A beautiful, lyrical, magical-realistic, heart-breaking love story. A French country boy signs up for Napoleon’s army with dreams of glory and escape and learns what war really is. A Venetian boatman’s daughter who works in a casino loses her heart to a married woman. Each tells their story, and these stories of course ultimately entwine. Winterson’s writing is beautiful, as always. Some of my favorite passages:

“Most of these recruits aren’t seventeen and they’re asked to do in a few weeks what vexes the best philosophers for a lifetime; that is, to gather up their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.
     “They don’t know how but they do know how to forget, and little by little they put aside the burning summer in their bodies and all they have instead is lust and rage.”

“News of the Coronation was spreading and I saw in the smiles of the people I travelled with how welcome it was. None of us thought that only fifteen years ago we had fought to do away with Kings for ever. That we had sworn never to fight again except in self-defence. Now we wanted a ruler and we wanted him to rule the world. We are not an unusual people.”

“The mystics and the churchmen talk about throwing off this body and its desires, being no longer a slave to the flesh. They don’t say that through the flesh we are set free. That our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.”

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3.5. This is one of those books where some of what I didn't appreciate gets tied into a solidly written ending, but the ending is SUCH a bummer that I still didn't appreciate it that much. And to be fair it's a bummer in a particular way - someone ending up in a mental asylum for the rest of their life, regardless of how nice you make it, for completely avoidable reasons, is horrific! People really underplay how terrifying those institutions are.

I can imagine rating it a bit higher in a different mood, and maybe reading so soon after another book of hers also didn't help. In comparison to Oranges, the more mystical fairy tale type stuff is much more significant while the stuff I liked most, the well observed portraits of real humans, is much more minimal. Whereas that was grounded in her own experience, this isn't really grounded in anything at all - it's a hazy view of the Napoleonic wars and a Venice which is treated as basically just magical. That's fine! But I just didn't get on with it as much, mostly the Venice stuff. Again I feel like this is mostly personal, and mostly about my state of mind while reading it. It tries to tackle Big Stuff about human relationships but it feels a little unmoored? And there is interesting stuff there! Like the title says, it's a mediation on the nature of passion and how we experience it. Which is a cool subject. I just didn't feel it as much as I wanted to ( )

There is no doubt in my mind that this book deserves at least four stars despite the fact that it was soooooo not my thing. If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, read this book. It's actually better done, more interesting, and more engaging, but it shares that fantastical quality that I truly dislike.
The story follows Henri, a French young man who enlists in Napoleon's army, and Villanelle, an Italian woman who works in the casino. Both characters narrate the story and their lives end up intertwining in a way that leaves one character decimated (I won't spoil it by indicating which one).
Winterson does some very interesting things with her writing. Her imagery and lyrical use of language is very, very original and interesting. She can go very, very dark with a scene or a line, and you feel yourself gasping at the thought. She's intrigued me - - from Henri's job preparing endless chicken for Napoleon to Villanelle's cross dressing to another soldier's extreme long distance vision - - she draws the reader in. The plot doesn't really propel you. The details do.
Where I think she falters in this book is voice. Henri's voice and Villanelle's are really quite similar . . .in the end, it just all seems like one narrator even though it clearly is not. And of course, I hated the bits of magical realism. It's used judiciously and to make a point, but that didn't make me like it. It just reads as pretentious to me when it is supposed to be symbolic.
All in all, I honestly think this book would be absolutely amazing for an English lit class or an ambitious book club (mine is not) to dissect. There's a lot of layers of meaning and symbolism and motivations to discuss. The prose is unique and beautiful and compelling.
I'm not sorry I read it, but for me it was admirable, but not really pleasurable. ( )

For me, I felt the writing was trying to be quotable and thus felt a touch try-hard - the writing also made me feel quite removed from the characters and thus I felt detached from the story overall.
The first third of the book with Henri was tough to get through - I didnt care for it.
Villanelle had great promise for a character - but the way this story was set up and the writing just didn't do her justice.
There were so many heavy themes in the book but it just felt glossed over.
The "passion" also wasnt there for me. The closest it came was the married woman Villanelle had an affair with - but once againt there wasn't really any set up or substance.
and then the ending??? like wtf henri? ( )

Estamos en Venecia y corren los años en que Napoleón arrasa Europa con sus ejércitos. Henri, un joven cocinero al servicio del general, se enamora perdidamente de Villanelle, una hermosísima criatura de pelo rojizo y pies deformes, que conoce como nadie los secretos de las góndolas y de las salas de juego donde los nobles del lugar apuestan su fortuna entre sonrisas y frases galantes...