Category: 2015 Blog Post

“It seems that due to the peculiarities of the event horizon we could watch history pass and never become history ourselves. We could be trapped eternally observing with no-one to tell. Perhaps that’s where God is, then God will understand the conditions of infidelity” (Winterson, 52).

Although this passage considers the seemingly personal aftermath of a relationship, it in fact speaks to the tension between heteronormativity and the queer identity. To watch history pass without ever being a part of it implies a certain marginalization of the “we” speaker. Specifically, the “we” voice appears to encompass the queer identity – ostracized by a sense of secrecy and loneliness: “with no-one to tell” (52). The silencing implied in being “trapped…observing” may in fact reflect the “shaming effects of isolation” that Michael Warner (1991) argues are foundational in the process of repressing sex as an action as well as queerness. In other words, to be imprisoned in a passive, almost victimized state recalls the subordination and demonization of all types of queer (above and beyond our much-loved, but ironically trite LGBT acronym). Similarly to Warner’s conceptualization of a heteronormative power (Warner, 1999), “God” in this passage appears to symbolize the institutionalized normalcy that the narrator feels often at odds with. Nevertheless, acceptance or at the least understanding from “God” seems on some level important to the speaker; there is a sense that the narrator is determined to show “God” the basis of infidelity. In fact, as argued by Warner, infidelity itself is queer, suggesting a series of ‘queer layers’ if you will, through which the narrator identifies with queer (non-gendered, committing adultery, having multiple partners). We are, through this passage, prompted to consider the way that identity, as well as distinct behaviors are stigmatized as queer, and how this suppression has made Winterson pity the deviant as simply a bystander who is eternally powerless in the face of time and its straight white male leader (“God”).

“We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. I don’t want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and who doesn’t bother to check her diary when we arrange to meet” (pp 38).

 

In this passage the narrator is explaining their initial hesitation in acknowledging the feelings they have towards Louise. They seem to be negotiating with themself. They seem to be trying to navigate their intense feelings towards someone they initially considered a friend. They are trying to rationalize their feelings in a platonic context, which is a desperate attempt.

The desperation of this rationalization is shown in the structure and style of the passage. In the first sentence, the placement of the comma is not for the reader to pause, but for the reader to stumble. Pretend for a second that the first sentence is being read out loud. Taking into account the shift in tense as well, the narrator goes from trying to distance themselves from their feelings by using the future to quickly recovering and using the present. There is a depersonalization in “would miss you” as if the beloved, Louise would figure out the narrator’s feelings. After quickly recognizing that their feelings couldn’t necessarily be discerned from this statement, they change it to the past. This change is a quick stumble showing their desperation to ignore their feelings.

Their desperation continues in the second sentence. While the first sentence was quite short, the second sentence rambles on. It starts with the idea and fear of loss and continues forward, gathering speed and finally resting upon acknowledged adoration.

This passage is the breaking point where they realize that they are in love and want to pursue Louise. The slightly chaotic structure of these two sentences reflects the narrator’s apprehension towards their own feelings.

From Written on the Body:

“The potatoes, the celery, the tomatoes, all had been under her hands. When I ate my own soup I strained to taste her skin. She had been here, there must be something of her left. I would find her in the oil and onion, detect her through the garlic. I knew that she spat in the frying pan to determine the readiness of the oil. It’s an old trick, every chef does it, or did. And so I knew when I asked her what was in the soup that she had deleted the essential ingredient. I will taste you if only through your cooking” (Winterson 36-37).

This passage, which takes place before the narrator has an affair with Louise, actually describes a crucial part of their courtship. The narrator claims that they “will taste [Louise] only through [her] cooking,” like they long to know Louise in an intimate way but are forced to put a barrier between them for the sake of propriety. The use of food as courtship is effective here because eating is inherently sensuous, much like sexual intimacy. The narrator even references Louise’s body and brings her physicality into the creation of her food through Louise’s spit-test. The narrator wants to get to know Louise through their mouth, through the food that Louise creates, the same that literally contains Louise’s saliva. Their mouths touch in spite of the narrator’s attempts to keep a safe distance.

In fact, Louise’s spit might even be the primary thing that the narrator is looking to take in. After all, lots of food is referenced in this passage but it is all in service to finding Louise’s taste beneath this food, all about the narrator connecting to her through the vessel of food. The narrator realizes that Louise’s hands had touched all of their food and they immediately “strain to taste her skin,” looking for Louise’s flavor instead of the food’s. It is a flavor that is evidently missing, the “essential ingredient” that has been left out.

This sense of unconventional intimacy falls into a larger pattern of the novel, of the narrator having markedly different romantic experiences with all of their various partners (tales that are all told out of order, another untraditional element to her affairs.) The narrator’s lovers are of all sorts and all experience intimacy in different ways—for I the radical it was blowing up museum bathrooms, for Jacqueline it was quiet domestic life—and Louise is another person with whom the narrator experiences unique intimacy. The current love is no better than the last love, and this way of representing relationships legitimizes all of the narrator’s partners as valid, important, and capable of unique love.

“Perhaps we were in the roof of the world, where Chaucer had been with his eagle. Perhaps the rush and press of life ended here, the voices collecting in the rafters, repeating themselves into redundancy. Energy cannot be lost only transformed; where do the words go?” (52).

This passage comes after the narrator and Louise have climbed up seemingly never-ending stairs to a “high wild room” (51) where the narrator hears children’s voices from below. The reference to Chaucer might at first be alienating, but even a reader unfamiliar with his work can grasp the idea that this “roof” extends across not only space but time as well, so old that Chaucer himself inhabited it. The narrator continues to paint this space as all encompassing through the (seemingly) contrasting ideas of “ending” and “repeating.” On the one hand, they ruminate that this is the space where all life ends, as if everything becomes trapped here. But the following focus on “repeating” and “redundancy” signifies that the narrator’s notion of “ending” is atypical. For them, “ending” refers to, for example, “voices collecting in the rafters,” rather than voices disappearing completely. To end is not to cease existing, but to stop ascending any further in space—to end is to stop progressing, to go in circles ad infinitum.

The line “energy cannot be lost only transformed” echoes this alternate idea of ending. Nothing in the world actually dissipates; things merely shift, collect, and repeat. Although the narrator was rooted in an actual physical space, the repetition of the word “perhaps” suggests we are now deep in the narrator’s headspace, and that these themes of “redundancy” and “repetition” extend beyond this room and this moment. As the rest of the novel has shown, the narrator often feels trapped in cycles they are complicit in perpetuating. The thought of transformation can be freeing but like a “roof” it is also limiting and even frightening, because (ironically) the narrator cannot see an end point—they do not know where to direct their energy, and seems anxious about the thought of words being out of their control.

“She opens and shuts like a sea anemone. She’s refilled each day with fresh tides of longing.” (73) is not normally how sex or a sex drive is described in literature. In this passage of Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, the narrator (who I will refer to as X to avoid the dilemma of gender) describes one of X’s married lovers. Through use of sea imagery and cyclical ideas Winterson brings together the familiar and the new; again reproduces the odd effect of making something infinite yet forever ending. The phrase “opens and shuts” (73) implies repetition. The lover does not open and shut just once. Similarly in the next sentence the narrator explicitly states that she is “refilled each day” (73). Just as X continuously seeks a new lover to be with forever, the lover is always emptied and renewed. This connection between ending and forever seems to be echoed in the images of the sea. Not only is the lover refilled every day but each day it is “fresh tides” (73). The repetitive idea of tides- coming in and out, in and out- is broken by making them “fresh”, enhancing the contradiction of once yet repetitive. With that in mind the passage takes on a new meaning for me. It is not about the sex, or this women, it is about how this women is every women. The narrator hates yet cannot seem to escape…dating- for lack of a better word. “She” becomes a metaphor for all the she’s that repeat in X’s life. Each time X begins a new relationship the lover is refilled.

“It was necessary to engage her whole person. Her mind, her heart, her soul and her body could only be present as two sets of twins. She would not be divided from herself” (68).

This passage refers to Louise’s autonomy and the multiple reasons why she is so attractive to the narrator.  This quotation is preceded by several descriptions of Louise’s physical attractiveness, such as her flowing red hair.  The descriptions demonstrate why the narrator is physically attracted to Louise, but her autonomy is the basis for the narrator’s psychological attraction and explains how Louise presents a sort of challenge.  This passage also represents a paradox; the narrator is attracted to Louise because of her autonomy, yet the narrator is essentially obsessed with Louise, and repeats the word “her” five times in three brief sentences.

The narrator’s desire for autonomy, even in an external sense, is understandable when considering the book so far.  One of the narrator’s former lovers, Bathsheba, essentially broke the narrator’s heart.  This then prompted the narrator’s relationship with Jacqueline, who represents a calm, risk-free person who cannot cause emotional damage to the narrator, as she is not an object of desire.  The narrator has also had several affairs with married women and describes a kind of script that goes along with these encounters, indicating a lack of challenge and boredom due to repetition.  Although the narrator has not yet given a detailed description for each lover, many affairs seem to have ended with the narrator or the lover storming out and both of them being hurt.  This then suggests that the narrator not only desires Louise for her physical attributes, but also to be independent like her.  In addition, this quotation features foreshadowing and subtly implies that the narrator may not be able to meet the standards that Louise has.  Louise’s relationship with Elgin, her husband, also contradicts this description, as Louise no longer makes love to him yet remains married to him.