Sexing the Cherry

By: Jeanette Winterson

Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson

Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

In a fantastic world that is and is not 17th-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the listener from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the listener from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.

©1989 Jeanette Winterson (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Pure Magic all the way

This story was totally unexpected, and make me so happy to know that great imaginations are still at work out there.....Juliet Stevenson made this book so so magical, I listen to it over and over and LOVE her Dog Lady voice and accents, I cannot fault her. Her voice is so rich, and brings the characters to life in such a way they are unforgettable. I will listen to any/all of the books she narrates. I hope you like this wonderful story as well as I did and just float along with the story, I loved the dog barking echos as one story let to the next, Thank you Thank you for producing such a wonderful book.

The plot is bananas but I love the writing

Definitely not for everyone. It relies on some pretty fantastical characters, like the giantess known as Dog-Woman and some of the 12 dancing princesses of fairy tale. It takes place mostly around the time of the English Civil War but in other time periods as well. Despite the extreme unreality of the plot and the characters, I somehow feel that the historical London that this book evokes is very very real and for that I love it. And Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful narrator.

two brilliant voices for the price of one!

Juliet Stevenson is my favorite narrator, and she is wonderfully suited to Winterson's whimsical, poetic, yet somehow grounded-in-authentic-voices novel. I'm hoping that this is the first of many JW books read by Juliet Stevenson!

Wonderfully weird fairytale

I liked the different characters and the changing time from periods of "history". I put that in quotes because it is not remotely realistic. Winterson is really good at developing her characters. Having a story take place in various time periods at once seems to be the going thing these days but in this case it seems natural and it is fun.

Enjoyable

Juliet Stevenson is a brilliant reader and is someone I happen to seek out when I am searching for a new listen. Her voice and acting skills breathe immediate life into all her audio recordings. This was my first encounter with the author, Jeannette Winterson. I enjoyed her command of language, the story’s characters and the overall adventure. I will probably seek out more of her work. However, I will say, I am not sure I fully understood all of the tale’s multi layers at all times, but I am ok with my uncertainty. It is a story I will definitely be mulling over in my thoughts further. Unfortunately, this recording is marred by poor editing at the very beginning of the audiobook. The production editor has accidentally snipped off the first two paragraphs from chapter one. (Hence why I gave a 4 instead of a 5 overall rating). Other than this omission the rest of the novel’s text remains intact and overall the book is enjoyable and recommended.

Intentionally confusing

The author starts out, talking about a Native American language that doesn’t do past future in present as part of its grammar, and that is essentially what this book is. Winterson combines, historical fiction, rewriting of famous fairytales, and Aesop‘s fables sorts of stories, to create characters that exist outside of time without actually knowing that they do. Prepare to be confused. If you’ve read oranges are not the only fruit there will be a lot of similarities in the characters, particularly the main two characters, the mother and the son.