Oranges

As mentioned earlier, I'm in the middle of Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. I've decided to re-read the book because I've recently purchased an Out of Print Bloomsbury Classics edition of the title. (Cover by the side) This means I now possess three different editions of the title.

It's a nice pocket-sized hardcover with good paper. It feels like a pocket-sized bible in my hands, which amuses me. And yes, it'll look good on my shelf; if there's any space for it; which there isn't.

(If you noticed, there were two semicolons in the previous sentence. I'm rediscovering the semicolon, so they might pop-up more frequently.)

My favourite part in the book is still the bit about the mother's liberal re-telling of Jane Eyre. In Mother's version, Jane Eyre goes away with the pious St John Rivers. That has always been taken as the gospel truth, until one day the young protagonist, being old enough to read, decided to pick up Jane Eyre for herself. She felt similar emotions the day she found her adoption papers by accident.

The revelations of childhood.

As children we take many things for granted. And these constants we take into our adulthood and they shape our identity, our character. Then one day the scales fall from our eyes and the world shifts just that little bit. Nothing really changed. The only real difference is: Now you know.

What you do with the truth is your choice. How you choose is that which truly defines you.

It is the nature of stone to covert bone.
At one time or another there will be a choice: you or the wall.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
The City of Lost Chances is full of those who chose the wall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men.
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Then is it necessary to wander unprotected through the land?
It is necessary to distinguish the chalk circle from the stone wall.
Is it necessary to live without a home?
It is necessary to distinguish physics from metaphysics.
Yet many of the principles are the same.
They are, but in the cities of the interior all things are changed.
A wall for the body, a circle for the soul.

~ from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit