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Tuesday 9 January 2018

Boating for Beginners

Jeanette Winterson
Methuen

A pleasure boat company is transformed when the proprietor, Noah, is chosen by the "One True God" to put "sunny" faith back in the world and women back in the kitchen.

Following on from the success of 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' Winterson decided to rewrite the story of Noah and his ark which, on the surface, seems a fairly odd idea until you've read it and then you'll be convinced that it is a very odd idea indeed.

Winterson's biblical tale is a fever dream of gossip, romance novels, frozen food, celebrity and stupidity. It's of us and a potential end of us but a back then sort of us that's pretty much entirely the same as the now us except with a capricious Frankenstein's dairy deity.

It doesn't work.  I like Winterson when she lets her ideas run wild - 'Sexing the Cherry' is a real favourite - but this is just a bit silly.  The core relationship between the women is fun but the rest is bogged down in absurdities and everything dissolves into a bit of a chore that fizzles out in the end.

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