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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Paperback)

by Jeanette Winterson (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr (Sep 1987)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0863580424
  • ISBN-13: 978-0863580420
  • ASIN: 0871131633
  • Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 13.7 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 932,614 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #65 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > W > Winterson, Jeanette

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche. Already Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel is not your typical coming-of-age tale.

Brought up in a working-class Pentecostal family, up North, Jeanette follows the path her Mam has set for her. This involves Bible quizzes, a stint as a tambourine-playing Sally Army officer and a future as a missionary in Africa, or some other "heathen state". When Jeanette starts going to school ("The Breeding Ground") and confides in her mother about her feelings for another girl ("Unnatural Passions"), she's swept up in a feverish frenzy for her tainted soul. Confused, angry and alone, Jeanette strikes out on her own path, that involves a funeral parlour and an ice-cream van. Mixed in with the so-called reality of Jeanette's existence growing up are unconventional fairy tales that transcend the everyday world, subverting the traditional preconceptions of the damsel in distress.

In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson knits a complicated picture of teenage angst through a series of layered narratives, incorporating and subverting fairytales and myths, to present a coherent whole, within which her stories can stand independently. Imaginative and mischievous, she is a born storyteller, teasing and taunting the reader to reconsider their worldview. --Nicola Perry --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jeanette Winterson OBE is the author of ten novels, including Oranges are not the Only Fruit, The Passion and Sexing the Cherry; a book of short stories, The World and Other Places; a collection of essays, Art Objects as well as many other works, including children's books, screenplays and journalism. Her writing has won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, the E. M. Forster Award and the Prix d'argent at Cannes Film Festival. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars orgasmic poetry, 19 Oct 2003
This review is from: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Paperback)
'One of my earliest memories is me sitting on a sheep at Easter while she told me the story of the Sacrificial Lamb. We had it on Sundays with potato'.

This is just one of the many brilliantly quirky remarks of Jeanette that sparkle throughout Oranges. What so stands her apart from other modern writers in this novel is her signature frank style of writing - a refreshingly clean and matter-of-fact narrative, yet so flawlessly precise and so perfectly encapsulating of the emotions behind different experiences in life. Jeanette's idiosyncratic writing is one where every sentence shines with unadulterated beauty and raw poetic force. Her rare sensitivity and affinity with words and language itself is more than amazing - it is magical.

Oranges is more than Jeanette's autobiography weaven amidst fairytale myths and parables. It is more than a story about the struggle between religion and sexuality. It is the the story of all of us, it is our story. The betrayal of parental figures, the driving force of budding sexuality, the mixture of indifference and indignance towards an ex-lover, the innate loyalty to family deep within, all these are passages of life we all walk through, yet how often is it so penetratingly and unforgettably recorded in a chronicle that will be read again and again for many generations to come. Jeanette is the voice of a generation crying out for independence and the need to be true to our hearts; she is the hidden voice of all of us.

That perhaps is what really makes Oranges so special and personal, that behind Jeanette's dazzling prose we hear our story, our voice.

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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book will stretch your mind, 6 Mar 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Paperback)
Jeanette Winterson has written a powerful novel which will challenge the reader on many different levels. Its treatment of the lifestory to young adulthood of a non-conformist woman is so real you can touch the emotion. The layering of one story on another demonstrates Miss Winterson's marvellous technique as a novelist, whilst the way she weaves the Pentateuch into her plot will send you racing to check the original! A great read and well worth a deeper look.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Creation of Reality, 14 Nov 2002
By Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Paperback)
This novel has often been criticised as Winterson's best now that she has gone on to write several powerfully experimental novels. This is implying that she should have remained in these more familiar regions of experience or stuck to a slightly more conventional mode of narrative. What's tremendous about this novel is the way it works as a perfect springboard for the kind of fiction that is being so negatively criticised for its inventiveness. This is a story about a girl who is struggling with the conventions of a restrictive Pentecostal community in a small spot of England, but it is also about the interplay between reality and fiction in people's lives. Jeanette's fables are established to be as valid as the complex religious practices of her family. The characters of the novel constantly differ to a fictional artifice to hold together the reality they cannot understand. Tension builds when the fictional worlds that people struggle to hold into place contradicts other people's realities. This novel is a tribute to the fight for independence and survival. She powerfully asserts that there is a necessary space for these fictional parts of people's realities despite the conflict it will inevitably create. She suggests that the reality built in fiction is also the truth of our own fictions accepted as reality. The interplay of these two creates a living reality.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars It's all a bit deep..but quite good.
I decided to read this book after chatting about it with a friend, reminiscing about the tv adaptation which we had seen years ago. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jaynie

3.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous failure...
Winterson deserves great credit for this brave novel. It is bold, sometimes very funny, acutely observed and by turns moving, evocative. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Yvonne S. Brotherhood

1.0 out of 5 stars Patronising and ridiculing those that loved her
The author claims that this book is 'experimental', 'comforting' and 'a threatening novel. It exposes the sanctity of family life as something of a sham; it illustrates by... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Elanor

2.0 out of 5 stars Struggled to connect with this book
I didn't know much about this book before I started it - only that it was a "book you should read".
It turned out that it was a novel written in the form of an autobiography... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Janie U

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh please
I suppose someone had to write this book.

The reader is manipulated into holding religion in contempt and into understanding how horrendous sexual repression is... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Sara

4.0 out of 5 stars Passionate and gritty, a coming of age novel with a difference
A curious mixture of stories and semi-autobiography which come together to shape the life of Jeanette, the adopted daughter of a church-obsessed mother and a quiet, dominated... Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2008 by Rivercassini

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well observed
I remember watching Oranges are not the Only Fruit on the BBC, oooh, about 1990/91 and me and my fiancee were enthralled (Married 15 years since!). Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2007 by A. J. Fort

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex, Religion & Great Writing
It's all in the title. This is truely a masterpiece. Being a sort-of biography, the story tells that of Jeanette as a young girl, growing up in a stric religious society whilst... Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2007 by S. Rankin

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking and heartwarming
I would normally have stayed well clear of a book like this but it's amazing what you'll pick up on holiday when the only other reading material available is the dreaded Freddie... Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2007 by Cheeky Monkey

5.0 out of 5 stars Oranges are not the only fruit
I have just read a review of `Oranges are not the Only Fruit', which I found to be a poor attempt at criticising a fantastic novel. Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2007 by Ms. E. J. Howells

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