Time tornadoes? Whatever could they be, I wondered as I picked up Jeanette Winterson’s Tanglewreck. Something is happening to time, woolly mammoths are walking casually along the Thames and people are disappearing while going out on errands. Is the clock in Tanglewreck, the old and rambling home of Silver, just a clock? Who is the child with the golden face? Who are the strange people who live underground and steal pizzas?
In Tanglewreck you have all the expected elements of fantasy.
A prophesy, strange and magical happenings, evil lords, a heroine and her friend who have to save the world. Then why read this book, you may ask? It will probably follow an expected storyline, big deal, right?
Wrong.
You will be reading a story that will remain in your memory forever. Winterson writes for adults and this is her first book for children. You travel with Silver to Egypt, to faraway planets, you jump back and forth in time and get to understand all the physics you may have found so boring.
Maybe, like me, you will wait with anticipation to see what happens in alternate universes.You will think to yourself that this is the kind of writer you want to be when you grow up. Her prose is musical and many are the times when you feel goosebumps all over for its sheer beauty.
What do you think about novels with themes? Do you think fantasy should carry a message? Should a moral be tucked into everything? Not necessarily, I think. Some stories get so tied down with a message that the story is lost. No so in Tanglewreck. All the lessons you need to know are there, so beautifully woven in that when you feel the sheer fabric of the story you will never want it to end. Read Tanglewreck to get into Winterson’s spell of storytelling and read it to know how beautiful a simple tale can be and how happy it can leave you.
(Yasmine Claire teaches high school students and attempts to write twisted-inside-out fairy tales. Write in to claireyasmine@gmail.com)