9 - Written on the Body

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Vintage, 1992
190 pages
Date completed: November 5, 2009

Wow, this novel was absolutely captivating. Every single page was chocked full of lines and passages that I'd love to underline (except that then the whole novel would be underlined). So much insight and passion packed into so few pages.

So the narrator of this novel is androgynous and bisexual. How interesting. At times I felt myself needing to categorize the narrator: I often read her as female, although the text itself is careful never to give ANY indication of the narrator's sex. What does that say about me and the way I've been taught to read? Why do I feel the need to categorize the narrator? In life things aren't certain. A person's sex can be fluid in a way. But this narrator spoke to me, and he or she definitely seemed female when I was reading. Maybe that's because I'm female. Maybe it's because I know that Jeanette Winterson is a lesbian. Maybe it's because the language was so subtle that it used more feminine word choice and I didn't even notice. So forgive me if I accidentally refer to the narrator as a female...I'll try to stick with "he or she" although it pains me to do so. I just finished the novel and I'm feeling really attached to the narrator at the moment.

So here we have a novel of the deepest love and the deepest loss. A lot of the novel feels like one long love letter (but not in a corny way at all-- in the most genuine way I've ever seen in a text). This passage about death tugged at my heartstrings the most, though. It's about letting a mortician prepare your loved one's body for burial:

"What would you do? Pass the body into the hands of strangers? The body that has lain beside you in sickness and in health. The body your arms still long for dead or not. You were intimate with every muscle, privy to the eyelids moving in sleep. This is the body where your name is written, passing into the hands of strangers."

Winterson is a fabulous author. This is the second book I've read by her, and it's just as powerful as the first. When this challenge is over I'll definitely be seeking out more of her novels. Wow.