Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Grove Press (2019), 352 pages
Description
"Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to write a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead... but waiting to return to life. What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? In fiercely intelligent prose, Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realize. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
It's my own fault, I should have known better than to try a Booker Prize novel; nothing good ever comes of that recommendation. I'm sure Jeanette Winterson's story is super clever and ticks a lot of populist boxes, but I just prefer characterisation over concepts. The only part I enjoyed was the
Half of the narrative belongs to Mary Shelley, penning Frankenstein in competition with her husband and Lord Byron while travelling through Geneva. I didn't mind reading about her, although I think those chapters were only there to remind the reader about the original novel (which I have read, but years ago). Then we get the 'modern' narrative, told in overblown dialogue - 'Love's not ones and zeros, I said. Oh, but it is, said Victor. We are one. The world is naught/nought. I am alone. You are nothing. One love. An infinity of zeros.' - from the perspective of (Ma)Ry Shelley, a trans doctor, who is helping a professor, Vic Stein, achieve his mad scientist goal of transhumanism. Do you see why I would have given up, if the typeface wasn't so large and the chapters so short? I'm interested in artificial intelligence, without coming close to understanding the science, but can't stand the egotistical desire for eternal life, which is essentially what uploading your consciousness to a hard drive is about. And that's all Vic Stein bangs on about. (While Ry reminds the reader that 'they' are trans, every other line, usually just before shagging the professor.) Add to that the 'humour' of Ron Lord the sexbot maker and Claire the American evangelist, I was glad to get it over with!
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opening quote taken from 'Take It Easy' by The Eagles.Half of the narrative belongs to Mary Shelley, penning Frankenstein in competition with her husband and Lord Byron while travelling through Geneva. I didn't mind reading about her, although I think those chapters were only there to remind the reader about the original novel (which I have read, but years ago). Then we get the 'modern' narrative, told in overblown dialogue - 'Love's not ones and zeros, I said. Oh, but it is, said Victor. We are one. The world is naught/nought. I am alone. You are nothing. One love. An infinity of zeros.' - from the perspective of (Ma)Ry Shelley, a trans doctor, who is helping a professor, Vic Stein, achieve his mad scientist goal of transhumanism. Do you see why I would have given up, if the typeface wasn't so large and the chapters so short? I'm interested in artificial intelligence, without coming close to understanding the science, but can't stand the egotistical desire for eternal life, which is essentially what uploading your consciousness to a hard drive is about. And that's all Vic Stein bangs on about. (While Ry reminds the reader that 'they' are trans, every other line, usually just before shagging the professor.) Add to that the 'humour' of Ron Lord the sexbot maker and Claire the American evangelist, I was glad to get it over with!
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LibraryThing member msf59
“Night has come with her starry sky. Sleep and the silent hours of dreams. The others dream and sleep.
The house itself breathes in and out like a phantom. I lie awake with the stars as my cold companions. I think of my monster, lying thus, outside and alone.”
“We destroy out of hatred. We
“How strange is life; this span that is our daily reality, yet daily countermanded by the stories we tell.”
In modern day Britain, a young transgender doctor, named Ry, meets and falls in love with Victor Stein, a famous professor, as they attend an AI expo. The narrative then shifts to the maker of advanced sex dolls and then explores the mysterious process called cryogenics. The reader then, is propelled back to1816, where a young woman, named Mary Shelley, is creating her horror classic, Frankenstein, in the company of her poet husband, with Lord Byron, in attendance.
How these threads are seamlessly woven together, is the magic behind this smart and inventive novel. I have only read Winterson's wonderful memoir, but her latest, reminded me, that I need to go back and read more of her fiction. This is terrific stuff!
The house itself breathes in and out like a phantom. I lie awake with the stars as my cold companions. I think of my monster, lying thus, outside and alone.”
“We destroy out of hatred. We
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destroy out of love.”“How strange is life; this span that is our daily reality, yet daily countermanded by the stories we tell.”
In modern day Britain, a young transgender doctor, named Ry, meets and falls in love with Victor Stein, a famous professor, as they attend an AI expo. The narrative then shifts to the maker of advanced sex dolls and then explores the mysterious process called cryogenics. The reader then, is propelled back to1816, where a young woman, named Mary Shelley, is creating her horror classic, Frankenstein, in the company of her poet husband, with Lord Byron, in attendance.
How these threads are seamlessly woven together, is the magic behind this smart and inventive novel. I have only read Winterson's wonderful memoir, but her latest, reminded me, that I need to go back and read more of her fiction. This is terrific stuff!
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LibraryThing member miss.mesmerized
A young transgender doctor, Ry Shelly, is in the middle of the debate of artificial intelligence. What is possible, what is desirable? What makes a human being a human being and could bots be the better versions of us? AI will surely solve a lot of problems, but won’t it create new ones at the
With “The Gap of Time”, Jeanette Winterson already showed for me that she is a highly gifted author who can use an old plot and turn it into something completely new that is not only highly entertaining but also beautifully and intelligently written at the same time. In her latest novel, she turns to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein and takes the idea if man as the creator of human being on a higher and contemporary level.
I love the idea of taking and old plot and transferring it to our time, the Hogarth Shakespeare series has clearly proven that this can be something really worth undertaking. The novel skilfully woves the time of Mary Shelly’s stay at Lake Geneva, when she wrote her story of the famous monster, and Ry Shelley’s journey through the world of AI. At times, the dialogues are simply hilarious – I especially liked the one about the sex dolls – at others, the is a serious and in-depth discussion about the chances but also the ethics of AI. And she also raises the big questions of life and death and what comes after the later.
I read an electronic version of the book and marked so many sentences that I now have a large list of quotes that I would eagerly share but that goes far beyond a review. Apart from the wonderful language, there are so many allusions and cross-references that it is a great joy to decipher the novel, beginning with the names of the characters and ending at films such as Blade Runner and the Greek mythology. All in all, a brilliant piece of work that surely is among the more demanding novels and therefore, again, underlines Jeanette Winterson’s place among the highest ranked contemporary authors.
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same time? Ron Lord is one of the people who will invest in the new technology and hopes to make a lot of money with it; his aim is the creation of the next generation of sex dolls which fulfil all wishes. At the same time, we travel back to the year 1816 when a young woman turned the idea of creating a human being into a highly praised novel: Frankenstein.With “The Gap of Time”, Jeanette Winterson already showed for me that she is a highly gifted author who can use an old plot and turn it into something completely new that is not only highly entertaining but also beautifully and intelligently written at the same time. In her latest novel, she turns to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein and takes the idea if man as the creator of human being on a higher and contemporary level.
I love the idea of taking and old plot and transferring it to our time, the Hogarth Shakespeare series has clearly proven that this can be something really worth undertaking. The novel skilfully woves the time of Mary Shelly’s stay at Lake Geneva, when she wrote her story of the famous monster, and Ry Shelley’s journey through the world of AI. At times, the dialogues are simply hilarious – I especially liked the one about the sex dolls – at others, the is a serious and in-depth discussion about the chances but also the ethics of AI. And she also raises the big questions of life and death and what comes after the later.
I read an electronic version of the book and marked so many sentences that I now have a large list of quotes that I would eagerly share but that goes far beyond a review. Apart from the wonderful language, there are so many allusions and cross-references that it is a great joy to decipher the novel, beginning with the names of the characters and ending at films such as Blade Runner and the Greek mythology. All in all, a brilliant piece of work that surely is among the more demanding novels and therefore, again, underlines Jeanette Winterson’s place among the highest ranked contemporary authors.
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LibraryThing member over.the.edge
Frankissstein
by Jeannette Winterson
due 10-1-2019
Grove Press
5.0 / 5.0
#netgalley #Frankissstein
Remarkable and absorbing, this is a intellectual and philosophical novel and one of the best, and most relevant I've read in s long time.
Transgendered Dr. Ry Shelley, living in Britain, falls in love with
What is it that makes us human?
Are our assigned bodies and gender what make us human or is what we do, think and feel , that seperate us from Artificial Intelligence, or just from each other?
Is it our desire for more pleasure that drives, are we all just robots programmed by our ownselves?
Beautifully written, we can see the criticisms and beliefs Mary Shelley encountered while writing this in 1816. It reflects the same beliefs and criticisms we are still encountering today.
Ron Lord and his SexxBots and XXBots were one of the best parts, with its Teledildonics, the intelligent vibrator. There is much wit, humor and whimsy in this amazing novel of gender, gender equality and humanity. We are, indeed, much more than the sum of our parts.
Thanks to netgalley for this e-book ARC for review.
by Jeannette Winterson
due 10-1-2019
Grove Press
5.0 / 5.0
#netgalley #Frankissstein
Remarkable and absorbing, this is a intellectual and philosophical novel and one of the best, and most relevant I've read in s long time.
Transgendered Dr. Ry Shelley, living in Britain, falls in love with
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Victor Stein, a professor of Artificial Intelligence. It made me stop, think and consider so many times about so many things. What is it that makes us human?
Are our assigned bodies and gender what make us human or is what we do, think and feel , that seperate us from Artificial Intelligence, or just from each other?
Is it our desire for more pleasure that drives, are we all just robots programmed by our ownselves?
Beautifully written, we can see the criticisms and beliefs Mary Shelley encountered while writing this in 1816. It reflects the same beliefs and criticisms we are still encountering today.
Ron Lord and his SexxBots and XXBots were one of the best parts, with its Teledildonics, the intelligent vibrator. There is much wit, humor and whimsy in this amazing novel of gender, gender equality and humanity. We are, indeed, much more than the sum of our parts.
Thanks to netgalley for this e-book ARC for review.
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LibraryThing member charl08
Finished Frankisstein - I really liked this one. Will come back and add a review.
I thought this was such a clever book, I never quite knew what to expect with her playing with modern AI plans, Mary Shelley's story and ideas of what it means to be human. What would happen if everyone never died? How
We are lucky, even the worst of us, because daylight comes.
I thought this was such a clever book, I never quite knew what to expect with her playing with modern AI plans, Mary Shelley's story and ideas of what it means to be human. What would happen if everyone never died? How
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are the ideas of Shelley and the fears of Frankenstein's monster linked to our worries today? I can't say I am knowledgeable about AI, but I loved the way she brought together Turing's Manchester with high tech advances in the US. Maybe some of the advances she mentions are not here yet, but how far off?We are lucky, even the worst of us, because daylight comes.
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LibraryThing member ozzer
The strengths of this novel are its musings about the mind-body duality. Multiple fascinating questions are introduced with two plot lines: Mary Shelly's decision to write Frankenstein, and a futuristic tale about robots and trans persons. Despite her use of similar names for her characters in both
Read this novel for the philosophy, not the story.
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plots, Winterson fails to meld the two into one coherent story. Instead, one is left with the impression that the stories might have worked better as two separate novellas rather than as alternating chapters in one work. Some of the characters are nuanced and leap off the page, especially Mary Shelly and Dr. Shelly. But most are a little too sketchy to work well. Victor Frankenstein is particularly problematic. Winterson tries to bring this fictional character to life in both stories with mixed results. He seems to just come and go with little development of backstory or fate.Read this novel for the philosophy, not the story.
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LibraryThing member EBT1002
It's difficult to write a "review" that does this novel justice. Shifting back and forth in time, between the voice of Mary Shelley and that of Ry, our modern-day transgender hero who escorts us through his love affair with Victor, a scientist set on extending human life indefinitely, it explores
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themes of existentialism, artificial intelligence, identity, and the filmy cloth separating reality from fantasy, possibility from outrageousness.... Ultimately, it challenges all we know about what is, and what might be. It reconsiders Shelley's horror story and notes how close we are to that incomprehensible possibility. Humorous and mind-bending, it's a worthy Booker nominee for 2019. I loved it. Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
My heart sank a bit when I read the first few pages of this: the story of the Byron/Shelley party on Lake Geneva and the writing of Frankenstein has featured in so many historical novels, films, TV documentaries, etc., that there surely can't be anything new to say about it, can there...?
Very entertaining, with some good jokes, some nicely mind-bending philosophical acrobatics, some telling social critique, and plenty of sharp dialogue, just as you would expect. But maybe just a bit too much historical box-ticking.
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Fortunately, Winterson soon switches to her parallel, present-day story, in which different incarnations of the same characters confront, two hundred years on, updated versions of the same philosophical problems of death, revival, artificial life, body vs. consciousness, and so on, in a world of sexbots, cryonics and AI. And the damp and drizzly shores of Lac Léman become the damp and drizzly banks of the Irwell. Very entertaining, with some good jokes, some nicely mind-bending philosophical acrobatics, some telling social critique, and plenty of sharp dialogue, just as you would expect. But maybe just a bit too much historical box-ticking.
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LibraryThing member villemezbrown
A book bubbling over in ideas, until all the water boils away and we're just left with a giant mess on the stovetop. At least it smelled good for a while . . .
I really need to stop reading books that forego quotation marks. It is a very big red flag.
I really need to stop reading books that forego quotation marks. It is a very big red flag.
LibraryThing member Iudita
There are two dominant story lines in this book. The first one was magical, full of mood and atmosphere and written in velvety prose. The second one was something quite different. I much preferred the first over the second although I'm sure there will be those that feel the opposite. The book has
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merit, that's for sure, but I feel it was written to make a statement as opposed to making art. Nothing wrong with that but I wanted the art. If the whole book was like the first story line it would have been a 5 star book for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
I remember this feeling of being stunned after reading "The Handmaid's Tale". Once again, as a reader who has been presented with what feels like an all too possible vision of the future, I must shift my thinking. What role will Artificial Intelligence play? Will human bodies be replaced with bot
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parts and an "uploaded" version of a human mind? What role will the gender and ego creators play in the outcome? Winterson, in her ever so creative writing and thinking, tells parallel stories of Frankenstein and the contemporary Victor. Too fantastical? That is for the reader and the future to judge. Show Less
LibraryThing member DrFuriosa
What a strange and interesting remix on Frankenstein. Jeannette Winterson has spent her career questioning ideas of sex, gender, and identity and she does so now through the frame of Mary Shelley's classic, Frankenstein. We follow Shelley as she dreams up Frankenstein and we move to a speculative
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period where a trans doctor named Ry falls in love with Victor Stein, and we also meet Victor Frankenstein as a character in Shelley's story. It's a weird book, but it (mostly) works. It has certainly made me wish to revisit the original tale. Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
Despite not liking her memoir [Oranges are not the only fruit], something about the description of this new novel by Winterson drew my attention. I'm so glad I read it. This is a smart, timely novel that is a great balance of progressive ideas, humor, and history.
Winterson parallels the story of
I also loved the transgender character whose feelings were explored but again not preached about. It was nice to see novel include a transgender character where that topic didn't have to be the whole motive of the novel.
Anyway, I really liked this and it was just what I was in the mood for. Well thought out and great connections, but not at all overwrought.
Winterson parallels the story of
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Mary Shelley's creation of the novel, Frankenstein, and the friends vacationing together in Switzerland with a modern-day setting exploring robots (more specifically sexbots!), artificial intelligence, and a transgender character. The parallels are subtly drawn but also gave me a lot to think about. I loved that there wasn't any preachiness to her ideas about the current state of human affairs or where we might be headed. It seemed more like an exploration of what could be - or not. I also loved the transgender character whose feelings were explored but again not preached about. It was nice to see novel include a transgender character where that topic didn't have to be the whole motive of the novel.
Anyway, I really liked this and it was just what I was in the mood for. Well thought out and great connections, but not at all overwrought.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
Jeanette Winterson’s modern take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an unusual blend of genres (literary fiction, science fiction, historical fiction). Winterson employs the familiar dual plot-line, one set in the early 1800’s and the other in contemporary times. The historical thread follows
At times bizarre, and always inventive, I found this book intellectually stimulating, just thinking of all the implications of AI and how it could be used or abused. The historical storyline, a contemplative look at Mary Shelley’s life, appealed to me more than the contemporary, which read more like a fast-paced farce, complete with outlandish characters, exotic settings, and salacious humor. She uses humor to ridicule sexism, while not downplaying its destructiveness. She inserts social commentary via satire, and pokes fun at both the UK and US. While not required, a familiarity with the Shelley’s Frankenstein is helpful. It is interesting that many of the concerns of the 19th century are still relevant in the 21st: worker obsolescence through technological innovation (back then it was the loom), a woman’s place in the world, how to create a more equitable society, the mysteries of the soul, the drive for creativity, class divides, and what makes life worthwhile. I sensed the story losing a bit of its cohesion as it approaches the ending, which may be interpreted in a number of ways. Be aware that it includes a number of sexually explicit scenes, profuse profanity, and a potentially triggering scene of trans assault.
Winterson has produced an entertaining, occasionally disturbing, and thought-provoking work about the human experience. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and plan to investigate the author’s other works. This book has been longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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Mary Shelley’s life, starting at Lake Geneva, Switzerland, as she begins to create her famous work while married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and engaging in intellectual conversations with Lord Byron, his physician, Dr. Polidori, and Mary’s stepsister, Claire. The contemporary thread employs parallel characters: Ry Shelley, a transgender doctor, legally supplies body parts to Victor Stein, a scientist experimenting with cryonic reanimation and digitizing the contents of the human brain. They interact with Ron Lord, an entrepreneur in the sexbot industry, Claire, an evangelical Christian working as a guide and assistant, and Polly D, a pushy journalist in search of a story. The book opens with a technology conference, where Stein delivers a lecture on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and Ron Lord engages in a darkly humorous regaling of the “benefits” of sexbots. At times bizarre, and always inventive, I found this book intellectually stimulating, just thinking of all the implications of AI and how it could be used or abused. The historical storyline, a contemplative look at Mary Shelley’s life, appealed to me more than the contemporary, which read more like a fast-paced farce, complete with outlandish characters, exotic settings, and salacious humor. She uses humor to ridicule sexism, while not downplaying its destructiveness. She inserts social commentary via satire, and pokes fun at both the UK and US. While not required, a familiarity with the Shelley’s Frankenstein is helpful. It is interesting that many of the concerns of the 19th century are still relevant in the 21st: worker obsolescence through technological innovation (back then it was the loom), a woman’s place in the world, how to create a more equitable society, the mysteries of the soul, the drive for creativity, class divides, and what makes life worthwhile. I sensed the story losing a bit of its cohesion as it approaches the ending, which may be interpreted in a number of ways. Be aware that it includes a number of sexually explicit scenes, profuse profanity, and a potentially triggering scene of trans assault.
Winterson has produced an entertaining, occasionally disturbing, and thought-provoking work about the human experience. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and plan to investigate the author’s other works. This book has been longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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LibraryThing member proustitute
Despite this being longlisted for this year’s Booker, I might have given Winterson’s latest a pass, had it not been for several people whose opinions I trust calling this “a return to form.” My relationship with Winterson’s work is both perfect and harried; during my undergraduate days, I
But after The PowerBook, Winterson’s work started to become derivative; I even attended three or four of her lectures, and she returned again and again to the same anecdotes and stories in the talks—likely as these were the ones that earned some guffaws. After the masterpiece that was Art & Lies, can any author surpass their own best creation?
And this is something like the main conceit in Frankissstein: the question of artificial intelligence; how wedded is our consciousness to our brains; is artistic creation the same as, or at least akin to, scientific inventions; how do the bodies we inhabit—and which change both with time and with our wills (made emphatic by one of the main characters, Ry, whose trans body is much on display and much discussed in the novel)—problematize things like being, consciousness, and desire if the promise or threat of AI is on the horizon?
I began the novel with high hopes: the early sections, told from Mary Shelley’s point-of-view, detail the genesis of Frankenstein and the conversations about gender, authorship, artistic creations, and also vivisection were some of the more interesting sections here. Given that two of Winterson’s strongest novels, The Passion and Sexing the Cherry, are historical and tackle these same questions seemed to bode well. However, the present-day sections are riddled with cliches and stereotypes, e.g., the African American woman who checks Ry into the AI conference in Memphis; Ry’s own trans body, which, as a cisgendered person, even I took some issues with: it will be interesting to see what trans readers make of Winterson’s depiction of Ry as something like the promise of the future, the making of the new self—something she pairs very haphazardly with AI.
The sections with Mary Shelley—and those of her meeting her own fictional creation in Bedlam—being the strongest, the present-day sections (dealing with sexbots and trans bodies and lots of fucking and the question of whether a disembodied brain can still house consciousness and intelligence) are a mess: Winterson fails to join them, even though one can see that the underlying themes with which Shelley grapples and with which Ry and Dr. Victor Shelley grapple in today’s Manchester are indeed united. Winterson chooses to join them by poetic repetition and the use of literary quotes—one of which is her own—and this feels more like a patchwork quilt of a book than a novel.
Still, this was a fun read overall, and I would recommend it; however, I would in no way recommend that readers new to Winterson begin here. This is an author definitely back on track after more than a decade off the mark, but Frankissstein fails to deliver a convincing narrative, despite its topical questions, and instead reads like two very different novels that have been joined together in places where they seem to “fit.”
With thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this in exchange for my honest thoughts.
3.5 stars
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spent a lot of time with her work, and her work from the 1990s through the early-2000s is very strong, ground-breaking, and original.
But after The PowerBook, Winterson’s work started to become derivative; I even attended three or four of her lectures, and she returned again and again to the same anecdotes and stories in the talks—likely as these were the ones that earned some guffaws. After the masterpiece that was Art & Lies, can any author surpass their own best creation?
And this is something like the main conceit in Frankissstein: the question of artificial intelligence; how wedded is our consciousness to our brains; is artistic creation the same as, or at least akin to, scientific inventions; how do the bodies we inhabit—and which change both with time and with our wills (made emphatic by one of the main characters, Ry, whose trans body is much on display and much discussed in the novel)—problematize things like being, consciousness, and desire if the promise or threat of AI is on the horizon?
I began the novel with high hopes: the early sections, told from Mary Shelley’s point-of-view, detail the genesis of Frankenstein and the conversations about gender, authorship, artistic creations, and also vivisection were some of the more interesting sections here. Given that two of Winterson’s strongest novels, The Passion and Sexing the Cherry, are historical and tackle these same questions seemed to bode well. However, the present-day sections are riddled with cliches and stereotypes, e.g., the African American woman who checks Ry into the AI conference in Memphis; Ry’s own trans body, which, as a cisgendered person, even I took some issues with: it will be interesting to see what trans readers make of Winterson’s depiction of Ry as something like the promise of the future, the making of the new self—something she pairs very haphazardly with AI.
The sections with Mary Shelley—and those of her meeting her own fictional creation in Bedlam—being the strongest, the present-day sections (dealing with sexbots and trans bodies and lots of fucking and the question of whether a disembodied brain can still house consciousness and intelligence) are a mess: Winterson fails to join them, even though one can see that the underlying themes with which Shelley grapples and with which Ry and Dr. Victor Shelley grapple in today’s Manchester are indeed united. Winterson chooses to join them by poetic repetition and the use of literary quotes—one of which is her own—and this feels more like a patchwork quilt of a book than a novel.
Still, this was a fun read overall, and I would recommend it; however, I would in no way recommend that readers new to Winterson begin here. This is an author definitely back on track after more than a decade off the mark, but Frankissstein fails to deliver a convincing narrative, despite its topical questions, and instead reads like two very different novels that have been joined together in places where they seem to “fit.”
With thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this in exchange for my honest thoughts.
3.5 stars
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
There was a long period when I would eagerly away each new book that Winterson published, purchase it and inhale it. At a certain point though, somewhere around Gut Symmetries, her books started feeling overly familiar and similar to each other, so I dropped off. I kept meaning to try again at some
I had kind of a mixed reaction to this. it definitely felt familiar as a Winterson novel, and there were some AMAZING moments that I loved. So much about the set-up was fascinating -- AI, gender, sex dolls, cryogenics, scientists pushing the envelope and also a parallel story of Shelley & Byron and the creation of the original story.
BUT ALSO there is a surprise sexual assault (I'm not one who usually looks up CW for this, but I still felt blindsided) and has had some mixed reaction on its representation of its main trans character.
This is clearly a book designed to provoke thought, rather than provide easy answers. Overall I am glad that I read it, but not quite enough to put Winterson back on my auto-buy list.
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point, and this book, as a new conversation with Frankenstein seemed like the time to do it.I had kind of a mixed reaction to this. it definitely felt familiar as a Winterson novel, and there were some AMAZING moments that I loved. So much about the set-up was fascinating -- AI, gender, sex dolls, cryogenics, scientists pushing the envelope and also a parallel story of Shelley & Byron and the creation of the original story.
BUT ALSO there is a surprise sexual assault (I'm not one who usually looks up CW for this, but I still felt blindsided) and has had some mixed reaction on its representation of its main trans character.
This is clearly a book designed to provoke thought, rather than provide easy answers. Overall I am glad that I read it, but not quite enough to put Winterson back on my auto-buy list.
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Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2019)
Reading Women Award (Shortlist — Fiction — 2019)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2020)
Europese Literatuurprijs (Longlist — 2020)
Comedy Women In Print (Shortlist — 2020)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2019)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Longlist — Fiction — 2020)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2019-10
Physical description
8.4 inches
ISBN
0802129498 / 9780802129499