One degree at 8:30am. Clear skies and sun. Frost. Five chicks all survived the night and looking perky.
Revealed! The book that had no review quotation at all (see January 2008, Book delivery). Not on the front cover nor on the back cover. Not in support of the blurb on the front flap nor after the biography on the back flap. And not on any of the eight blank pages at the end of the book that make you think there'll be another twist to the story when in fact it's finished (don't you just hate that?).
Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods needs, it seems, no introduction, no recommendation, no testimonial. Jeanette Winterson is Literature. So the reviewers tell me. They also tell me that this story belongs to that category known as sci-fi.
Does it? That's news to me. I don't do sci-fi. If it is sci-fi, it's in the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale rather than Frank Herbert's Dune.
The novel comes in three parts. Three apocalyptic scenarios. The same story; the story of how the human race can bring about its environment's complete destruction. Without thinking about it until it's too late. Scary stuff. Depressing stuff too.
There are also three love stories - all rather too sentimental for my taste. Too many long sentences weaving poetically around at 11 at night do me no good at all. But then there are two 'hidden' love stories - the love a tiny baby has for its mother and the love we all have for Earth, our home - which really began to hit some vein of truth.
Although this will not rate as my favourite book of all time, it did make me think. About climate change, about rampant consumerism and where it might lead us. About what it would take to shake the West out of its blind adoration of the great god Economic Growth, and about what might happen if it's already too late.
It also got me thinking about extinction. Not just the extinction of the dinosaurs, nor of hundreds of species of plants and animals each day, but my own extinction, and by extension the extinction of the planet. It made me feel what it might be like to know for certain there is no hope. No life after death. No new blue planet to migrate to in silver spaceships when we're done destroying this one.
And the book made me cry.
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Sunday, 10 February 2008
Book Notes No. 4 : The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
One degree at 8:30am. Clear skies and sun. Frost. Five chicks all survived the night and looking perky.
Revealed! The book that had no review quotation at all (see January 2008, Book delivery). Not on the front cover nor on the back cover. Not in support of the blurb on the front flap nor after the biography on the back flap. And not on any of the eight blank pages at the end of the book that make you think there'll be another twist to the story when in fact it's finished (don't you just hate that?).
Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods needs, it seems, no introduction, no recommendation, no testimonial. Jeanette Winterson is Literature. So the reviewers tell me. They also tell me that this story belongs to that category known as sci-fi.
Does it? That's news to me. I don't do sci-fi. If it is sci-fi, it's in the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale rather than Frank Herbert's Dune.
The novel comes in three parts. Three apocalyptic scenarios. The same story; the story of how the human race can bring about its environment's complete destruction. Without thinking about it until it's too late. Scary stuff. Depressing stuff too.
There are also three love stories - all rather too sentimental for my taste. Too many long sentences weaving poetically around at 11 at night do me no good at all. But then there are two 'hidden' love stories - the love a tiny baby has for its mother and the love we all have for Earth, our home - which really began to hit some vein of truth.
Although this will not rate as my favourite book of all time, it did make me think. About climate change, about rampant consumerism and where it might lead us. About what it would take to shake the West out of its blind adoration of the great god Economic Growth, and about what might happen if it's already too late.
It also got me thinking about extinction. Not just the extinction of the dinosaurs, nor of hundreds of species of plants and animals each day, but my own extinction, and by extension the extinction of the planet. It made me feel what it might be like to know for certain there is no hope. No life after death. No new blue planet to migrate to in silver spaceships when we're done destroying this one.
And the book made me cry.
Revealed! The book that had no review quotation at all (see January 2008, Book delivery). Not on the front cover nor on the back cover. Not in support of the blurb on the front flap nor after the biography on the back flap. And not on any of the eight blank pages at the end of the book that make you think there'll be another twist to the story when in fact it's finished (don't you just hate that?).
Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods needs, it seems, no introduction, no recommendation, no testimonial. Jeanette Winterson is Literature. So the reviewers tell me. They also tell me that this story belongs to that category known as sci-fi.
Does it? That's news to me. I don't do sci-fi. If it is sci-fi, it's in the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale rather than Frank Herbert's Dune.
The novel comes in three parts. Three apocalyptic scenarios. The same story; the story of how the human race can bring about its environment's complete destruction. Without thinking about it until it's too late. Scary stuff. Depressing stuff too.
There are also three love stories - all rather too sentimental for my taste. Too many long sentences weaving poetically around at 11 at night do me no good at all. But then there are two 'hidden' love stories - the love a tiny baby has for its mother and the love we all have for Earth, our home - which really began to hit some vein of truth.
Although this will not rate as my favourite book of all time, it did make me think. About climate change, about rampant consumerism and where it might lead us. About what it would take to shake the West out of its blind adoration of the great god Economic Growth, and about what might happen if it's already too late.
It also got me thinking about extinction. Not just the extinction of the dinosaurs, nor of hundreds of species of plants and animals each day, but my own extinction, and by extension the extinction of the planet. It made me feel what it might be like to know for certain there is no hope. No life after death. No new blue planet to migrate to in silver spaceships when we're done destroying this one.
And the book made me cry.
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