I’m finally starting to tuck in to Jeanette Winterson’s newest novel, The Stone Gods<\/i>. I don’t want to say too much about it yet because I’m just a couple dozen pages in, but a passage struck me last night with such force that I have to write it down here so I can mull it over and pose the question in the title to the universe. <\/p>\n
Winterson writes: <\/p>\n
Step into that water and you remember everything, and what you don’t remember, you invent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That simple sentence reminds me so much of this passage from Les Gu\u00e9rill\u00e8res<\/i> by Monique Wittig:<\/p>\n
There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember . . . You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m almost positive that Winterson is at least familiar with Wittig’s strange and wonderful feminist dystopian novel (some people call it a feminist utopian novel, but I argue otherwise), so I can’t help but assume she’s tipping her hat somewhat to Wittig’s narrative. Still, it’s a little weird to see a similarity like that just jump out. <\/p>\n