Miért lennél boldog, ha lehetsz normális? by Jeanette Winterson

At Oxford, Jeanette is frustrated by the patriarchal nature of the university, but her love of reading and books deepens, and she feels the world opening up to her. Ratlow, who coaches Jeanette through her Oxford entrance exams and eventually helps her to secure an offer of admission. She is taken in, eventually, by the head of English at her junior college, the kindly and eccentric Mrs. When Jeanette pursues another romantic relationship with a classmate named Janey a year later, she is kicked out of the Winterson household and begins living in her Mini Cooper.

Winterson discovers the relationship between the two girls, the Wintersons and their church force Jeanette to undergo an exorcism, which leaves both her and her parents emotionally scarred. She’s unable to make friends, fearful of abandonment, and constantly suffering under her parents’ abusive ways.Īt fifteen, Jeanette falls in love with an older girl from church, Helen. Though Jeanette’s childhood has a few bright spots-she does, for a while, enjoy the “exciting” tent revivals of her family’s church, and she finds refuge, solace, and kinship in her intense love of books and literature-she is mostly miserable. Jeanette is often locked outside of the house and left on the street or sent underground to the family’s claustrophobic coal-hole. Winterson to dole out physical punishments. Winterson, who is obsessed with End Time and the coming of the Apocalypse, emotionally abuses Jeanette and forces Mr. Her mother constantly tells her that “the Devil” led her and her husband to “the wrong crib” when they selected Jeanette at the adoption society. Winterson-a devout Pentecostal Evangelist Christian couple with no children of their own-Jeanette Winterson comes of age in a home deprived of happiness or joy. It’s also a nonfiction parallel to Winterson’s award-winning autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which fictionalized the upbringing described in Why Be Normal When You Can Be Happy?, and which Winterson discusses often.Īfter being adopted at six months old by Mr. This memoir tells the story of acclaimed writer Jeanette Winterson’s tumultuous, abusive upbringing in a small, working-class town in the north of England.

Miért lennél boldog, ha lehetsz normális? by Jeanette Winterson