“and a weak mailed fist / Clenched ignorant against the sky!”

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is harsh and beautiful and sad. It’s based on autobiography, and tells of a young Jeanette growing up in a tiny town in the North of England. The claustrophobia of the town is strongly evoked–it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else, everyone has a place and is expected to stay in it, and any attempts to hide or move or change must be carried out under severe scrutiny by neighbours, friends and family and probably followed by judgement if not ostracism. Although the novel is set in the 1970s, the town seems carved out of time, dominated by street markets and competing Christian sects–and Jeanette’s own household is a particularly static spot. Her mother is a leader in their hardcore evangelical church, and a particularly resourceful and strongminded leader at that, despite the fact that women aren’t supposed to take on such roles, and her father is quiet, almost invisible. Her mother is fixated on missionary work, and in fact adopted Jeanette as a child in order to make her a missionary when she grows up. This zeal is both frightening and funny at times–Jeanette’s mother edits out the actual ending of Jane Eyre, for instance, allowing Jeanette to grow up thinking that Jane marries St. John Rivers and goes off to India to be a missionary with him, giving her life for the Cause.

Jeanette’s mother’s playing with texts is echoed in the concerns of both Jeanette the character and Jeanette the author. Jeanette the character makes up narratives in her head, and the novel as a whole shifts between everyday life in this oppressive reality of faith and fear of judgement, and a mythical, otherworldly space of Arthurian legend and quest narratives, which seem to suggest some sort of escape. It’s incredibly interesting that Jeanette the character is happy to go along with her mother’s wishes, and the tasks and activities of her church for so long–until she falls in love with Melanie, and refuses to keep it a secret. What happens next shows the lack of compassion and understanding in the world of these Christians, and the story moves from Jeanette’s coping mechanisms to her quest for freedom. It’s an absolutely brilliant book, masterfully portraying Jeanette’s confusion, adolescent arrogance and awkwardness, and first love, in a setting that’s comical and chilling in turn.

ElCicco wrote an excellent review of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit for Cannonball Read 6.

Title quotation from Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Armadillo“.