Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery - Hardcover

In Art Objects, Winterson asks us to ignore the hype and judge her by her words and her words alone. After all, she asks, does anyone ask Iris Murdoch about her sex life? And is Winterson's "diffidence, arrogance, madness" anything more than just the single-mindedness that writing--good writing--demands? After bursting onto the literary scene in 1985 with the highly acclaimed Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit , this "ego-bound" seducer of women has been dogged by a "media moronicness" that focuses on her personal life and often neglects to discuss her work.

But Art Objects is not merely a response to her critics. This collection of essays is a passionate, rousing defence of the elusive pursuit of perfection in language, the sifting of ideas and impressions to create highly charged words that throw you across a room. Her favourites dominate--Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot and Gertrude Stein--and every essay reflects her love affair with literature and language, with words that "work along the borders of our minds". There are also intimate essays on her introduction to art, how she learnt to look into the "deep and difficult" eyes of a painting, and her obsession--the collecting of first editions to read in a red room with deep chairs and a fireplace lit. Of course, Winterson places herself amongst the giants of literature that she worships. There is a slightly unpalatable arrogance about this--would the same be felt if she were a man--but also a humility. She acknowledges that in her "gallop with words" she sometimes goes too fast or takes a high fence badly. But she is trying to gallop. It's this clarity of purpose, along with an appetite for eating words, that distinguish her from others, from the "white-collared cataloguers of crap".--Jane Honey

"Jeanette Winterson is one of Britain's brightest alternative literary lights. Her quirky, madly poetic prose has won her a loyal cult following and a lot of respect from the mainstream. H.J.Kirchhoff, The Globe and Mail

"Thrilling, persuasive, challenging and written with a skill and beauty entirely shorn of artifice.... Should be bought, read, re-read and read out loud as often as possible." Edmonton Journal

"Brilliant essays, the finest I=ve read in years, a wonderful, timely endorsement of what art is and what it isn't. In 10 separate ways, from 10 different angles, she takes clear, intelligent aim at the modern wish that art be less arty, and more entertaining; that art be easier for people to chew and quickly digest...Should be required reading." Ottawa Citizen

"It is invigorating to read these essays by a woman who believes in art, full stop." The Globe and Mail

"A delight...I find Winterson an invigorating critic, as well as an exhilarating literary soul mate...At a time when literary commentary is bogged down by dense, impenetrable post-modern and post-structuralist twaddle, Art Objects...offers itself as a breath of fresh thought and fresh expression." Kitchener-Waterloo Record

"Brilliant, challenging, funny, highly personal." Family Practice

"A witty, reasoned look at the power of, and our powerful need for, all forms of art." Ottawa Citizen

"A book of essays to set your intellect on fire." Bruce Powe, The Financial Post

"Potent.... Part soulful meditation and part fiery manifesto.... Ms. Winterson is a passionate writer.... Hers is a book born of a restless, uncompromising intelligence and a life of practicing what she preaches, of taking the kind of artistic risks she so fiercely espouses." The New York Times Book Review

"Winterson is in fine form in these essays about art, arguing, admonishing, infuriating, teasing...She fights solemnly, beguilingly, for ecstasy and silence and the revival of our ability to contemplate...She says much that is important about energy and passion. Her stalwart defence of the modern is a challenge to the barrenness and niggliness with which we live." The Observer (UK)

"There is no denying the beauty and precision of her writing, nor the clarity of her expression...On her heroines--Stein, Woolf, Eliot, books themselves--she is particularly strong and passionate. Through it all, a central theme occurs: that art, true art, is and will remain a vital force, without which life is scarcely worthy of the name." Time Out (UK)