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Weight
The Myth Of Atlas And Heracles
by Jeanette Winterson
BOOKS:
The English author retells the classical myth of Heracles and Atlas in this new work.
Canongate, 192 pages
11/09/2005
$18.00
ISBN: 1841957186
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Historical Fiction
NOTES:
Part of Canongate's "Myths" series that also includes books by Margaret Atwood and Karen Armstrong.
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
The Independent Stevie Davies
Winterson produces some exquisitely filmic prose that is almost mythopoetic.
The Spectator Sam Leith
Weight gives great pleasure, and real food for thought. It bears rereading. It bears, in fact, rewriting.
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Carolyne Larrington
Weight is one of Winterson's more accessible works; her habitual whimsy, insistence on the value of storytelling, her identification with the rebellious, thinking, feeling hero, and the confrontations with the Mother (and, once again, with Mrs Winterson), all recur in an arresting configuration.
The Independent Catherine Taylor
A whimsical ending trades dexterity for clumsiness and mars an otherwise controlled, enjoyably bawdy piece.
The New York Times Book Review Caroline Alexander
"Weight" is marred somewhat by brief autobiographical pieces at the beginning and the end that are not integrated into the story. Still, this short novel fulfills a number of the criteria myth is meant to embody.
Daily Telegraph Christopher Tayler
Winterson goes at the material with her customary mixture of grandiloquent prose-poetry and cutely deflationary, down-to-earth comic detail.
Entertainment Weekly Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
While the story isn't new, Winterson's approach reminds us that there are endlessly original ways to tell it.
Los Angeles Times Susan Salter Reynolds
In this fond retelling, the author gains a small foothold on her own story and glimpses her reasons for writing fiction. [30 Oct 2005, p.R11]
Salon Laura Miller
Winterson approaches the myth of Atlas... as a vehicle for reflection on the self.
The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
Winterson's version of the story jumps between [Atlas and Heracles'] points of view and her own, building a frothy prose poem that ranges from earthy and sexually graphic to abstract, airy, and hard to grasp.
Washington Post Elizabeth Hand
It's a poignant story... but despite occasional glints of humor, Weight is a leaden retelling of it.
Daily Telegraph David Flusfeder
The telling of the world-carrying Titan's back-story is solemnly expository, but when Winterson switches from Atlas to Heracles her tale comes alive.
The Guardian Mary Beard
Some of this is extremely funny... But too much of the book is written in that slightly mystical, stream-of-consciousness, verbless-sentence style that writers often fall for when they have great cultural universals and the well-springs of western thought in their sights.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Donald Harman Akenson
For the Canongate series, Winterson seems to have forgotten what she once knew. She leaves behind the mythic treasure chest that she understands -- the Bible -- and ploughs into the Greek classics, where she is on alien ground and, more debilitating, where the sounds are alien to her ear. [22 Oct 2005]
 The average user rating for this book is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
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