I'm telling you stories. Trust me.

That pair of sentences appears no fewer than four times in The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. A book which happens to be able to call itself my favourite. I've read it no fewer than eight times. It resonates with me. I feel it in my gut, head and heart (in order of intensity, lowest to highest). It's also one of the very few books in which I see, in my mind's eye, when I drape flesh over the characters, one of the main characters as me (another one being Clive Barker's Imajica, which might be a story for another day). Henri, in case you were wondering.
The motif of storytelling is one which Jeanette Winterson tackles more than once in her œuvre and is also something which I've been working into Jürgen; or trying to, at least (though from what I hope is at least a slightly different angle). The very idea of storytelling, the importance of it fascinates me. Its encapsulation of elements of culture, of history, of the interpretation of these(this last being, at times, the most important element from my perspective). I guess that's what being a (quasi)storyteller does, huh?
Another common motif of Winterson's is time. She is a master of manipulation in this regard; time is almost always twistable, bendable, corruptible in her works. It is not what you expect; it exists beyond any set of laws.
But, yes, back to The Passion. It is the story of Henri. He worked for Napoleon. In his kitchens in the field. (I'm not very good at talking about books——even worse than I am at talking about music, it seems. I'm not really sure why, but I can never seem to find the words. Especially with a narrative as breath-taking as this one. Maybe it's because I know I will never write anything half as powerful, half as evocative, half as invested with meaning.)
It is the story of Villanelle. She is a Venetian who has lost her heart. It is the story of Henri and Villanelle, twined together, spiralling into a tight mesh of their two voices.
Winterson's prose is incredible; simple, compact, emotive; and, at times, as near as any writer could come to perfect. It never stumbles; every word rings out on the proper note.
Without Jeanette Winterson, I don't think I would ever have decided to really try my hand as a writer (and, if she were to know this and to ever read anything I write [I'm allowed to dream, all right?], I hope she would not find the idea too repulsive, too insulting). No other writer has made me——through the same sentences (found in her essays in Art Objects)——so desire to write always and to never write another word, so inspired me and made me so contemn my own words.




(An update on my writing: Jürgen has, since I last posted about it, swelled by about five thousand words. The last section I finished, however, made me need a break——I was sort of overwhelmed by it, which is a good thing; I hope it'll have the same effect on others who may (eventually) come to read it.
Also, I've been organising some of my poetry in the hopes of completing a manuscript in time for submission season [January to March or April for most publishers I've checked out]. Not that it's likely at all to find a publisher. But it certainly won't if it just sits in my computer, gathering digi-dust and world wide cobwebs [yeah, I know: I groaned, too].
And, of course, I'm always working on shorter things, too. And, when each piece——if I think it good enough——is completed, I will submit them singly to publishers of short fiction anthologies and the like.)




But back to Winterson, for a moment, if I may.
Jeanette Winterson is my favourite writer. She writes things which resonate deeply in me, which inspire me, which swallow me whole.
Please read her. Please lose yourself in her words. Please jump, with abandon, into her worlds. You'll thank yourself, I'm sure.
Let me close with words from Jeanette Winterson, words from Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (an extract of which can be found here.):

In the West, we avoid painful encounters with art by trivialising it, or by familiarising it. Our present obsession with the past has the double advantage of making new work seem raw and rough compared to the cosy patina of tradition, whilst refusing tradition its vital connection to what is happening now. By making islands of separation out of the unbreakable chain of human creativity, we are able to set up false comparisons, false expectations, all the while lamenting that the music, poetry, painting, prose, performance art of Now, fails to live up to the art of Then, which is why, we say, it does not affect us. In fact, we are no more moved by a past we are busy inventing, than by a present we are busy denying. If you love a Cézanne, you can love a Hockney, can love a Boyd, can love a Rao. If you love a Cézanne rather than lip-service it.