[Read] Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Translated by Han Liangyi, Trojan Republic, 2020, ISBN: 9789863597834

Before telling my experience, let’s talk about the differences between the Chinese translations.

Simplified Chinese version, published by Beijing United Publishing House, so translated.

(Yes, it is the "so")

The title of the book is translated as "Orange is not the only fruit". Although the original orange can refer to oranges and oranges in biological classification, it mainly refers to the more common oranges abroad. The exact name for "orange" is mandarin (orange) or tangerine.

Because there are several scenes in the plot that mention the heroine Kana or other characters stripping orange. But in my brain, it seems that only oranges can be peeled, and oranges are all cut. I always feel a little uneasy. ( But my roommate said that he can also peel oranges. It seems that I am too good at eating oranges )

So continue to go down and find that there are several translation omissions in the Simplified Chinese version as follows:

In one scene, when Kanai was a child, her mother suggested that she do the Tower of Babel from the Bible story as her homework for her school art class.

Traditional Chinese translation is: origami. Hmm, very reasonable.

Simplified Chinese translates to: Tangram? ! ? ! ? ! How to do this, can you demonstrate?

Wait, this is too much! As a result, I ran to ask google book, the original text is: Origami (Japanese: origami). Exactly why the tangrams appear is still a mystery.

Also, in Leviticus, Cana's mother goes to quarrel with the eldest son of the pagan next door:

The Simplified Chinese version describes the boy as "face full of freckles", while the Traditional Chinese version says "face full of pimples".

Freckles may not necessarily be distressing, but pimples can be devastating. The original text here is "spot". This word (dot) can indeed be used to refer to freckles and pimples at the same time, but the next sentence of the protagonist's mother is a sentence from the Bible "Deuteronomy", cursing the other person's sores can never be cured. .

The context is correct, the correct solution should be acne. (Mom is so vicious QQ)

In short, the simplified version is not recommended.

Overall, this is a rather witty and sad story with a heavy issue, but because it always carries a certain joking perspective, it is not a depressing story. It deserves to be regarded as one of the must-read classics before you die. (It has also been remade into a series)

The reason I didn't say it's super good is because it's not exactly a book that can be read mindlessly and is full of entertainment.

Winterson's semi-autobiographical novel uses a very large number of holy scriptures. The plot also has a lot of thinking patterns that Christian beliefs have, and even the title of the chapter is the title of the Old Testament. This does allow readers to quickly enter the ultra-conservative Christian atmosphere in which Kanai grew up.

However, if the reader is not well versed in the Bible, although it does not hinder reading, it may find it a little obscure.

In addition, a lot of metaphors begin to appear in the second half of the book. There are two main lines of these metaphors:

The first metaphor is the story of King Arthur's knight, Parsifal, who sets out in search of the Holy Grail. Description Parsifal misses his master during his journey, and eventually a tired bird returns to its nest. Honestly, I'm not sure if this metaphor refers to Kana and her mother, or Kana and her lovers.

In the second metaphor, Wennet, another girl living in the forest, was abducted out of the forest by the magician adoptive father, making her think that some great elf entrusted her to her adoptive father so that she could be trained become a magician. The story itself clearly corresponds to Jeanette's story in the main story.

Zhang Yixuan mentioned in Okapi's book review that Proust once joked: "If homosexuality is unfortunate, it is easy to get love, but if you go beyond this circle, people will find it difficult to adapt and turn around." In other words, Homosexuals are "normal" who are neither weak nor injured, and run around openly, but they will be hated by others.

He thinks this sentence echoes what was mentioned in the second metaphor:

 "Training wizards have to stand in the chalk circle for years and years until they don't need the circle anymore. Little by little they build strength, first in their own mind, then in their body, and then into the circle around them. You have to control the space you breathe before you can control the world outside of you. You have to understand the nature of the things you want to change before you can change anything.”*

{To be investigated: There seems to be a misplacement here, the wizard and the magician should be the same person}

However, if the circle represents the cabinet, this interpretation is still a little off: in Wennai's story, Wennai's adoptive father is a magician, and he adopted her because his magic skills (drawing chalk circles) were on the decline. Later, because Wen Nai fell in love with a young man from out of town, she was kicked out of the house.

Therefore, the adoptive father of the magician should correspond to Kana's mother in the main line.

From this point of view, Zhang Yixuan leads Proust to think that the chalk circle is a comrade's cabinet. This interpretation seems to be reversed: this magical chalk circle actually symbolizes a conservative Christian worldview.

However, because the metaphorical part and the main line are sometimes not so clearly echoed. (Winner's story is fairly clear) So some parts may have to be rethought.

But excluding these, I still fully recommend this book: 4.9 points★★★★★

It is a good book that makes people want to buy it and collect it at home. If there is a hunch, if you reread it once, you will have more experience!

When I first read the reviews and profiles, I thought it was just a lesbian coming-of-age novel.

Sadly, it's not quite. The sexual orientation of the protagonist Kana is only a small part of the whole story, and the content is not as erotic and erotic as one would expect in a lesbian theme.

(Given that women are often the subject of sexual fantasies, lesbian depictions are often fiery and sometimes ludicrous.)

The main axis of its entire story lies in Kana's growth and life itself.

In other words, the whole story shows the conflict between religious values and secular realities, the biggest tipping point for both being the gay experience.

The story describes how the protagonist Kanai grew up in a rather conservative and radical Pentecostal family and was treated as a girl who was inspired by God to become a missionary.

There is nothing wrong with training to be a missionary. However, in many subtle clues, you can see that Kana's mother shows her extremeness: the school is an evil place, and she tries her best to prevent her from going to school. It wasn't until the education authorities informed her that she would go to jail for not letting her children go to school, and she reluctantly sent Kana to school.

Even, fruits other than oranges are regarded as devil fruits, so only oranges appear on the table at home. This is the origin of the title of the book "The orange is not the only fruit".

I thought it was a novel about cooking or travel, but I was so wrong .

"The world is full of evil, " Kana's mother always told her.

But such a pious life is not without impact or flow. As the story progresses, the author slowly piles up one crisis after another that is about to burst the belief bubble:

①A passion that goes against nature.

As a child, Kana went to a bookstore run by two very old women every Wednesday. The two ladies are very kind and often treat her to snacks. One day, the two invited her to go to the beach to play together. Just when she was excited to go home and get money to buy a sand shovel, her mother strictly forbade her to visit again.

The reason was that the two women had unnatural passions . Kana was young at the time and didn't understand what it was, thinking that the candy they were selling had chemicals mixed in.

This reminds me of Chen Xue's metaphor in "The Book of the Wicked Girl", where she described the two newly moved mysterious women in a tone of a witch's attack, vividly and mysteriously, and they roasted them. How delicious and fluffy the bread came out, with a mysterious aroma, bewildered all the men who smelled this aroma. This pair of women who run a comic book shop seems to exist like this in this conservative town, a very seductive but mysterious existence that makes people curious and avoidable.

Moreover, the most shocking thing for readers is that Kana's mother's photo album called "Lovers" also mysteriously appeared a photo of a woman who had never been properly explained.

It's like Jubelle said to Kana, "She knows what it is like to feel, especially the feeling of a woman." Kana's mother once had another woman in her heart, but she chose to ignore it.

②Natural phenomena & miracles.

What is going against nature? Here comes the most classic ethical objection: "So does medical practice count against nature?"

This sharp rhetorical question from the fact appeared one morning after waking up, and Kana found that her ears suddenly couldn't hear. But my mother and church members saw deafness as a sign of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Everyone was happy and celebrated. Deaf and young Kana was left alone and at a loss.

Until she accidentally met Jubei Li from the Fellowship Choir at the post office, and she forced Kana to go to the hospital. In the hospital, when I met Kanai's mother who was busy praying for her patients, Jubeili couldn't help shouting when they were arguing with her:

 "This child is not full of the Holy Spirit, she is deaf."

This scene is quite ironic. The mother is so religious that she doesn't care about her daughter's health. She even goes to church to make a big fuss about her illness, and then runs to care for the church members lying in the hospital.

Therefore, on the eve of Kanai's departure from home, she heavily criticized her mother's religious fanaticism:

 "If there is such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother is a prostitute."

③Only the marriage of a man and a woman is a right and beautiful thing?

In the book of Numbers, women in the streets always scold their husbands as useless pigs, making it seem like everyone is worse than someone else's husband, and then lament: " People always wait until the raw rice is cooked. Fan found out the truth. " However, Kana found:

 "Everyone says you'll find the right man. My mother said that, and it's inexplicable. My aunt said it, and it's even more inexplicable. The man at the post office said it too. But here's the problem. Yes. There is a girl who married a pig, the pimple-faced boy next door often brings girls home, and my dreams, what should I say?”

"There are a lot of women in the world, most of them are married. If women can't marry women -- because of having babies, I don't think they can -- some women have to marry beasts."

This part literally killed me. That's right, I really don't know who put out the fake news that everyone can meet the real son or daughter.

I really hope that married wives who say these words may be more persuasive when they persuade young people to go into the fire pit together, and think of ways to improve their evaluation of their husbands first .

After all, we can only meet ordinary people, and there is no miracle or fate in it. Maybe we will not be disappointed if we figure this out, to be honest.

And, the last reality that shatters Kana's beliefs is about to appear after this hilarious dialogue:

 "'I asked Susan's mother. The two of them better be careful, or people will think they are the same as the two at the bookstore.' Who can say that they really did something wrong?" "Mrs. Fu, who is opposite the door, saw that they bought a new bed - a double bed." "What does this prove? I used to share a bed with Bert. , but we didn't do anything on it," Doreen said, and that was true, but the two women were different.

different from what? I hid in the trash can, wondering. "

Then, Kana meets her first love! (laugh)

Kana's journey of de-enchantment is about to begin.

In the end, Kana found that she was just an ordinary person, with nothing magical or different from ordinary people.

Moreover, the world is not divided into good and evil as my mother said, but there is a demon beside every ordinary person.

 The devil said, "We're here to keep you whole, body and mind. If you ignore us, you're likely to break in two or shatter. The whole thing is paradoxical here."

As Jubelle said, Kanai's mother did not understand that "she is just an ordinary worldly woman".

The fact that Kana's mother denied was discovered and acknowledged through Kana's love for the same sex.

Homosexuality is an unsurprisingly natural form of life. Just like Kanai's roaring confession: "She is a gift from God to me."

It's as beautiful as a heterosexual relationship, neither humble nor arrogant, nothing to brag about or self-blame, nor unnatural passion or demonic possession. Not at all, it is a phenomenon/fact itself that has nothing to do with good or evil .

Oranges are not the only fruits, fruits are just fruits, and there has never been any devil fruit.

(I don't mean to start a fight, and I admire those who come out for the gay movement. But it's puzzling for some people to call me gay right away when they meet someone, or to keep looking for relatives in the crowd. Heterosexuality He will tell you that he loves the opposite sex without even meeting, and then feels kind to you that he loves the opposite sex. The purpose of the gay movement is to make homosexuality as naturally accepted and uninhibited as the air, not to be special different.)

Thus, Winterson has a very incisive and enlightening defense of her novel:

 "No, this story is for people who want to know what's going on on the fringes of everyday concepts. Do you always keep a safe distance, or do you follow your heart? I'll never understand why heterosexual stories are suitable for public reading, And as long as you have a gay character, or have a gay experience, you can only belong to a queer community.”

This kind of thinking of heterosexual hegemony reminds me that I have seen a similar phenomenon in animation madness: when audiences who prefer gay elements are booing, there will always be some people jumping to ask other audiences not to understand the plot in a homosexual way, even at the cost of pulling Lower yourself and insult others: "evil evil evil evil" ← like this.

However, in the male-oriented harem animation, no one will make a special trip there to leave a message and scold the audience for being evil men, but just silently turn the stage. Why?

From the point of view of a biological woman, the plot of a group of attractive and smart women who are infatuated with a useless man for no reason is also inexplicable? (good play)

But in the final analysis, it is someone else's entertainment. It doesn't hurt anyone in reality, it doesn't distort the understanding of reality and cause prejudice or discrimination against others. It only exists in personal fantasy. That is personal freedom . I don't like it. .

After all, homosexuality is no more morbid than some straight teenage girl who competes. But no one ever scolds them in person and says, "You are perverts! Disgusting!" Even those who protect the value of the family (Bible www) have never criticized it, which is really interesting.

It is really sad that the human rights of virgins and girls are lower than that of gay adults who are in love with each other. (turns to look at the Holy See)

In short, although there are a lot of things that I don’t understand, I highly recommend it to comrades who grew up in Christian families, or people who have very radical religious fanatics (not necessarily Christian) in their families. I think they should feel very impressed. deep.

Very scary, many phenomena (symptoms) are all right. (shake)