Sea. Salt. Light. Dark. Lighthouse. Blindness. Fossils. Darwin. Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. Beginnings. Endings. Scotland. Greece. Love. Sex. God. Books. Stories. Evolution. History.Gorgeously written, but transitory, fleeting, the story always just out of reach, always about to begin. Quickly loses steam near the end when the events of the first half, Babel Dark and his history, Pew and the lighthouse, have run their course. It never quite settles, but perhaps like the tide, or that light along the a...

Sometimes the story is not what matters most. The ambiance, the pulse of storytelling, the cadence of poetic imagery swaying gently in and out, almost imperceptibly, is what makes the difference, what lingers on your mind long after you have turned the last page.In other occasions, the story itself becomes the true protagonist, more than the characters or the setting or the narrative style. Winterson achieves both things at once in this highly unusual novel. And what might seem a blatant contrad...

I will edit my rambling into a more coherent form later but this was truly so so good I want to reread it already

I bought my copy of this book secondhand. I bought it two months into my arrival in England, homesick for Winterson's way with words. I bought it because a boarding stub pressed between pages 200 and 201 told me it had once been in the hands of a Mr. Andrew Binns on a BA flight from London to Glasgow, and that Mr. Binns likely never finished reading it. This gave me an urge to imagine why, ​and what his journey was like—to make up a story. And Lighthousekeeping is a story about stories. More imp...

I kind of wanted to like this more than I did; I really love Winterson's writing, and her language here is as beautiful as ever. The problem I had with the novel is that it felt that there were several stories going on here, none of which were ever fully fleshed out or made real to me. I greatly enjoyed reading it, but when I finished I didn't feel like I had read a full novel; instead, it felt more like a series of vignettes waiting to be fleshed out.

I know - I'm "currently reading" 3 books already. But only one of them is fiction - so that's really the only one I count. And it's 892 pages long! I'm enjoying Shadow Country , but its work to read. This book is play. I'm not very far in Lighthousekeeping. In fact I picked it up just for a little distraction from the weight of Shadow Country, just planning on reading the book jacket and putting it right back down. Then I moved on to the first page ..."My mother called me Silver. I was born p...

Yesterday I finally stepped out of the enchanted circle in La Mancha where I'd spent the last three weeks, and I thought about perhaps and maybe and possibly attempting to read another book, a different book, but sadly not an enchanted book because I had no more such books, and I wasn’t happy about that.So I picked this book. My initial feeling was that there couldn't be two books as diametrically opposed as Don Quixote and Lighthousekeeping. One is set in the sun-filled plains of early seventee...

4 ★Nobody writes quite like Jeanette Winterson. Even when I lose the plot literally, which I did, I enjoy reading her. It’s a mix of stories, and I’m not sure I got all the connections. I enjoyed the blend for the first three quarters of the book but seemed to drift off at the end. Still, she’s a 4★ read. 10-year-old Silver and her single mum live in a house on a hillside so steep that they sleep in hammocks and eat food that will stick to the plate (peas roll away forever), and they tie themsel...

well I gave it 4 stars before I finished as I loved the way it challenges standard narrative...BUT the last 2 chapters kind of blew that....like she just chucked in a few pages from her journal... so downgrading it to 3 stars.14/03/13 1 of 19 books for $10***********QUOTES ********* SPOILERS****************He doubted her. You must never doubt the one you love.but they might not be telling you the truth.What do you mean?you can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own.So what...

I read Lighthousekeeping thanks to a recommendation of an editor I met some time ago and I still remember when she said to me: you have to read this book because it has something special that I know you'll appreciate. The truth is that I had never read any of the books of Jeanette Winterson, but the words of the publisher made me feel very curious.The story caught me instantly. The book was almost like a love at first sight, in which each of the pages dragged me like a giant octopus into the dep...

Without a doubt, Jeanette Winterson is one of the finest writers of contemporary literary fiction. “Lighthousekeeping” is a story about a young orphan girl taken in by a blind and mysterious lighthouse keeper who tells stories about a 19th century clergyman who leads a double life: “a public one mired in darkness and deceit, and a private one bathed in the light of passionate love.” As I write in my own novel, “The Reality of Being Lovers,” “Lighthousekeeping” is a love story, but you don’t know...

" I am a glass man, but there is no light in me that can shine across the sea. I shall lead no one home, save no lives, not even my own."My second time reading Lighthousekeeping. It's a beautiful quiet tale that begins in a lighthouse in Scotland, with Pew and an orphan named Silver in the 1800s. Though not rich in plot, this story focuses on people and our different sides, and the stories we tell to both ourselves and each other. Telling stories within a story. The main story we hear from Pew i...

If you've never read any Winterson before, this might be a good place to start, even though it's one of her most recent books. It's a fairly short novel, and the text is rather spare, but Winterson is skilled at creating memorable passages with just a few words. The novel encompasses several stories, opening with the tale of orphaned Silver, who is sent off to live with an old blind man named Pew in a lighthouse on the coast of northwest Scotland. Pew tells Silver different tales while he teache...

really can't get enough of winterson. this is a delicious little book, very easy to read...i finished it in a day. favorite excerpts:"What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.""I

Tell me a story, reader.What story?About reading this book and what it means.Okay, then I will tell you about light and dark, sun and shadows, about the power of story telling in times of despair, about how two different people can inhabit the same person, like Jekyll and Hyde and about how sometimes fate throws in a curve and brings us full circle.If you have read this you will understand the above sentences, if not I'll just say, Winterson is often challenging, beautiful sentences, mixed with

"Love is an unarmed intruder."I don't care what anybody says, nobody writes like Jeanette Winterson. I have read quite a few books from Winterson now, and I can safely say she is certainly one of my favourite authors.Even at times where I lost track of the plot a little and I trailed off course, I still enjoyed the writing. It is powerful and mystifying and it's like just a mere sentence from this author, can speak to my soul.This book was not as strong as "Written on the body" or "The Passion"

I loved this book - perhaps because it came at a time when my head was very busy with other stuff. It's a breath of salted air in your lungs. If you like nice linear, predictable books with a defined structure, then this one is not for you. But if you're happy to be wound in the seaweed curls of Winterson's prose poetry then this book is a delight.The version I read (the Kindle edition) also has some excellent interviews with the author, which are inspiring and really help to understand how she

An extraordinary, lyrical book that is about the power of storytelling in - and about - our lives. Other themes are light/dark/blindness (literal and metaphorical), outcasts, and the contrast between permanence and immobility (symbolised by the lighthouse) and change (people and the sea).The fictional characters (one of whom has strong parallels with Winterson - see below) have some interaction with real characters and their works (Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wagner), and a broadly realis...

This is exactly the kind of morose and drilling of the fact that life is impermanent exercise that I probably dislike far more than 90% of other poor writing experiments for every degree of word craft and skill in their telling.Yes, it is poetic at times and the story, when it was there or re-arrived, held an interest or two. But as I noted in the comment written as I approached the very end- not a fan. Do I lack imagination? Most probably. Do I like structure in a tale about tales. Absolutely.S...

After having finished "Lighthousekeeping" which I've had recommended to me by several friends, I'm left with an overall impression of vague disappointment. The novel simply didn't live up to my high expectations, and I have a theory why that is. The writing in this novel is absolutely impeccable! Especially the first couple of chapters took my breath away, and there is no doubt that Jeanette Winterson knows her craft. However, whenever I sit down to read a novel I want to be told a story that dr...