The Passion [Paperback]

Jeanette Winterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 1997

Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.

In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson won the Whitbread Award for best first fiction for the semi-autobiographical Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, an often wry exploration of lesbian possibility bumping up against evangelical fanaticism. She was 25. Two years later, The Passion, her third novel, appeared, the fantastical tale of Henri--Napoleon's cook--and Villanelle, a Venetian gondolier's daughter who has webbed feet (previously an all-male attribute), works as a croupier, picks pockets, cross-dresses, and literally loses her heart to a beautiful woman. Written in a lyrical and jolting combination of fairy tale diction and rhythm and the staccato, the book would be a risky proposition in lesser hands. Winterson has said that she wanted to look at people's need to worship and examine what happens to young men in militaristic societies. The question was, how to do so without being polemical and didactic? Only she could have come up with such an exquisite answer. In the end, Henri, incarcerated on an island of madmen, becomes aware that his passion, "even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else."

From Publishers Weekly

This "arresting, elegant novel" uses Napoleon's Europe as the setting for an enticing surrealistic romance between an observer of history and a creature of fantasy. "The slender story is sometimes lost in the strange brew of myth, fact and modernism, but Winterson's assured prose does much to unify her unsettling tale," determined PW .
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Edition edition (August 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135226
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135223
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartstopping paragraphs on every page! July 8, 2000

By Chicago Dreamer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour. -Jeanette Winterson

* * *

Henri, a poor country boy joins the French military to follow his passion: Bonaparte. His tour of duty takes him on Napoleon's marches, and one is treated to an inside of look at being a soldier in Bonaparte's army. Napoleon's passion for fighting has him take his armies into Moscow. Concurrently, a woman gives birth to a child in Venice. The child's father is a Boatman, and those children, according to legend, can walk on water. The child turns out to be a girl, but is nonetheless a Boatman's Daughter. She has a passion for gambling, and meets the love of her life and finds another passion, in the process losing her heart. After her heart has been broken, she marries a cruel, fat Frenchman and exults in his passion for debasing her. Her destiny takes her to Moscow, where she meets Henri. Henri's passion for the Boatman's daughter proves to be no small thing in his own destiny.

Set in magical, eternal cities, encompassing a time which captivates the imagination, and written in beautiful prose, this work is emminently readable, and entirely riveting. There are beautiful heart-stopping phrases worth quoting on every page -- words which, by their beauty, make this spellbinding tale a lyrical journey of discovery. There are many kinds of passions in this piece, and following each to its end, and savoring each as it comes, is a bittersweet and very poignant experience. Do it! Highly Recommended!

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Passion Play, Askew January 29, 2004

By Debbie Lee Wesselmann TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Jeanette Winterson's short novel, THE PASSION, is not as simple as its plot suggests. Henri, a Frenchman who has dedicated his young life to Bonaparte falls in love with Villanelle, a Venetian woman who cannot love him because her heart belongs to another woman. In her clear but poetic language, Winterson delves deeper - into the issues of the soul and the heart, of knowing when to cast aside passion and when to embrace it, of the heartless of both war and love. As she does so, she takes the reader through her own kind of passion play, where web-footed Villanelle can walk across water and a prophet with green slime in her hair speaks the truth. A defrocked priest, able to see across miles and into houses, is destroyed by "the spirits" - alcohol, to be precise - and in his death gives Henri a miracle. Bonaparte becomes the people's "little Lord in his simple uniform" who convinces thousands of men to follow him to their deaths. The question arises, what is evil and what is saintly? Where is the salvation in all the heartlessness? That these character can find any peace at all in the midst of chaos is the novel's final miracle, though it might not be the calm readers expect.

Despite the rampant symbolism and religious references, Winterson's grasp of language, imagery, and rhythm gives this a lighter touch than might be expected. After all, both Henri and Villanelle readily confess to "telling stories." And how can one take seriously a fat cook who, after passing out in a drunken stupor just before Napoleon arrives to inspect the kitchen, is rigged to an upright position by Henri and a friend? Who cannot laugh at Villanelle donning a codpiece to protect herself from lascivious men? But Winterson also adds the mysterious stranger who asks a rich Venetian man to gamble not only his life but the manner of this death, possibly the most chilling scene in the book. After all, Winterson writes, "Venice, the city of Satan," and we learn how easily it can be to become lost in its maze.

THE PASSION is my first Winterson book, and this virtuoso performance ensures that it won't be my last. I highly recommend this novel for readers of literary fiction, particularly those in love with language, and for readers in search of a very different and original fiction.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most beautiful piece of literature ever written! July 1, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Having now read this book 14 times, I am still in awe of JW's understanding of the vulnerability of men and women in love. Every time I read this book I learn something new. This is the one book I always give as a gift and use quotes from frequently. The prose of this novel is simply the most beautiful and poetic I have ever read... and that's saying something coming from a man who is sometimes intimidated by feminist literature. The story of Henri and Villanelle will surely touch any one with a heart especially the line that reads, ' when I lie in her arms no dark days appear... and I truly believe our children will change the world.' For all those who have read The Passion, I highly recommend "Written on the Body". Heartfelt thanks to JW for writing such an incredible story!!!