“Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” Jeanette Winterson

This posting tells quite a bit of the story in “Oranges,” and so I would consider this a posting with spoilers in it. On the other hand, the way that Winterson writes makes reading interesting even if you know the story. There are a few twists, though, and this posting might have more information that one might want to read before reading the book.

Winterson’s “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” leaves a lot of doors open for speculation. We are not always sure how events fit into timelines, we have to decide how the other stories fit into the narrative and we are left guessing at the end. I believe this is Winterson’s intent, to keep us thinking instead of tying up the loose ends for us.

We get a few clues early in the book to help us know when Winterson goes from pre-teens to teens, but particularly at the end of the book I felt a little lost in time. In particular, how much time had passed between the time Jeanette moved out and when she came back? Weeks? Months? Years? Also, I am confused about when she moved out–was it sudden or did she linger around the house for awhile, receiving abuse from her mother, before she moved out? (I admit to trying to read this part at bedtime and I might have missed some of the details, but considering how Winterson writes, I think it is as likely that she did not provide the details).

In Ruth there are two other stories (myths?) going on at the same time–Sir Perceval and Winnet Stonejar. I think that Winnet represents Jeanette, since Winnet is “adopted” and raised to be a sorceress and then ends up leaving. However, I have not figured out why the story of Winnet is there. I am sure I am overlooking the symbols in the story, but I can see how the ministry as defined by Jeanette’s mother and the pastor could be compared to sorcery. Similarly, I seem to be completely dense about the role of Sir Perceval in the narrative or I feel it is too obvious. Perceval is looking for the Holy Grail and Jeanette is looking for peace in her life. Could it be that easy?

I read somewhere on Winterson’s website that she doesn’t like to write endings where everything is wrapped up nicely in a package and all the loose ends are taken care of. She says that life is not that way and so a novel should be like life. We have been conditioned all our life that things should be Hollywood – we know the end of the story, the guy in the white hat wins over the villian and always gets his girl. I am not sure of the time period, but at one time in the movies no bad deed went unpunished. The bad girl always comes to a bad end, and the gangster is always brought to justice. I recently saw “Butterfield 8” with Elizabeth Taylor, and as much as I wanted her to be able to reclaim her life, she ended up being killed in a car accident, because the movies wouldn’t allow a character as ill-behaved as she was, especially not a woman, to live a good life.

Winterson’s book is definitely not like that. By the standards of her pastor and her mother, Jeanette’s passions are not only unnatural, but are interpreted as a possession and they order an exorcism. But Jeanette survives the exorcism with her passions intact, survives the church with her life intact and she even survives exile with some kind of relationship with her mother. That is the unknown that we are left with at the end of the book; that is, how does Jeanette’s new relationship with her mother work and how has her mother reconciled the “unnatural passions” of her daughter and her life in the church?

Personally, I like feeling a book is finished at the end, that the story has come to some conclusion, so I felt dissatisfied at the end of "Oranges," but I also understand that that was the author’s goal. Some might argue that books that seem unfinished demonstrate a lack of ability on the writer’s part, but in this case I think Winterson is right; life is not written in chapters and novels, there is no part of life that can be considered separate from everything else that happens, and some parts of life are unfinished stories.

There is more about Jeanette in "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" in "Giovanni's Room."

Written on 21 February 2009.