Reviews for Written on the Body

The average rating for Written on the Body based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-09-18 00:00:00 Rod Zulinick "The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart before I met you, I relied upon it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut." I got completely lost in this book, in a good way. I was wholly wrapped up in the writing, basking in the beauty of the prose. I've not read a lot of Jeanette Winterson yet, but what I know so far is that she is like a composer of music. Her words are a song that serenades the listener; this novel an exquisite ballad. When the breathless hush blankets the crowd after the conclusion of the piece, my greatest desire is to experience it all over again. "I've tried to get you out of my head but I can't seem to get you out of my flesh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read it's you I'm reading. When I sit down to eat it's you I'm eating. When he touches me I think about you." The skin of this story is an affair between a married woman and a narrator whose gender remains unnamed throughout. The flesh is the grand passion between these two, the sensuality of two bodies joined together. At the pit or core you will find unconditional, selfless love. "I don't want to be your sport nor you to be mine. I don't want to punch you for the pleasure of it, tangling the clear lines that bind us, forcing you to your knees, dragging you up again. The public face of a life in chaos. I want the hoop around our hearts to be a guide not a terror." The middle section reads like a poem about the various landscapes of a lover's body. The beautiful verses still resound in my head. I was ready to forgive Winterson for overlooking a plot to her novel, until I realized there in fact was one. Beneath all that seductive style, a story is revealed. It shook me up and then crushed me. I loved it. "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought."

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-25 00:00:00 Jason Millican You know how it is when your friends fall madly in love with someone (a new girlfriend), or something (Guitar Hero, Battlestar Galactica), and wear you out during the honeymoon phase babbling on about his/her/its awesomeness, sometimes in excruciating detail? If you're not in a similar situation, or worse, wish you were, it's damn near unendurable. For God's sake, don't read this book unless you can stand to read about sheer, uninhibited passion, often in graphic detail. The pointedly genderless narrator, having wandered through the nooks and crannies of various male and female lovers, falls head over heels for Louise, and, when foolish enough to lose her, spends roughly a third of the book singing paeans to her entire body. It's Winterson at her most self-indulgent, but in this case, her enthusiasm is well-suited to its subject. If you've ever been stupid in love with someone, you can sympathize with narrator x, and appreciate Winterson's matchless style. Definitely a book you've got to be in the right mood for, by which I mean if you're in an unhappy relationship or you aren't seeing anyone and wish you were, or God help you just got dumped, stay the hell away. If you're bazonkers about someone right now or otherwise don't mind, read this, it will thrill you.