![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I thought Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was a memoir, but the internet informs me that it is in fact an autobiographical novel; I think my misconception speaks to the sense of reality that the book creates, the feeling that these are all real people you could meet in the street, singing hymns to the sound of a tambourine and passing out tracts.
The book has an enormous sense of wry affection for the intensely religious little sect where “Jeanette” (and probably also nonfictional Jeanine) grew up. Many of these people would be easy to mock, and Winterson certainly sees the group’s humorous side: for instance, there’s a scene where the group attempts to join forces with the Salvation Army to sing Christmas carols, only to strike out on their own once the Salvation Army none-to-delicately tells them to ditch the tambourines, and then there’s are two dueling carol-singing bands in the square until the Salvation Army, with the unfair advantage of a drum, wins the day.
But it’s the kind of loving mockery that comes from recognizing the foibles of group where one felt loved and valued - as “Jeanette” did (she had a particular talent for winning converts, it seems) until she began a love affair with one of those converts, Melanie, when they were still in their early teens.
“Jeanette” didn’t quite realize that this affair fell under the rubric of “impure desires of the flesh”: in fact she tries to explain to her mother why this friendship, this really intense friendship is exactly what she needs right now, and it’s this explanation that tips her mother off that Something Is Not Right. So the church attempts an exorcism, and “Jeanette” and Melanie break up, but within a year or so “Jeanette” is having a love affair with another convert (Katie this time) and realizes that her position has become untenable, and so she leaves.
This must have all been harrowing to live through, and there are a few harrowing moments, but on the whole, the tone is dryly humorous. It’s striking how many ways a story can be told: there’s nothing tragic or comic till the telling makes it so.
The book has an enormous sense of wry affection for the intensely religious little sect where “Jeanette” (and probably also nonfictional Jeanine) grew up. Many of these people would be easy to mock, and Winterson certainly sees the group’s humorous side: for instance, there’s a scene where the group attempts to join forces with the Salvation Army to sing Christmas carols, only to strike out on their own once the Salvation Army none-to-delicately tells them to ditch the tambourines, and then there’s are two dueling carol-singing bands in the square until the Salvation Army, with the unfair advantage of a drum, wins the day.
But it’s the kind of loving mockery that comes from recognizing the foibles of group where one felt loved and valued - as “Jeanette” did (she had a particular talent for winning converts, it seems) until she began a love affair with one of those converts, Melanie, when they were still in their early teens.
“Jeanette” didn’t quite realize that this affair fell under the rubric of “impure desires of the flesh”: in fact she tries to explain to her mother why this friendship, this really intense friendship is exactly what she needs right now, and it’s this explanation that tips her mother off that Something Is Not Right. So the church attempts an exorcism, and “Jeanette” and Melanie break up, but within a year or so “Jeanette” is having a love affair with another convert (Katie this time) and realizes that her position has become untenable, and so she leaves.
This must have all been harrowing to live through, and there are a few harrowing moments, but on the whole, the tone is dryly humorous. It’s striking how many ways a story can be told: there’s nothing tragic or comic till the telling makes it so.
