as impressed and more moved than I was even then.
No news to friends, I had a religious nut mother whose deeply insane reliance on a Manichaean gawd-versus-devil double bind system of understanding the universe screwed me up royally. Winterson, poor lambkin, had it even worse because her deeply insane mother was about as unloving as it's possible for a human being to be. There is nothing of tenderness in this rigid religiosifier.
I can't help myself, reading this in late middle years, from judging the mother more harshly than ever. To raise a child is hard, but to seek the job out by adopting and then to do it so harshly should be actionable. Not everyone should be a parent, and this old buster should not have been.
Winterson's writing is so low-key that it's easy to miss the felicities of expression and the sheer cliffs of peerless perception she scales:
There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name.
Breathtaking.
But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup.
Poignant. Also powerful.
If you've read the book at a younger age, revisit it as you would pay a call on your uncomfortably eccentric auntie. If you've never read the book, why ever not? Don't hesitate.
The Book Description: Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche.
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Already Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel is not your typical coming-of-age tale. Brought up in a working-class Pentecostal family, up North, Jeanette follows the path her Mam has set for her. This involves Bible quizzes, a stint as a tambourine-playing Salvation Army officer and a future as a missionary in Africa, or some other "heathen state". When Jeanette starts going to school ("The Breeding Ground") and confides in her mother about her feelings for another girl ("Unnatural Passions"), she's swept up in a feverish frenzy for her tainted soul. Confused, angry and alone, Jeanette strikes out on her own path, that involves a funeral parlour and an ice-cream van. Mixed in with the so-called reality of Jeanette's existence growing up are unconventional fairy tales that transcend the everyday world, subverting the traditional preconceptions of the damsel in distress.
In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson knits a complicated picture of teenage angst through a series of layered narratives, incorporating and subverting fairytales and myths, to present a coherent whole, within which her stories can stand independently. Imaginative and mischievous, she is a born storyteller, teasing and taunting the reader to reconsider their worldview. --Nicola Perry
My Review: I was twenty-five when I read this for the first time, and now upon re-reading it at fifty-three, I am as impressed and more moved than I was even then.
No news to friends, I had a religious nut mother whose deeply insane reliance on a Manichaean gawd-versus-devil double bind system of understanding the universe screwed me up royally. Winterson, poor lambkin, had it even worse because her deeply insane mother was about as unloving as it's possible for a human being to be. There is nothing of tenderness in this rigid religiosifier.
I can't help myself, reading this in late middle years, from judging the mother more harshly than ever. To raise a child is hard, but to seek the job out by adopting and then to do it so harshly should be actionable. Not everyone should be a parent, and this old buster should not have been.
Winterson's writing is so low-key that it's easy to miss the felicities of expression and the sheer cliffs of peerless perception she scales:
There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name.
Breathtaking.
But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup.
Poignant. Also powerful.
If you've read the book at a younger age, revisit it as you would pay a call on your uncomfortably eccentric auntie. If you've never read the book, why ever not? Don't hesitate.
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LibraryThing member John
I have read something else by Winterson, some years ago, though I cannot recall the title at the moment. This won the Whitbread Prize for First Novel in 1985. It is a coming-of-age story about Jeanette, only daughter of a religious fanatic for a mother, and a father who is physically present but
Winterson intersperses the story with tales of wizards, and knights, travellers, and searchers, all seemingly with the theme of lost, or not-yet-found, identity. This whole book is about Jeanette trying to find her own identity, to understand it, and to be able live it without the prejudices of almost all those around her. She is a girl becoming an adolescent with all those pressures, and the unreal life created by her fanatical mother, and coming to grips with her "passions". It is a story well-told with compassion, sensitivity, and humour.
(Dec/99)
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plays no role at all in the story or practically within the family. Mother is determined that her daughter will become a Missionary; she clearly does have a gift for preaching; and she misses the first years of school because she is taught at home by her mother through reading the Bible. This makes her very well-versed in the Bible, and much more aware and more questioning than her contemporaries, all of which gets her into trouble when she does have to start to go to school. But this trouble is nothing compared with the anger that descends on her when it is discovered that she has been giving vent to her "unnatural passions", i.e., she is a lesbian. This is a surprise to Jeanette herself who falls in love with a girl who works in the marketplace. They are separated, and Jeanette has her demons exorcised (or at least she says they are in order to stop the treatment which includes a couple of days without food). This seems to work for a while, but she falls back, much to the horror and consternation of her mother, the pastor, and most members of the flock. She finally leaves home, but returns at the end of the story when life is safe as long as she and her mother stay on certain planes and do cross certain lines. Winterson intersperses the story with tales of wizards, and knights, travellers, and searchers, all seemingly with the theme of lost, or not-yet-found, identity. This whole book is about Jeanette trying to find her own identity, to understand it, and to be able live it without the prejudices of almost all those around her. She is a girl becoming an adolescent with all those pressures, and the unreal life created by her fanatical mother, and coming to grips with her "passions". It is a story well-told with compassion, sensitivity, and humour.
(Dec/99)
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LibraryThing member Spiffyhink
This was a humorous and enjoyable novel about a girl raised in a very evangelical, pentecostal household, who grows up to realize that she is a lesbian, and subsequently becomes ostracized by the community in which she was raised. I read through it easily, and found it both funny and touching, but
The narrator, Jeanette (I assume that this novel is partially fictional and partially auto-biographical), grows up under the direction of her over-zealous christian mother, who shelters her from the rest of the (secular) world until the government forces her to send her daughter to school. Since Jeanette has spent her entire life in a community that eats, sleeps, and breathes the Holy Word of God, she does not fit in well with her schoolmates. However, as she grows older and begins to explore her sexuality, she finds that she dies not fit in with her family, either. What follows is a painful struggle, as she tries to make her church community understand what she is, and rid herself of her "sin."
I had expected her to somehow come to terms with herself by the end of the novel, but just as she is realizing that the family she grew up with will never change to accept her, the book ends without much to tie it together, and I felt let down, although I would still recommend the novel to anyone who was interested.
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was disappointed by the ending, which I felt was rather abrupt.The narrator, Jeanette (I assume that this novel is partially fictional and partially auto-biographical), grows up under the direction of her over-zealous christian mother, who shelters her from the rest of the (secular) world until the government forces her to send her daughter to school. Since Jeanette has spent her entire life in a community that eats, sleeps, and breathes the Holy Word of God, she does not fit in well with her schoolmates. However, as she grows older and begins to explore her sexuality, she finds that she dies not fit in with her family, either. What follows is a painful struggle, as she tries to make her church community understand what she is, and rid herself of her "sin."
I had expected her to somehow come to terms with herself by the end of the novel, but just as she is realizing that the family she grew up with will never change to accept her, the book ends without much to tie it together, and I felt let down, although I would still recommend the novel to anyone who was interested.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
At first this seems a bit inconsequential, charming at best and twee at worst, and you don't so much expect the gay coming-of-age story that's the novel's big claim to fame to catapult it into the stratosphere. It feels like the kind of novel that would make a good BBC serial (which, ipso facto, it
But that faint praise is hardly the whole story, as Oranges becomes by turn a work of anthropological realism about the depressed North and the fading evangelical England, and about the heroine (for such a quiet story, it says a lot that that's the appropriate term rather than just "protagonist") and her attempts to make sense of the church that expects great things of her (the "Society of the Lost"), the loving but strident and cruel and utterly unchangeable mother, and the Winterson-figure's self-reliance in the face of adversity as she discovers her burgeoning, not sexuality so much, but self. It's a self-reliance that she was granted by the God she no longer believes in--by the utter certainty that leaves its vestiges, like the oranges that pop up fruitfully in this book at the weirdest times, even when she's lost her religious life. Even when you turn away from something, the you that didn't turn away walks alongside you all the days of your life, as she notes, and in that sense the unlikeliest but undeniable touchstone for this is Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, similarly about stepping from an anachronism of invisible Truth into a full-colour world of clashing experiences, and then realizing that all you want to do is talk about how it was in that intimate infinite you can no longer visit.
And so, also, about the pain of growing up, and the wrongness of being able to deny that you're different and hang on to who you were. The so so characteristic fantasy allegories--Sir Perceval trying to reclaim dead Camelot, a quest for the old light and life that's now pathological. Winnet, the wandering girl, who is taken in and then cast out by a sorcerer and uses the magic he taught to be something he never dreamed of. The Prince who ruins the perfect in search of the flawless, breaching the skins of his advisors and his wise love and his magic talking goose and bathing the world in gore, a crimson flawlessness that's all bloody flaw. I will remember these.
The title--not just a silly pun; you don't need to stay, because there are other (strange) fruit to be tasted; you don't need to go, because those fruit aren't the only fruit either. You don't have to be what you have to be.
This sober thought, which strikes me as the hard ball of ruling truth that Winterson has delved into her past to find: "I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible. I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to reveal a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and who will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me."
There are times when I could almost reconcile myself with religion--meaning Christian religion as practiced in our secular Western world--and then I think about the dependency it creates. The walking wounded. It's almost worse than the intolerance, because it's not just something that people indulge to the degree that their constitution lets them--not just an excuse for the worst, in other words, but something that cripples the innocent. I admire Winterson for not letting that be the whole story, for recognizing that her upbringing brought her strengths too, and for being able to bring her pain forth and sit with it without letting it crush her fancy and delight.
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did).But that faint praise is hardly the whole story, as Oranges becomes by turn a work of anthropological realism about the depressed North and the fading evangelical England, and about the heroine (for such a quiet story, it says a lot that that's the appropriate term rather than just "protagonist") and her attempts to make sense of the church that expects great things of her (the "Society of the Lost"), the loving but strident and cruel and utterly unchangeable mother, and the Winterson-figure's self-reliance in the face of adversity as she discovers her burgeoning, not sexuality so much, but self. It's a self-reliance that she was granted by the God she no longer believes in--by the utter certainty that leaves its vestiges, like the oranges that pop up fruitfully in this book at the weirdest times, even when she's lost her religious life. Even when you turn away from something, the you that didn't turn away walks alongside you all the days of your life, as she notes, and in that sense the unlikeliest but undeniable touchstone for this is Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, similarly about stepping from an anachronism of invisible Truth into a full-colour world of clashing experiences, and then realizing that all you want to do is talk about how it was in that intimate infinite you can no longer visit.
And so, also, about the pain of growing up, and the wrongness of being able to deny that you're different and hang on to who you were. The so so characteristic fantasy allegories--Sir Perceval trying to reclaim dead Camelot, a quest for the old light and life that's now pathological. Winnet, the wandering girl, who is taken in and then cast out by a sorcerer and uses the magic he taught to be something he never dreamed of. The Prince who ruins the perfect in search of the flawless, breaching the skins of his advisors and his wise love and his magic talking goose and bathing the world in gore, a crimson flawlessness that's all bloody flaw. I will remember these.
The title--not just a silly pun; you don't need to stay, because there are other (strange) fruit to be tasted; you don't need to go, because those fruit aren't the only fruit either. You don't have to be what you have to be.
This sober thought, which strikes me as the hard ball of ruling truth that Winterson has delved into her past to find: "I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible. I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to reveal a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and who will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me."
There are times when I could almost reconcile myself with religion--meaning Christian religion as practiced in our secular Western world--and then I think about the dependency it creates. The walking wounded. It's almost worse than the intolerance, because it's not just something that people indulge to the degree that their constitution lets them--not just an excuse for the worst, in other words, but something that cripples the innocent. I admire Winterson for not letting that be the whole story, for recognizing that her upbringing brought her strengths too, and for being able to bring her pain forth and sit with it without letting it crush her fancy and delight.
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LibraryThing member AlisonY
This was a fairly short, enjoyable read, giving a partially autobiographical account of the author's experiences of growing up and coming out in a world dominated by a strict Evangelist mother and the church they belonged to.
Essentially I found this to be a sad read of immense loneliness; the
A slight frustration for me with this type of book is not knowing where the autobiographical moves into fiction, but as a reader have we any right to know this distinction? I guess that's just plain old human nosiness.
26 years later, Winterson wrote a 'twin' to the book Why be happy when you when you could be normal? which is supposed to separate some of the original fact from fiction, and if the reviews are to be believed the real fact is supposed to be even bleaker than the fiction. But there again, I believe this book is only semi-autobiographical so who knows where the real truth lies.
I'm interested if anyone's read both, and if so how much duplication there is of the tale from Oranges are not the only fruit?
Anyway, I digress. Oranges are not the only fruit was well written, with good pace and well crafted characters (however real or otherwise). This book leaves you with so many questions about the author - how did she mentally deal with having a mother who so readily turned her back on her own child, and where did her relationship with God ultimately end up? It leaves you with that sense of wonder about how, behind closed doors, our friends and neighbours are leading a multitude of different kinds of lives, hidden away from view.
That Winterson went from fairly poor, sporadic education, with no family support, to a degree from Oxford and award-winning books and television spin-offs is the stuff of novels in itself, and to me therein lies the great success of this book. Despite everything, she's swum to the surface, and I am glad.
Essentially I found this to be a sad read of immense loneliness; the
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narrator gave her early life to the church and to God and spent much of her spare time evangelising and preaching, yet when her sexuality was outed within the church and she refused to repent or to be considered demonised, she lost both her home and the family of the church.A slight frustration for me with this type of book is not knowing where the autobiographical moves into fiction, but as a reader have we any right to know this distinction? I guess that's just plain old human nosiness.
26 years later, Winterson wrote a 'twin' to the book Why be happy when you when you could be normal? which is supposed to separate some of the original fact from fiction, and if the reviews are to be believed the real fact is supposed to be even bleaker than the fiction. But there again, I believe this book is only semi-autobiographical so who knows where the real truth lies.
I'm interested if anyone's read both, and if so how much duplication there is of the tale from Oranges are not the only fruit?
Anyway, I digress. Oranges are not the only fruit was well written, with good pace and well crafted characters (however real or otherwise). This book leaves you with so many questions about the author - how did she mentally deal with having a mother who so readily turned her back on her own child, and where did her relationship with God ultimately end up? It leaves you with that sense of wonder about how, behind closed doors, our friends and neighbours are leading a multitude of different kinds of lives, hidden away from view.
That Winterson went from fairly poor, sporadic education, with no family support, to a degree from Oxford and award-winning books and television spin-offs is the stuff of novels in itself, and to me therein lies the great success of this book. Despite everything, she's swum to the surface, and I am glad.
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LibraryThing member hazelk
I looked forward to reading Winterson's first novel that made the author quite famous but somehow I was disappointed.
It wouldn't have helped that I remember the BBC dramatisation of the 90s and Geraldine McEwan's memorable performance of the narrator's mother with her religious excess and
I got irritated by the intermittent storytelling sequences of princes and princesses etc, the products of the young narrator's imagination which just made me want to skip pages and I did.
The intermittent humour was good and so were the hypocrosies as they emerged but on the whole I was glad the novel was quite short.
__________________
It wouldn't have helped that I remember the BBC dramatisation of the 90s and Geraldine McEwan's memorable performance of the narrator's mother with her religious excess and
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obsession. I kept seeing this in my mind's eye instead of focusing more on the prose I was reading.I got irritated by the intermittent storytelling sequences of princes and princesses etc, the products of the young narrator's imagination which just made me want to skip pages and I did.
The intermittent humour was good and so were the hypocrosies as they emerged but on the whole I was glad the novel was quite short.
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LibraryThing member holy.cow
Read this in one sitting on the day it came out. A new, fresh voice telling a slightly surreal but somehow more realistic than usual story of childhood and growing up. Amusing in places, and just a pleasing book all round, worth enjoying because Winterson never managed to achieve this standard of
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writing again and all her other books are pretty poor. This one though, stands the test of both time and comparison, and will entertain you and with substance. Show Less
LibraryThing member amerynth
I liked Jeanette Winterson's "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" from the opening paragraph... there is great wit and heart in the story about an orphaned girl adopted by a mother who is both domineering and evangelical.
This is a coming of age story for Jeanette (I assume this book is
I very much enjoyed Winterson's writing style-- barely a page passes by where there isn't a commentary on the human condition as well as an entertaining story. Interesting story and terrific characters make this a worthwhile read.
This is a coming of age story for Jeanette (I assume this book is
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semi-autobiographical since the main character shares the author's name)as she struggles with coming to grips with her sexuality in the context of the Bible and the religion that is all-consuming in her mother's household. I very much enjoyed Winterson's writing style-- barely a page passes by where there isn't a commentary on the human condition as well as an entertaining story. Interesting story and terrific characters make this a worthwhile read.
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LibraryThing member imaginarian
This coming of age tale seems to be a trilogy of self, rather than a cohesive progression of maturity.
As the first self, Winterson's inner child writes in crisp, awake language, and her sentiments are alive and charming with premature existential angst. She's funny and insightful, questioning the
As the second self, she rails against the religious system in which she was reared that wants to purge from her the most sacred thing she believes she has: a unique way of falling in love... as she discovers that she loves the “wrong” gender (other women).
What's interesting to me about this second self is that it's regarded by most readers as holding the thematic core- “a young girl force-fed strict religious values discovers she's a lesbian and here's how she rebels.” No, rather, I see the accidental theme of the book being one of knowing one's authentic self from the very beginning and yet being systematically dismantled from without by the community and one's perception of god.
Regarding the supposed, intended theme: where is this true rebellion in the book? This rage against the system that wishes to assimilate her at a very high personal cost? In the second two thirds of the book, I saw little rebellion and little rage. Moreover, I saw a more profound constriction of the second self in the way that Winterson's tone changed dramatically at this point to resemble the speedy, monotone speakers who read the fine print at the end of commercial spots. Gone were the delicious, random minutiae of her life, gone were the funny moments, and gone seemed any semblance of the archetypal Magical Child self that she'd embodied so impeccably in the first act. In other words, Winterson tells you she's rebelling, but there's very little feeling of it shown in the writing. Most of the expression of conflict is the external conflict between her sexual identification and how the members of her community respond to it- and not the internal conflict I'd hoped to see between Winterson's newly found romantic and sexual spirit and her force-fed understanding of god. What seems especially “blasphemous” in Winterson's respect is that we learn next to nothing about the women that Winterson professes to love, as said characters remain flat and largely without description during the times that Winterson is supposedly in love with them. As her second self, Winterson almost lost me in the muck and mire she'd once lost herself in. I nearly stopped reading the book, but pressed on so that I could make a fair review.
When we reach Winterson's third self, we see that the old spirit of Winterson reemerges slightly (albeit with a morphed, adult spin). The true kicking and fighting Winterson child never really returns, however, much to my disappointment. The redeeming quality of this part is that I could feel Winterson's soul inhabiting the words again, like it did in the beginning... but in a sober, grown-up kind of way.
The grown-up version of Winterson randomly tosses medieval vignettes into the rest of the narrative. These mini reveries are probably geared to show the splintering dichotomy of Winterson's whole self- meaning that the only way she could continue to function in the real world was that she was left free to roam wherever she liked inside her own heart. However, during my journey through the book, I found the ever-increasing frequency of the shifts of “reality” to be jarring. I think the vignettes showed further disintegration, rather than strength, in the central character and served more to alienate me from her than to bring me to a closer understanding of her. Had Winterson intended the book to be about the disintegration of self, this conclusion would have been more forgivable, but it's quite obvious that she was hoping to capitalize on the duality of religion and sex... and ended up somewhere else.
As the first self, Winterson's inner child writes in crisp, awake language, and her sentiments are alive and charming with premature existential angst. She's funny and insightful, questioning the
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ways and whys of the world... until suddenly, she's caught up in it. As the second self, she rails against the religious system in which she was reared that wants to purge from her the most sacred thing she believes she has: a unique way of falling in love... as she discovers that she loves the “wrong” gender (other women).
What's interesting to me about this second self is that it's regarded by most readers as holding the thematic core- “a young girl force-fed strict religious values discovers she's a lesbian and here's how she rebels.” No, rather, I see the accidental theme of the book being one of knowing one's authentic self from the very beginning and yet being systematically dismantled from without by the community and one's perception of god.
Regarding the supposed, intended theme: where is this true rebellion in the book? This rage against the system that wishes to assimilate her at a very high personal cost? In the second two thirds of the book, I saw little rebellion and little rage. Moreover, I saw a more profound constriction of the second self in the way that Winterson's tone changed dramatically at this point to resemble the speedy, monotone speakers who read the fine print at the end of commercial spots. Gone were the delicious, random minutiae of her life, gone were the funny moments, and gone seemed any semblance of the archetypal Magical Child self that she'd embodied so impeccably in the first act. In other words, Winterson tells you she's rebelling, but there's very little feeling of it shown in the writing. Most of the expression of conflict is the external conflict between her sexual identification and how the members of her community respond to it- and not the internal conflict I'd hoped to see between Winterson's newly found romantic and sexual spirit and her force-fed understanding of god. What seems especially “blasphemous” in Winterson's respect is that we learn next to nothing about the women that Winterson professes to love, as said characters remain flat and largely without description during the times that Winterson is supposedly in love with them. As her second self, Winterson almost lost me in the muck and mire she'd once lost herself in. I nearly stopped reading the book, but pressed on so that I could make a fair review.
When we reach Winterson's third self, we see that the old spirit of Winterson reemerges slightly (albeit with a morphed, adult spin). The true kicking and fighting Winterson child never really returns, however, much to my disappointment. The redeeming quality of this part is that I could feel Winterson's soul inhabiting the words again, like it did in the beginning... but in a sober, grown-up kind of way.
The grown-up version of Winterson randomly tosses medieval vignettes into the rest of the narrative. These mini reveries are probably geared to show the splintering dichotomy of Winterson's whole self- meaning that the only way she could continue to function in the real world was that she was left free to roam wherever she liked inside her own heart. However, during my journey through the book, I found the ever-increasing frequency of the shifts of “reality” to be jarring. I think the vignettes showed further disintegration, rather than strength, in the central character and served more to alienate me from her than to bring me to a closer understanding of her. Had Winterson intended the book to be about the disintegration of self, this conclusion would have been more forgivable, but it's quite obvious that she was hoping to capitalize on the duality of religion and sex... and ended up somewhere else.
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LibraryThing member elizabeth.b.bevins
This was the first Winterson book I read. It has been many years since then. It is one that, I think, will be around for a long time. If you have read her later work I highly recommend you read this one. If you haven't read Winterson yet then skip this one for now. It will be there waiting for you
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after you get to know her other work. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
Look, why oranges anyway? When one of my students asked that in class, we came up with a tremendous list of resonances and symbolisms that the oranges have in this novel-- the cover of my edition, at least, makes a sort of "forbidden fruit" interpretation obvious. One of the meanings of the oranges
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is filled with embedded narratives like the fairy tales. This novel, as Mikhail Bakhtin would say all novels are, is heteroglossic, different-tongued. Bakhtin reminds us that you can't separate the form from the content; the fairy tales aren't a sideshow or a diversion, they're part of the meaning of the text as much as the plot is. Everything in a novel refracts the intentions of the author. So why the fairy tales? We should remember that, as Jeanette/Winterson tells us, stories are "a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained" (93). Every story explains something and fails to explain something else; we all forget the aspects of the past that make us uncomfortable. So what can we do about this? As we're told (95), the world is a sandwich made up of other peoples stories, so you need to add your own mustard! Or, go even further, and make your own sandwiches.
Jeanette's mother never gets it. She only has one story. She reflects near the end of the novel, "After all… oranges are not the only fruit" (172), but this is in the context of her feeding a group of houseguests only pineapple! She's just substituted one universal story for another. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit argues that the world is heteroglossic, that everyone needs a different story, and the worst thing that you can do is fail to recognize that. Jeanette grows up and loses the simplicity of her old world, the one where oranges were the only fruit, but she gains a new world with new stories-- and yet the old stories remain there too. She can go back and see her mother, and Jeanette is different but the same, and her mother is different but the same.
We're always finding new stories and discarding old ones when they don’t work. Jeanette’s mother’s stories work for her, but Jeanette needs a different set of stories, and yet the old stories remain inside her. Our sandwiches need mustard. We need oranges and pineapples and many other fruits. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is filled with different stories because we all need to be filled with different stories if we're going to survive.
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comes from fairy tale narratives embedded in the text of the novel, like the tale of Sir Perceval or the tale of Winnet. These are the stories that young Jeanette needed to hear but never did, the kind of stories that could have helped her operate in the world, but she never received; she only had one source of stories, her mother's (often warped) Bible tales. She had a steady diet of oranges, so to speak.Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is filled with embedded narratives like the fairy tales. This novel, as Mikhail Bakhtin would say all novels are, is heteroglossic, different-tongued. Bakhtin reminds us that you can't separate the form from the content; the fairy tales aren't a sideshow or a diversion, they're part of the meaning of the text as much as the plot is. Everything in a novel refracts the intentions of the author. So why the fairy tales? We should remember that, as Jeanette/Winterson tells us, stories are "a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained" (93). Every story explains something and fails to explain something else; we all forget the aspects of the past that make us uncomfortable. So what can we do about this? As we're told (95), the world is a sandwich made up of other peoples stories, so you need to add your own mustard! Or, go even further, and make your own sandwiches.
Jeanette's mother never gets it. She only has one story. She reflects near the end of the novel, "After all… oranges are not the only fruit" (172), but this is in the context of her feeding a group of houseguests only pineapple! She's just substituted one universal story for another. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit argues that the world is heteroglossic, that everyone needs a different story, and the worst thing that you can do is fail to recognize that. Jeanette grows up and loses the simplicity of her old world, the one where oranges were the only fruit, but she gains a new world with new stories-- and yet the old stories remain there too. She can go back and see her mother, and Jeanette is different but the same, and her mother is different but the same.
We're always finding new stories and discarding old ones when they don’t work. Jeanette’s mother’s stories work for her, but Jeanette needs a different set of stories, and yet the old stories remain inside her. Our sandwiches need mustard. We need oranges and pineapples and many other fruits. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is filled with different stories because we all need to be filled with different stories if we're going to survive.
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LibraryThing member ternary
"Then one week she wasn't there any more.
There was nothing I could do but stare and stare at the whelks.
Whelks are strange and comforting."
The perfect mix of confusion and love. A narrative always just shy of disjointed, trailing thoughts that stumble along in all the right ways.
There was nothing I could do but stare and stare at the whelks.
Whelks are strange and comforting."
The perfect mix of confusion and love. A narrative always just shy of disjointed, trailing thoughts that stumble along in all the right ways.
LibraryThing member rodrichards
What a refreshingly odd book about a young girl growing up in an evangelical household in England and awakening to the fact that she is a lesbian...and there are lots of interesting sidebars and fables and colorful characters and every so often you run across something like this:It is not possible
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to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance of that you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something that you do not understand is the true nature of evil.It's quirky, but recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
This short novel is a marvelous mix of poetry, humour and drama. Winterson weaves images in her plot in a subtle and alluring fashion, punctuating her story with tales and fantasy.
I loved the way that Jeanette, an unquestioning little girl, living in a world of fire and brimstone, slowly discovers
The humour, however, is what makes this novel exceptional: it could have been a dark tale of rejection and close-mindedness, but the quirky, and rather generous, tone turns it into a likable, forgiving story.
I loved the way that Jeanette, an unquestioning little girl, living in a world of fire and brimstone, slowly discovers
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the world on her own terms, forging herself a strong and indomitable persona, which will have her both cast out and reborn.The humour, however, is what makes this novel exceptional: it could have been a dark tale of rejection and close-mindedness, but the quirky, and rather generous, tone turns it into a likable, forgiving story.
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LibraryThing member Zommbie1
Read for school and gah...If I had been reading it for me I wouldn't have finished it. I don't really do post-modern literature. Honestly to many segue ways into god knows what. Not to mention the religiousness and well. Really I couldn't stand it. And now I have to figure out what the theme of the
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book is for class. This should be fun...NOT. Show Less
LibraryThing member rodrichards
What a refreshingly odd book about a young girl growing up in an evangelical household in England and awakening to the fact that she is a lesbian...and there are lots of interesting sidebars and fables and colorful characters and every so often you run across something like this:It is not possible
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to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance of that you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something that you do not understand is the true nature of evil.It's quirky, but recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
Books that have a big impact the first time you read them are sometimes difficult to return to: Oranges isn't like that. Rereading it for the fourth or fifth time in 25 years, it still impresses me with its strength, originality and wit. Of course, having read more and lived longer in the meantime,
Having grown up in the same part of the world as Winterson, at much the same time (although in a slightly less extreme church), there's a lot I recognise in the people and their way of looking at the world. In particular, I remember that sense of a community run by and for strong, single-minded women, in which men (with a few honorary exceptions like ministers and doctors) existed as vague grey presences seen occasionally at breakfast and tea. Of course, that's also typical of a child's view of the world: Mothers are fearless in the fight against dirt, ungodliness, and nasty foreign notions; fathers are away at work. Winterson pushes this a bit further by bringing in the element of religious certainty. This is something you usually only see represented from the outside in literature (the obstinate, righteous parent and the liberal, doubting narrator), but here the narrator has the same rock-hard conviction of the rightness of her ideas and feelings as the mother does of her own. It's the irresistible force and the immovable object. Of course, the problem with this is that the toughness of her narrator rather undermines the argument Winterson seems to be putting forward about the destructive nature of the quest for perfection here on earth. Perhaps this is why the interposed narratives in mythical or fairy-tale style take over more and more of the story as we move towards the end: the narrator is an epic figure who can't be allowed to exhibit guilt or self-doubt, but her struggle has to be made interesting enough for the reader to persist with it.
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I can spot things here and there that don't really work, or are obviously borrowed. Having seen a re-run of Winterson's own TV adaptation recently, it's also obvious that there were points where the tighter plotting and more economical use of characters forced by TV led to significant improvements. But still, it's all aged remarkably well.Having grown up in the same part of the world as Winterson, at much the same time (although in a slightly less extreme church), there's a lot I recognise in the people and their way of looking at the world. In particular, I remember that sense of a community run by and for strong, single-minded women, in which men (with a few honorary exceptions like ministers and doctors) existed as vague grey presences seen occasionally at breakfast and tea. Of course, that's also typical of a child's view of the world: Mothers are fearless in the fight against dirt, ungodliness, and nasty foreign notions; fathers are away at work. Winterson pushes this a bit further by bringing in the element of religious certainty. This is something you usually only see represented from the outside in literature (the obstinate, righteous parent and the liberal, doubting narrator), but here the narrator has the same rock-hard conviction of the rightness of her ideas and feelings as the mother does of her own. It's the irresistible force and the immovable object. Of course, the problem with this is that the toughness of her narrator rather undermines the argument Winterson seems to be putting forward about the destructive nature of the quest for perfection here on earth. Perhaps this is why the interposed narratives in mythical or fairy-tale style take over more and more of the story as we move towards the end: the narrator is an epic figure who can't be allowed to exhibit guilt or self-doubt, but her struggle has to be made interesting enough for the reader to persist with it.
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LibraryThing member slickdpdx
The priest has a book with the words set out. Old words, known words, words of power. Words that are always on the surface. Words for every occasion. The words work. They do what they're supposed to do; comfort and discipline. The prophet has no book. The prophet is a voice that cries in the
Winterson is a prophet.
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wilderness, full of sounds that do not always set into meaning. The prophets cry out because they are troubled by demons. Vintage 1991 ed. p 156Winterson is a prophet.
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LibraryThing member lauralkeet
This is Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel, about growing up and discovering your sexuality in a fundamental, evangelical family. The protagonist, also named Jeanette, spends her early years at revival meetings and training to be a missionary. Her mother looms large; her father
The story is told with a considerable amount of dry humor, and includes parallel storylines that resemble a fairy tale or mythology. I'm still trying to work out some of the symbolism, but saw the humor as the armor Jeanette wore in order to get through her days. These elements adds layers and depth to the work, and deliver an emotional impact that sneaks up on you.
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is but a background figure. Jeanette discovers she is attracted to women, finds others like her in the sect, and learns the high price of coming out in that environment. The story is told with a considerable amount of dry humor, and includes parallel storylines that resemble a fairy tale or mythology. I'm still trying to work out some of the symbolism, but saw the humor as the armor Jeanette wore in order to get through her days. These elements adds layers and depth to the work, and deliver an emotional impact that sneaks up on you.
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LibraryThing member LynnB
What a charming book! This is the story of Jeanette, adopted by a fanatically religious woman and her overshadowed husband. Jeanette is being groomed to be a missionary. In spite of having trouble fitting in at school, she is generally happy with her life and her Church family. Until she falls in
The author tells the story through Jeanette's eyes and builds a very strong character. As Jeanette ages, her voice changes: this isn't so much someone looking back on their life and sharing their story with you. It is someone sharing that story as it unfolds. And it works very well.
The novel is also filled with dreams, and fairy tales created by Jeanette as she tries to make sense of her own life. This original use of myths and dreams also works very well to create a strong story that is a treat to read.
Oranges are not the only fruit: we all have choices in our lives. Jeanette and her mother are strong characters who makes those difficult choices and accept the consequences of them.
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love with a woman and is deemed possessed by unnatural passions.The author tells the story through Jeanette's eyes and builds a very strong character. As Jeanette ages, her voice changes: this isn't so much someone looking back on their life and sharing their story with you. It is someone sharing that story as it unfolds. And it works very well.
The novel is also filled with dreams, and fairy tales created by Jeanette as she tries to make sense of her own life. This original use of myths and dreams also works very well to create a strong story that is a treat to read.
Oranges are not the only fruit: we all have choices in our lives. Jeanette and her mother are strong characters who makes those difficult choices and accept the consequences of them.
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LibraryThing member poetontheone
Jeannette Winterson's first novel is lushly literary but also full of sharp wit and wicked humor. This is a great coming of age novel as well as a hallmark of queer literature. While lesbian fiction in recent decades has seemingly been reduced to badly written young adult fiction or insubstantial
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romantic pulp, this book remains as a carefully crafted and poetic novel about family, identity, and self discovery. Show Less
LibraryThing member elliepotten
Hmmm. I really LIKED this book, don't get me wrong - but I don't think it'll turn out to be as profoundly memorable as I'd hoped. It was really, REALLY hard to separate out 'fictional character' from 'real person', as the novel is obviously heavily autobiographical and contains several little
Oranges is basically a beautifully written, powerful and wryly humorous coming-of-age novel, set against a backdrop of family conflict and religious abuse. To me, a child's indoctrination into any extreme religious group constitutes a form of abuse, but in this case the protagonist's relationship with another girl brought it sharply to the fore. The scene in which she is locked in her living room to starve before being pawed and prayed over to 'exorcise her demons' is just horrendous! From around halfway through there are also little stories, magical and poignant, inserted into the novel, which parallel the protagonist's journey towards freedom and acceptance, and reflect the way Winterson has always described retreating into her imagination during times of sadness or hardship.
It's not going to be a keeper for me, but I'm glad I finally read it and I'm REALLY looking forward to reading Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (the 'story behind the story') in 2013!
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details I'd already heard mentioned in the recent Imagine documentary that I enjoyed so much; I heard Winterson's voice narrating in my head all the way through. Oranges is basically a beautifully written, powerful and wryly humorous coming-of-age novel, set against a backdrop of family conflict and religious abuse. To me, a child's indoctrination into any extreme religious group constitutes a form of abuse, but in this case the protagonist's relationship with another girl brought it sharply to the fore. The scene in which she is locked in her living room to starve before being pawed and prayed over to 'exorcise her demons' is just horrendous! From around halfway through there are also little stories, magical and poignant, inserted into the novel, which parallel the protagonist's journey towards freedom and acceptance, and reflect the way Winterson has always described retreating into her imagination during times of sadness or hardship.
It's not going to be a keeper for me, but I'm glad I finally read it and I'm REALLY looking forward to reading Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (the 'story behind the story') in 2013!
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LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
This book resonated with me; there were many echoes of my childhood, and I identified strongly with the protagonist even though I think we are quite different people. It is beautifully written with a couple of particularly strong passages that I will remember for some time: the passage about God
There's a chance that I'm not here at all, that all the parts of me, running along all the choices I did and didn't make, for a moment brush against each other. That I am still an evangelist in the North, as well as the person who ran away.
I do think some of the pastiches (of high fantasy, of stories about knights, etc.) weaken the story instead of commenting effectively on it, but other than that this is a wonderful novel.
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and love that is quoted in pretty much every review on GoodReads, but also an earlier section in which Winterson ponders parallel universes:There's a chance that I'm not here at all, that all the parts of me, running along all the choices I did and didn't make, for a moment brush against each other. That I am still an evangelist in the North, as well as the person who ran away.
I do think some of the pastiches (of high fantasy, of stories about knights, etc.) weaken the story instead of commenting effectively on it, but other than that this is a wonderful novel.
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LibraryThing member beentsy
This is a beautiful book. The voice of the author growing up is amazing and so clear. Another plus, there are some amazingly funny bits too. Great book.
Awards
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — First Novel — 1985)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1985
Physical description
176 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0871131633 / 9780871131638
Local notes
fiction