Jeanette Winterson
When I read this I wondered what to think about the word 'doses'. It sounded a bit too much like worming a cat or a dog; and in my mind I turned the word into 'tonic'. Tonic definitely feels like it is doing you good; that you are being made to feel brighter; that you re being uplifted in spirit. So apologies to Ms Winterson for my edit!
That moment aside, I agree wholeheartedly with the premise that both poetry and fiction can help heal you. They can restore you, and they can uplift you. Some folk might say they can save you.
A really interesting part of this quote I think, is what she suggests they are healing, 'the rupture that reality makes on the imagination'.
From this, I imagine a sort of slap in the face awakening. A rude shock.
I wonder if it comes from her childhood where she withdrew from some of the harsh realities she lived with; that day dreaming, imagining and reading looked after her; made her feel safe and real and whole.
If reality was harsh, then being forced to return to it from the imaginative and escapee-like world of the imagination and reading, and moving between the two states, was experiencing literally as a rupture. A wound.
I sometimes feel like I am emerging from somewhere else when I finish reading and begin to take notice again of what is around me. Reality can come as a shock if I have been far away in my mind; but most of the time I don't experience it as a rupture, for which I am grateful.
what a haunting image ...
ReplyDeleteWhilst it is a close up of a letter O with the counter burnt out by an incense stick I look at it now and feel it could be very bullet-like, so apologies for that. I was trying to think about images of rupture...
DeleteF - whilst one can understand the message the wording is a bit challenging. B
ReplyDeleteInteresting how words can be hard to translate and understand, even tho we kind of intuitively know what they are trying to say!
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