Reminiscent of works such as Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" or Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams." A novella of multiple perspectives, fantasies, transforming identities, past and present. During the Interregnum, a foundling named Jordan sets sail to explore the world, discover new fruits, find love, find himself; back in England, his adopted mother -- an impossibly massive creature known only as the Dog-Woman -- brutalizes hypocritical Puritans and longs for the presence of her son, the only person with whom she has ever shared love. The book is airy, fantastical, often confusing in its blurring of reality, fantasy, internal and external worlds; it starts to fall apart, I think, when a modern story is juxtaposed with the historical fiction. Perhaps others will find the mixture of these two stories more compelling, but for me, it caused the work to teeter over the edge: it had been barely held together by the threads of dream logic and imagination, but the temporal disjunction just made it a bit too frayed for me. Still, a beautiful, poetic work for the most part.

Edit: And with this novel, Jeanette Winterson scaled to the top as my favorite author of all time.

This was by far my LEAST favourite Jeanette Winterson book. I was extremely disappointed. The story-line was weak, the character development was dull, and the spectacular way Winterson plays with words that I so look forward to was completely non-existent.

I loved it.

I'm almost certainly judging this unfairly. It probably deserves 4 or even 5 stars. But it just made me long for Hilary Mantel.

Per my 2013 reading:
"Dreamlike - she jumps between two main narrators in 17th c. England during Cromwell's reign. She also flows between historical and fantasy, weaving fairy tale elements into reflective narratives. One line that stood out to me:
'Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?' (115)
That especially stood out to me because it's how I often feel."

What a special little book. So weird. I really enjoyed it, especially the stories of the 12 dancing princesses.
My only criticism: I felt that male sexuality, especially homosexuality, was pretty disgusting in this. Female wasn't. I don't know what exactly to think about it in the broader picture, I just thought it was a bit too stark of a difference.

*4.5 stars*
What a fascinating book! I thought this was just fantastic, and evoked a lot of thoughts from me. The writing fit the tone so well, and blended the "plot" of the story seamlessly with the more essay type passages, that were philosophical musings of the narrator's mind. This was a really great experience reading this, and I don't think it's a book that merits a "review" because it's so unlike other books I've read. It requires an open mind to appreciate it, but I think it's something definitely worth reading.