Name: petrina's review of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Item: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit
Rating: 2
Author: petrina

Jeanette Winterson

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

The New York Times–bestselling author’s Whitbread Prize–winning debut—“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 mind—and on reporting them with wit and passion—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.” —Ms. Magazine

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Under the burning torch he puzzled over his hands. One hand was curious, sure and firm. His gentle, thoughtful hand. The hand for feeding a dog or strangling a demon. The other hand looked underfed. A stark, questioning, blank, uncomfortable hand. A scared hand but the hand for balancing.

Perhaps it was the snow, or the food, or the impossibility of my life that made me hope to go to bed and wake up with the past intact. I seemed to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.

I thought about the dog and was suddenly very sad; sad for her death, for my death, 

for all the inevitable dying that comes with change.

There's no choice that doesn't mean a loss

. But the dog was buried in the clean earth, and the things I had buried were exhuming themselves; clammy fears and dangerous thoughts and the shadows I had put away for a more convenient time. I could not put them away forever, there is always a day of reckoning. 

'After all,' said my mom philosophically, 'oranges are not the only fruit.'

Time is a great deadener; people forget, get bored, grow old, go away.

 She said that not much had happened between us anyway, historically speaking. 

But history is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe knot it up a bit more.

 History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing. A cat's cradle. She said those sorts of feelings were dead, the feelings she once had for me. 

There is a certain seductiveness about dead things.

 You can ill treat, alter and recolour what's dead. It won't complain. Then she laughed and said we probably saw what had happened very differently anyway…. She laughed again, and said that the way I saw it would make a good story, her vision was just the history, the nothing-at-all facts. She said she hoped I hadn't kept any letters, silly to hang on to things that had no meaning. As though letters and photos made it more real, more dangerous.

 I told her I didn't need her letters to remember what had happened.

 Then she looked vague and started to discuss the weather and the roadworks and the soaring price of baby food.

I kept looking at her, and wondering how we ever had a relationship; yet when she first left me, I thought I had blood poisoning. I couldn't forget her. Now she seemed to have forgotten everything. It made me want to shake her, to pull off all my clothes in the middle of the street and yell, `Remember this body?'

But where was God now, with heaven full of astronoughts, 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. As it is, I can't settle, 

I want someone who is fierce and 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 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 timeconsuming 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.

 Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. 

I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. 

That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy.

I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had.

 Some people's emanations are very strong, some people create themselves afresh outside of their own body. This is not fancy. If a potter has an idea, she makes it into a pot, and 

it exists beyond her, in its own separate life.

 She uses a physical substance to display her thoughts. If I use a metaphysical substance to display my thoughts, I might be anywhere at one time, influencing a number of different things, just as the potter and her pottery can exert influence in different places. 

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. Perhaps for a while these two selves have become confused. I have not gone forward or back in time, but across in time, to something I might have been, playing itself out.

This ancient city is made of stone and stone walls that have not fallen yet. Like paradise it is bounded by rivers, and contains fabulous beasts. Most of them have heads. If you drink from the wells, and there are many, you might live forever, but there is no guarantee you will live forever as you are. You might mutate. The waters might not agree with you. They don't tell you this. I came to this city to escape. T

his city is full of towers to climb and climb, and to climb faster and faster, marvelling at the design and dreaming of the view from the top.

 At the top there is a keen wind and everything is so far away it's impossible to say what is what. There is no one to discuss it with. Cats can count on the fire brigade, and Rapunzel was lucky with her hair. 

Wouldn't it be nice to sit on the ground again? I came to this city to escape. 

If the demons lie within they travel with you.

Everyone thinks their own situation most tragic. I am no exception.

The prophet has no book. The prophet is a voice that cries in the wilderness, full of sounds that do not always set into meaning. 

There are threads that help you find your way back, and there are threads that intend to bring you back. Mind turns to the pull, it's hard to pull away.

People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between the two realities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what's left. Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different. 

In the old world, anyone could be a new creation, the past was washed away. Why should the new world be so inquisitive?

She decided to sleep outside, where she could sniff and sense the earth she was leaving.The wind blew and it didn't seem important, but tomorrow when the wind blew, it would be important. All the familiar things were getting different meanings.

No, he wouldn't kill me, soft-voiced men do not kill, they are clever. Their kind of violence leaves no visible mark.

Naming meant power. Adam had named the animals and the animals came at his call.

It was not judgement day, but another morning. 

It all seem to hinge around the fact that I loved the wrong sort of people. Right sort of people in every respect except this one; romantic love for another woman was a sin.

To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings. So at dusk you say goodbye to the place you love, not knowing if you can ever return, knowing you can never return by the same way as this. It may be, some other day, that you will open a gate by chance, and find yourself again on the other side of the wall.

But when she'd gone, I pulled up my knees under my chin, and begged the Lord to set me free.

There are different sorts of treachery, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. She burnt a lot more than the letters that night in the backyard. I don't think she knew. In her head she was still queen, but not my queen anymore, not t the White Queen any more. Walls protect and walls limit. It is in the nature of walls that they should fall. 

“without losing a piece of me, how do i get to heaven?” - troye sivan

If I let them take away my demons, I'll have to give up what I've found.

If I had a demon my weak point was Melanie, but she was beautiful and good and had loved me.

We were quiet and I traced the outline of her marvelous bones and the triangle of muscle in her stomach. What is it about intimacy that makes it so very disturbing?

turns out oranges are also not my favorite fruit

petrina

the latter half was the only part that seemed enjoyable to me. i almost dropped it bc most parts i couldn't understand or just couldn't picture or relate with. i grew up christian but in a very different culture of upbringing so most likely this just wasn't it for me! there were a lot of excerpts and lines that did stick with me and i love them <3 it was a journey for sure and i'm happy i continued to read it bc the story towards the end was very beautifully written. maybe i would've understood and appreciated it better if i understood the religious/biblical references. either way, it was an interesting read!

I would probably have understood this better if I understood the Biblical references. Nonetheless, a great read on religious trauma 

Lindy

Describes the humorous adventures during the childhood of an eccentric girl, whose mother unsuccessfully tries to protect her from temptations

Anna 

this was definitely an interesting read, but I'd probably enjoy it more/understand it better if I'd read it in czech. there was a lot of religious and biblical terms that I didn't know and didn't understand the meaning of them. it's my fault as well, I was too lazy to translate them, but overall it was an interesting book about not only the salvation but the trauma of being religious and having religious parents can bring. and being gay in this environment as well. 
i definitely recommend this book, even though it's kinda slow from time to time.

The is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days' ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.

isabelle

"i want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me." 

iris 

will I ever be the same again?

"i want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me." 

This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession. With a new introduction by the author 'Witty, bizarre, extraordinary and exhilarating' The Times 'She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides' Vanity Fair 'Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming' Evening Standard 'A novel that deserves revisiting' Observer 'A wonderful rites-of-passage novel' Mariella Frostrup

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

This really had me giggling in public - Winterson has found such an effective way to tell the story (almost her own story) with a lot of humour. And the tragedy and sadness of it really sneaks up on you towards the end of the novel, drawing to a bittersweet ending.

Kendall McClain

Love, the writing was brilliant, creative metaphors especially in a religious context will do it for me every time! Lesbians in a religious space is simply too real and sad but so interesting to read about, just taking off a star because was hard to get into at the beginning but she slays

erika s

Ed Kay

Hilarious northern wit and a vividly drawn world that effectively skewers the hypocrisy of the religious. Contains the best description of a problem I have ever read:

"What constitutes a problem is not the thing, or the environment where we find the thing, but the conjunction of the two; something unexpected in a usual place (our favourite aunt in our favourite poker parlour) or something usual in an unexpected place (our favourite poker in our favourite aunt)."

This is a great classic, clearly an important piece of fiction. But still - it did not grasp me entirely.

sharkie

Pondering thoughts while growing up with a religious parent, and being different.

There are a ton of messages that I heard before, but the way the author put them was nice, and affirmed my values.

Nota

Pondering thoughts while growing up with a religious parent, and being different.

There are a ton of messages that I heard before, but the way the author put them was nice, and affirmed my values.

“The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find out the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That’s what I’ll find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on.”

Ruby Long

Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrest≤ it didn't matter what." --Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession. * With a new introduction by the author

Angbeen Abbas

i only bought this book because of the Gay Content but im glad i did because i loved it so much

Raag Sudha

I just finished the book and am not sure what to think about it. There are some very interesting excerpts in it, but other parts are just strange and uncomprehendable. I think its one of those books which have quite a bit to analyse and think about but, as a read it was just not enjoyable. I liked the autobiographical style of the book and reading about how messed up the protagonist's puritan and orthodox, fundamentalist Christian upbringing was/is. But the strange parables/non-linear narrative style threw me off and not in a good way, in a more disengaging and boring way. The discontinuity and jarring fragmentation of the novel rubbed me the wrong way and made me more frustrated than amenable to the character's life trajectory.

I think what I'm most disappointed by is the fact that this is supposed to be an example of a stellar LGBTQ book... Seems like the standards set for LGBTQ are quite low. Suffice to say that I was definitely oversold on the book and expected much more than what I ultimately got. Much hype over nothing.

Flavia Louise

4 stars
A bit of a different read for sure. I really didn't like my edition's introduction.

Kwan Ann Tan

Listened in the office today & was so surprised... this is SO GOOD

Risa C

An intimate, yet lofty coming of age tale that manages to explore themes of sexuality, religion, community, and one's identity amidst and within these concepts in such a tight word count. I'm a fan of Jeanette Winterson's writing, but I'll admit that I probably read through this too quickly or with too distracted a mindset to fully appreciate the thematic and philosophical nuances (plus my ebook had weird formatting issues), but Jeanette's story still made an impression on me and had me invested in her journey.. It's certainly a book I'm keen to reread, both to just enjoy Winterson's prose and dive deeper into its themes.

Astha Prakash

Beautifully chiseled sentences. I loved her writing style more than the narrative itself. I'm a fan!

Dorian Avers

This was a required read for a Gender and Sexualities class that I was taking in college. I really wanted to like this book, but Winterson's writing style made that hard. I started trying to read this book a couple months ago but would get confused and then disinterested. Eventually I decided to power through and finish the book at the cost of some understanding. Winterson has so many different story lines and tales in this book that it is hard to focus and comprehend one thing before she jumps to another topic. I think this is one of those stories that you pick up on something new every time you read it just because there is so much being thrown at you at one time. I can understand how this book won award(s) especially in the LGBTQ community because it is interesting and brings a new experience to an until recently, scarcely populated genre. However, if you read this book just like any other it would be hard to award it because of how scattered and stream-of-conscious Winterson's writing is.

Carolina Lopes

I'm too lazy to write a review but I recommend it!

Brook

This book had me in tears, and as usually with Winterson, was a delight. Her words are like a river I swim in when I feel like I need more beauty in my life, and the story of a girl coming of age as a lesbian in the church is a personal one for me.

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Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

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