Each author, each storyteller, each writer has their own unique point of view, and therefore a story cannot possibly be told in the exact same way twice. While some novels are more evidently made up than others, even factual stories such as memoirs and (auto)biographies are shaped by their writers. On the other hand, all stories are fictional. Quite the contrary, in fact most books are universally enjoyable because they are about people so very unlike ourselves, but who deal with issues we all have to face in life. While Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit can be interpreted as an LGBTQ-novel since it deals with a lesbian woman who is growing up in a strict Christian community, that does not mean it should only be read by women who have been through the same hardships. Writers of fiction, of made-up stories, especially, have to evoke parts of themselves in order to fully understand what their characters go through, and to be able to move the plot forward in a realistic way. One cannot tell a story without laying bare part of oneself. Instead, it’s about how the stories we’re told as a child define who we are, regardless of whether they’re true or not.Īll stories are, to some degree, true. However, I soon realised that doing so was completely irrelevant, because this novel isn’t about facts, or fiction. Therefore, while reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, I kept wondering which parts Winterson had made up, and which of them had really happened to her.
The events in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit are based on Winterson’s own life, but she only wrote them down much later, when she was 26 years old. I think it shows that life isn’t always straightforward either instead, we often don’t understand what’s happened to us after we’ve had the time to reflect on it.
Some of these stories have a clear link to Jeanette, but others are more abstract, and I occasionally wondered why Winterson decided to include them. Throughout the novel, there are several short stories which mirror Jeanette’s life, such as fairy tales and stories from Arthurian legends and the Bible, as well as several allusions to other books – such as Jane Eyre (but it isn’t until much later that she finds out her mother changed the ending).
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