By: Ellie Valentine
Author Bio:
Ellie is a third year English Literature student with a keen interest in books that give voice to those previously marginalised, and/or texts that play around with conventional forms of narrative. In this review, she discusses Jeanette Winterson’s exploration of the joys and dangers of desire in her 1992 novel Written on the Body.
THE REVIEW:
Perhaps a controversial take considering its critical reception, I found Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit an enormously underwhelming read. It was a novel that I devoured quickly, but thought about rarely post-completion. I didn’t love it, and I didn’t hate it - I sat in that half-way purgatory of indifference. That’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate Winterson’s effortless artistry of language or her ability to connect every reader with an incredibly unique situation, but there just seemed to be something missing, always slightly out of reach. In light of this, my approach to Written on the Body, Winterson’s later 1992 novel, was one of suspicion and resistance. To be perfectly honest, if I had not been literally forced to read it as a result of its inclusion on the semester’s reading list, I wouldn’t have even attempted it.
And yet, in spite of all my preexisting judgements, with every page I read Winterson told me (gently and kindly) what an idiot I was for ever doubting her. Written on the Body achieves a refreshing reflection on sexual desire antonymous to all its distantly-related cliches, implicating the reader in the protagonist’s obsession. The reality of desire is far from what is proposed in your typical feel-good rom coms like ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ or ‘Love, Actually’. Instead, Winterson illustrates how desire is sometimes something painful and all-encompassing, consisting of sacrifice, devotion and mutual consumption. “Eat of me and let me be sweet”, says the unnamed and un-gendered protagonist, going on to write that “your flesh is my flesh”. Desire is portrayed both as something that gives life and takes it away, and at times manifests itself as something perverted - the protagonist even labels themselves as someone with “necrophiliac obsession” (those who have seen Barry Keoghan’s grave scene in Saltburn will be familiar with such concepts - iykyk …). The truth that Winterson reveals is that love and devotion can be a beautiful, fruitful part of life, but it can also be a dangerous and overwhelming fixation.
We as the readers only view Louise, onto whom this desire is projected, as a two dimensional character. We learn very little about her life, her interests, and what motivates her, outside of her sexual relationship with the protagonist. How they interact and the conversations that they have are reflected majorly through metaphors - the whole relationship is only portrayed in a sort of dream-like state. So while the focus of the novel is almost entirely on Louise, the readers learn very little about her and much more about the protagonist. According to the protagonist, they and Louise are unbreakably intertwined, knowing each other as they know themselves, and yet we as the readers are denied this privilege. But do we really believe the narrator, considering they show themselves to be so unreliable in other places throughout the novel?
I could honestly write a whole book about what I feel about Written on the Body. The choice to leave the narrator’s gender unknown in order to check the reader’s own unconscious biases; the consequent implications of what this means if they are a man, and if they are a woman; even what happens to Louise - all of which are much too major topics to encompass in one singular book review. For the purpose of this review, then, the focus on desire will have to suffice - the main takeaway seems to be that desire is fickle. It is something special but something that eats into all aspects of your life, and if you’re not careful, will eventually engross you. Even when (spoiler ahead! sorry!) the protagonist loses Louise, their life is still defined entirely by their lust for her. Louise’s absence is still reflective of Louise’s existence and the space she holds in the protagonist’s life. Ultimately, Winterson seems to encourage us to love one another, but equally warns us against a desire that seeps into all aspects of our life, and worse even, our very essence.
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