Quotes For Your Notebook: Jeanette Winterson

I have just finished reading Jeanette Winterson's latest book entitled Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles.  This book is part of a publisher's series called The Myths, which consists of various authors retelling a myth of their choice in a contemporary voice.  Other authors in the series include Karen Armstong (mentioned in THIS earlier post) and Margaret Atwood, whose book The Penelopiad I have waiting in the wings.

This addition to the Quotes For Your Notebook section comes from the introduction to the book:

"I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real."

In the retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Atlas and Heracles Ms. Winterson has accomplished something that I did not anticipate when beginning this book.  She has woven into her retelling an aspect of a particular myth of my childhood that I didn't realize needed retelling as well.  Three quarters of the way into this story she introduces the Russian space dog Laika, and interlaces that small dog's story with that of the great Titan Atlas.

Space travel was a larger-than-life factor in the mythos of my childhood, and I was familiar with the story of Laika's trip into space as part of that myth.  The story I read in grade school never mentioned that she died during her mission, but I knew without being told.  For some reason all of the great expansive American optimism associated with our early space program, contrasted with my instinctive sense of Laika's cruel claustrophobic end, generated a deep conflict in my young mind that is still with me.  Winterson has unexpectedly found a way to address my early established deep sense of suspicion, and offers a balm with these words:  "Laika was free."

I am thankful for Jeanette Winterson's willingness for exposure and vulnerability in her writing, in this book as well as her others. To paraphrase Winterson:  I want to read the story again.