"Winterson is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides." -- Vanity FairFirst published to great acclaim in 1987, this arresting, elegant novel from Jeanette Winterson uses Napolean's Europe as the setting for a tantalizing surrealistic romance between an observer of history and a creature of fantasy.Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.
"Winterson is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides." -- Vanity FairFirst published to great acclaim in 1987, this arresting, elegant novel from Jeanette Winterson uses Napolean's Europe as the setting for a tantalizing surrealistic romance between an observer of history and a creature of fantasy.Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.
This ``arresting, elegant novel'' uses Napoleon's Europe as the setting for an enticing surrealistic romance between an observer of history and a creature of fantasy. ``The slender story is sometimes lost in the strange brew of myth, fact and modernism, but Winterson's assured prose does much to unify her unsettling tale,'' determined PW . (Oct.)
Villanelle, the web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, is an exotic gamine whose odd, overlapping love affairs are doomed at the outset. As she spars with an aloof society matron in a complex, passionate, and ungratifying game of sexual masquerade, she slips into a concurrent and equally futile love/hate relationship with Henri, Napoleon's chef. Although Winterson has set her story in early 19th-century Europe, her writing style is incongruously contemporary and idiomatic. Despite the strangely fascinating plot, featuring a chillingly unexpected climax, the erratic and nearly incomprehensible structurein which the time period and the narrator's identity are often unclearmake this novel irritatingly inaccessible. Ronald L. Coombs, SUNY Health Science Ctr. Lib., Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Its concentrated, beautifully detailed prose recalls the diction of fairy tale; its plot incorporates their magic, their shrewd wit and brutality...a deeply imagined and beautiful book, often arrestingly so." -The New York Times
"Recalls Garcia Marquez...magical touches dance like highlights over the brilliance of this fairy tale about passion, gambling, madness, and androgynous ecstasy." -Edmund White "A historical novel quite different from any other...it is written with a living passion, an eyewitness immediacy....Winterson is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides." -Vanity Fair "The overwhelming impression of her work is one of remarkable self-confidence, and she evidently thrives on risk....As good as Poe: it dares you to laugh and stares you down." -The New York Review of Books "The book has the enchanted pessimism of the best fairy tales. The Passion is a love story, a meditation on pleasure and its limits, a poetic novel written in a style that is wholly original." -Interview
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