For the first review in the Canongate Myth Series I chose to pick up Jeanette Winterson’s novella, Weight. Winterson has an interesting reputation as a writer of being completely unpredictable and incredibly insightful, which is a description that perfectly sums up Weight.
Weight retells the story of Atlas, who carried the world on his shoulders and Heracles, the half-god hero, from Greek mythology. Already, by choosing to rewrite such popular stories, Winterson was in for a challenge. However, it is not simply the story of Atlas or of Heracles that she writes, but that of herself. Many of her novels hold elements of the autobiographical, some more than others, like Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Weight seems less inclined to describe the actually events of her life but more so the truth about the emotions and beliefs.
Essentially, Winterson has done very little to change the mythology of Atlas and Heracles itself. What she does do, however, is make them more human. While the Disney version of Hercules is heroic and righteous and utterly good, Winterson’s Heracles is very ordinary, aside from his immense strength and being half-god, of course. But he is very human, blinded by his strengths and vanity, driven by his desires, often at the expense of others.
Similarly, Atlas undergoes the transformation of understanding that he is not as important as he thinks he is. Though he holds up the universe, he is only one part of what makes it work. He learns humility as Titan in understanding his place in the world by questioning everything he thinks he knows.
The novel makes one reconsider the importance given to the concept of fate, destiny and expectations. By retelling such famous and well-known myths in this way, Winterson seems to be urging her readers to understand that there is nothing too big or too small to be changed; that everything is ephemeral and we have both the control and absolutely no control over what can be changed.
What one comes to realise throughout the course of the novel, and what Winterson’s protagonist, Atlas, similarly realises is that the weight he carries, the burden he is convinced is only his to hold, is only a weight because he believes it to be so. In other words, he does not carry the weight of the world on his shoulders because he has to, but he does so because he believes he has to. That subtle distinction between necessity and belief are truly illuminated throughout the novel and evoke a desire to reconsider one’s life in the reader. At least it certainly did for me.
Unlike ever before, I found a relief in reconsidering my perceived notions of how the world works, and reconsidering the importance I place on certain things that bring me stress. Weight was not an encouragement to adopt a “nothing truly matters” stance, but rather a “the things that matter only do so because we make them matter” stance. It was an incredibly encouraging realisation, as for someone like me who fights for control in most elements of my life, in a roundabout way, this attitude gave me control to let go of control in a way that I was completely comfortable with.
But here is the best part of it for me: there is nothing in the novel that at all resembles self-help. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. The “trust in yourself,” “learn to let go,” or “believe in your inner-strength,” kind of bullshit. Not to say that those are at all false affirmations, but it the cliché statements that I find all the time in self-help books. And regardless of if it’s true or not, they do come across as pretentious, they just do. There is nothing of the sort in Weight.
Having previously read a number of Winterson’s novels, Sexing the Cherry, and The Passion being two of my favourites, I was excited to read this mythological re-telling. Though I assumed I was prepared for Winterson’s unpredictable style, this book blew me away and I sincerely urge everyone to give it a read. Every realisation you make, every epiphany and deeper understanding of…well…life essentially, is brought about by your own work in understanding the novel and the characters. They say that the most satisfying results are the ones you have to work for, and it is without a doubt true in the case of Weight.
