Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles.

Winterson, Jeanette

ISBN 10: 1841957186 / ISBN 13: 9781841957180

Published by Canongate, New York, New York, 2005

About this Item

This copy of "Weight" has been SIGNED by Jeanette Winterson on the title page! From her appearance at the Free Library of Philadelphia on October 22, 2019. In ancient Greek mythology Atlas, a member of the original race of gods called Titans, leads a rebellion against the new deities, the Olympians. For this he incurs divine wrath: the victorious Olympians force Atlas, guardian of the Garden of Hesperides and its golden apples of life, to bear the weight of the earth and the heavens for eternity. Jeanette Winterson brings Atlas into the twenty-first century. Simultaneously, she asks her own difficult questions about the nature of choice and coercion, and how we forge our own destiny,

Seller Inventory # 9131

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles.
• Publisher: Canongate, New York, New York
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841957186
• ISBN 13: 9781841957180
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First American Edition/First Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

“When I was asked to choose a myth to write about, I realized I had chosen already. The story of Atlas holding up the world was in my mind before the telephone call had ended. If the call had not come, perhaps I would never have written the story, but when the call did come, that story was waiting to be written. Rewritten. The recurring language motif of Weight is ‘I want to tell the story again.’ My work is full of cover versions. I like to take stories we think we know and record them differently. In the retelling comes a new emphasis or bias, and the new arrangement of the key elements demands that fresh material be injected into the existing text. Weight moves far away from the simple story of Atlas’s punishment and his temporary relief when Heracles takes the world off his shoulders. I wanted to explore loneliness, isolation, responsibility, burden, and freedom, too, because my version has a very particular end not found elsewhere.” -- from Jeanette Winterson’s Foreword to Weight

About the Author

Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, won the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel. Since then, she has published seven other novels, including Lighthousekeeping, The Passion, Written on the Body, and The Powerbook, a collection of short stories, The World and Other Places, a books of essays, Art Objects, and most recently a children’s picture book, The King of Capri. She has adapted her work for TV, film, and stage. Her books are published in thirty-two countries. She lives in Oxfordshire and London.