Thursday, June 24, 2010

Jeanette Winterson: Atlas and the Weight of the World

Three weeks ago Brenda Wardeska led the discussion with a viewing of an Bill Moyers interview of Margaret Atwood in the series "Faith and Reason." This powerful series is in the church's library.
This coming Sunday, June 27, we'll view another author in the "Faith and Reason" series -- Jeanette Winterson. Jeanette is a British author who have published several successful books, including "Weight" a re-working of the myth of Atlas and Hercules. Jeanette's brief bio states that she,

"...was born in Manchester, England, and adopted by Pentecostal parents who brought her up in the nearby mill-town of Accrington. As a Northern working class girl she was not encouraged to be clever. Her adopted father was a factory worker, her mother stayed at home. There were only six books in the house, including the Bible and Cruden's Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments. Strangely, one of the other books was Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and it was this that started her life quest of reading and writing. The house had no bathroom either, which was fortunate because it meant that Jeanette could read her books by flashlight in the outside toilet. Reading was not much approved unless it was the Bible. Her parents intended her for the missionary field. Schooling was erratic but Jeanette had got herself into a girl's grammar school and later she read English at Oxford University. This was not an easy transition. Jeanette had left home at 16 after falling in love with another girl. While she took her A levels she lived in various places, supporting herself by evening and weekend work. In a year off to earn money, she worked as a domestic in a lunatic asylum."

Please join us for a viewing and discussion of her engaging interview. We'll be happy to see you. As usual, superlative childcare is provided

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