Rating: 
Summary: The risks of love
Review: I adore Winterson's style, which always is magical, moving, and marvelous. Here, in "The PowerBook", she has created a book that contains a doomed love affair, potent observations about time and space, autobiographical snapshots, and vivid imagery. It's as if the narrator {sometimes called Ali, and later referred to as Orlando (a reference to Virginia Woolf)} and the lover create a world via the internet, where they change gender and geographies and centuries with ease. It reminded me of Woolf's "Orlando", as well as "Prozac Highway" by Persimmon Blackbridge, which includes a wonderful internet romance. "The PowerBook" is delightfully innovative in incorporating internet imagery into the book, and the love affair is quite beautifully written. I don't think the book ended well, especially in the last chapter section, where it seems to meander and then snaps back to a quick end. This seemed to dilute the novel, and left me a bit bewildered. I did love the novel overall, though. Winterson's use of language is always a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, but a bit too abstract
Review: I loved the writing, loved the romance, loved the passion, but couldn't quite deal with the abstraction of it all.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't get there
Review: I was never quite sure what the point of this book was the whole time I was reading it. I recognized that the title and several chapter heads referred to Macintosh computers, but there really was no computer in the book. Instead, there was a series of loosely joined stories, some based on legends from the past, some bordering on fairy tales, and others slices of present-day life. The center of the story is a rather mundane love affair, except this one is between two women. They desperately love each other, want to be together, can't be together, then maybe... But the meat of the book is lost in a lot of filler that, while sometimes engaging, ultimately never gets into that bigger something it's trying so hard to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Scheherazade for the 21st Century
Review: If you're someone who loves the power of words, who loves lush, poetic prose and the images it can conjure, the magic it can work, then you will probably love Jeanette Winterson's beautiful novel, "The Powerbook.""The Powerbook" explores Winterson's recurring themes of time, love and gender identificantion (or the lack of it) through the story of Ali/Alix, a woman living in cyberworld and reinventing herself at another's command. But reinventing yourself doesn't come without a price as Ali/Alix soon finds out. Will she pay it? And if she does, will it be worth the price? For me, "The Powerbook" is Jeanette Winterson at her very best. Everything that was so wonderful in her previous novels comes together in this one. She tells stories, she writes the most lyrically divine prose, she uses linear time and circular time, she anchors herself in reality while letting herself soar on flights of fancy. "The Powerbook" is art for the sake of art. Although some would argue that "art for the sake of art," especially in the literary realm, is nothing but conceit, Winterson herself, has stated differently and I agree with her. Art, she said, is our opportunity to get things right. To tell the truth. To find the ultimate reality. And she's right. Art doesn't deceive us, except on very rare occasions, and when those rare occasions do occur, we're angry with the artist. I know that many people will read this book and wail, "But that's not real life!" Those who do should stop and reread the book once again. And even again and again if need be. It's life that tells us lies, either deliberately or by omission, life that deceives, life that denies us the rich world of fantasy and imagination and creative invention...the world that Winterson seeks and finds in her own strikingly original work. In "The Powerbook," Winterson allows her narrator to become a part of his/her own stories, to become a character in them, to reinvent himself/herself to suit the needs of the receiver. While this book is not conventionally plotted, there are stories in "The Powerbook," and they are wonderful stories indeed. One of the best is a meandering, poetic discourse on the meaning of life and love and death. "I was happy with the lightness of being in a foreign city," Winterson writes, evoking Milan Kundera's wonderful "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "and the relief from identity that it brings." And later, "There was such lightness in me that I had to be tied to the pommel of the saddle..." "The Powerbook" is set in London and Paris and on the beautiful island of Capri as well as in the world of cyberspace, employing both the world of reality and the world of fantasy in the very best mix possible. The lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur in this book, but they blur in real life as well. Who can say exactly how much of an experience is "real" and exactly how much exists in the imagination? And, as she does in every book, Winterson mesmerizes us with her images of time, or the lack of time. She explores linear time, circular time, the absence of time, the impermeability of time, the transmutation of time, time without end and on and on and on. It's fascinating, but only if you want to make the effort. Winterson is so often accused of being possesed of literary conceit and disdain for her readers. I think this is grossly unfair criticism. Her books can be difficult and they do demand the reader's attention; one cannot flip through a Jeanette Winterson book, speed-reading on a beach under the summer sun. However, if Winterson demands attention and time and effort from her readers she also gives. I judge a book's worth, in part, by what I take with me after reading it, what becomes lasting, what changes me. With Winterson's books I am always a different person when I finish than when I began...I'm richer, smarter, more enlightened. To me, that's high praise for an author rather than criticism. In Winterson's wonderful book, "The Passion," she writes, "I'm telling you stories. Believe me." It is the wise reader who does believe Winterson and the rewarded one who listens to her stories...again and again and again. Jeanette Winterson really is a writer with something important to say.
Rating: 
Summary: Fake Depth
Review: In this tale youcan be have two things happen during the course. One is you can hate it, and two you can love it. I am not sure if there is a much of in-between in this novel. The only reason i say this is because if you look at its content, a very touchy subject of 2 women loving and having a sexual relationship, then you can either love or despise this. <u>In all actuality if you don't like it, it is because one you are narrow minded or two because you can't follow the erratic way in which the story is told.</u> I finished this book in three hours...and i loved every damn word of it. But I guess it all depends on who you are. ;0 I think that this book should be read by anyone that can sympathize with bisexuals or those whom are polyamourus.
Rating:
Summary: You must master your fear. Or your fear will master you.
Review: Jeanette Winterson is a serious author. She has won awards and appears in the Guardian quite frequently. "If Neal Stephenson can write engagingly about technology", she must have thought, "then so can I - after all, I'm a serious author, and I appear in the Guardian quite frequently." Thus, 'The.Powerbook', a novel created entirely to ride the wave of the dot.com boom of a few months ago, and to introduce Winterson to a younger generation (note to self - include the words 'downloading' and 'hard drive'). Wrap it up in a cover that looks a bit like those adverts with Sophie Dahl, include a reference to Apple's media toy, and voila, healthy sales. In ten years time, this book will be forgotten, a relic, moreso than it is now. But what's it like, though? As with all Winterson novels since 'Oranges', it's essentially a series of pithy one-liners strung together ('On the day I was born I became the visible corner of a folded map', 'Like it or not, you are alone in the forest') that, like a lot of debut novels, coalesces into a portrait of Winterson as she would like to be - Alix, a recontextualising e-writer. There are some clever ideas - bits of other books are rewritten, as if sampled, although why this is any cleverer than traditional parodies, I don't know - but it's essentially a plotless series of superficially-deep epigrams for 230 pages. Elsewhere on this page a review asserts that you can meditate for days over lines such as 'The dreams of the dying cannot be irrigated' and 'To avoid discovery I stay on the run. To discover things for myself I stay on the run.' Presumably, he or she is a satirist.
Rating:
Summary: There is no love that does not pierce the hands and the feet
Review: Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook manages to accomplish in only 289 pages what other books cannot accomplish in 1000...suggesting that all time is one. Winterson has made it perfectly clear elsewhere ("Art Objects: Essays on Ecstacy and Effrontery") that "all art belongs to a single period". Winterson interweaves myth, fact, history, drama, comedy, charm, wit, all in a mesmerizing voice that carries itself in a blend of rhythm, logic, revelation, beauty. What is particularly fascinating about this novel is that there is no plot, but a series of themes that run through the fragmented novel. It is as though she has grabbed a whole of beauty, smashed it, and reassembled it. A few readings show that the otherwise unrelated characters do have some dependancy on each other, to continue the story where their mentioning ends, to reveal nuances that their actions would otherwise obscure. This book moves through several characters, through the eyes of women and men, and we find out what it is like to feel and act anf love like a man and as a woman. Francesca loves Paolo and we fall in love with him too (the haunting line "Paolo il bello" resonates) but through the story of Guinevere and Lancelot it is through Lancelot's eyes that we are, and the object of our affection is Guinevere. This is a fully realised work, and if we compare Oranges and this we see vast differences...it makes me wonder what novels Jeanette Winterson will be composing for the next 30 to 40 years of her life. I, for one, will read them all upon moment of publication.
Rating:
Summary: Gemful, but not to Winterson's usual abundance.
Review: Ordinarily I would unequivically gush about anything Winterson. The premise is strong, the prose is moving, and the plot is convoluted in a distinctly Winterson manner. Ali, an on-line wordsmith, has an offer for you. "Freedom for one night" in the form of any story - you can be written into your own novella. Although I was engaged by the rapid succession of this nouveaux style story poem I couldn't help being a bit lost in all the jolting transitions. Winterson drops some real gems but this book left me exhausted and a little more bewildered than usual. +: poetry, immagination, lots of movement
-: easy to be left behind, disjointed and lacking a strong common thread.
Rating:
Summary: Type 11 Error
Review: Sadly, I found this book to be mostly tedious, with irritating "literary" tendencies and repetition. Using the PowerBook theme, naming the chapters after recognizable phrases from the Macintosh user interface, is cute, but seems mostly to be a gimmick.
He found the shifting perspectives to be an aggravation, especially when executed for the apparent purpose of re-exploring the same events. As he got off the plane, he was not terribly disappointed to find that he had left the book in the seat pocket, despite the occasionally witty or thought-provoking ideas that could be found scattered throughout the text.
Rating:
Summary: Winterson at her best
Review: The cover and the title of the "PowerBook" are bold, startling and reflective of one another. Not only that but the red background infers both passion and power, whilst the outstretched, naked body on the bed of tulips further draws on both our sensuality and sexuality. It is marketing, it is modern and it gets our attention from the outset. Open the front cover and you find a PC, its screen reading; "Freedom for just one night". The cover alone sets the scene for what is to follow, and I, for one, was in no way disappointed by the intrigue I found.In my opinion, "The PowerBook" shows Winterson at her most imaginative and the work is particularly enticing as it is written in the first person, maximising the intimacy between reader and narrator; helping the reader share and live the fantasy. Through the narrator, the reader is drawn into a cyberspace, dream world, controlled purely by personal desires and even momentary curiosities. As the reader is passive by definition, there seems to be even less risk in following a whim and sharing the pleasure of the narrator's fantasy world without consequences, free of the danger of suffering any repercussions in reality. But is the reader actually so passive or is this not a rather convenient, low profile position to take; sharing the fantasy without the risk of experiencing guilt or judgement? This is where the suspense increases as it is not difficult for anyone to hide their identity behind a computer screen nowadays and to live the book's fantasy for real, writing their own script, their cyber-destiny. In my opinion "The Powerbook" exemplifies how books and computers can both be used as protective and liberating shields from reality. Cyber-disguise is paralleled with literary escapism in a truly enticing manner, the main problem being that we are not free unless we are free inside ourselves, whatever the disguise. One particularly striking element of the book is that Winterson overcomes the boundaries of time and identity, which in turn forces us to redefine freedom. Neither time nor identity is an obstacle in the world Winterson creates for us here. Everything can change at the touch of a button to suit our convenience, and yet whilst the jumps between radically different periods in history seem so magical in the book, they are also real on the internet to an extent, as so much is available in the cyber-world. And we can be free. Just for one night.Or can we? Once we have started pushing boundaries, is there not a temptation to want even more and never to be rid of the desire for freedom or of the desire to redefine it?
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