The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson

This is possibly the funniest book by Jeanette Winterson I've read so far. It isn't all-throughout funny the way Terry Pratchett or P. G. Wodehouse is funny — this is fundamentally still a Winterson book: lyrical, beautiful, heart wrenching — but seriously, there was one particular scene that had me rolling on the floor (see page 175-77).

I'm so tempted to type it out for you here but somehow I think that you need the previous 174 pages to appreciate the hilarity (it is also a bit too R.A. for the family readership of this blog, but who am I kidding that I have a "family readership"?); besides, you may want to read the book and I don't want to spoil it for you.

The Stone Gods is about the future but it is also about the past. It is about a world on repeat, and how love — interplanetary love — is an intervention. But I'm giving away too much as it is. Read it with your own experiences as a guide.

Again, Winterson takes me by surprise with her words.

Spike came forward and put her arms around me. `One day, tens of millions of years from now, someone will find me rusted into the mud of a world they have never seen, and when they crumble me between their fingers, it will be you they find.' (79)

I said to Spike, `Is this how it ends?'
She said, `It isn't ended yet.' (88)

Your lips are moving, what is it you say? Your lips are moving over mine, what is it? I will set you in the sky and name you. I will hide you in the the earth like treasure.
Snow is covering us. Close your eyes and sleep. Close your eyes and dream. This is one story. There will be another. (93)

Life is all partings. James Hogan, First Mate. I loved him with the patience of an oyster longing for a pearl.
So be it. (102)