To Henri’s plain mind, notions of war, victory and nationalism are greatly romanticized. He is a simple-minded French soldier, disillusioned with his love and loyalty for Napoleon whom he serves as a personal waiter. The Emperor is narrated by Henri, from the battlegrounds.It is peppered with Winterson’s personal philosophy of futility of war and passion as a prerequisite for survival, no matter what odds are stacked against one. “The Passion” is a surrealistic romance novel at the centre of it all. How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? How does one begin to review a tremendous piece of art? Where does one start from? A brief synopsis? A general praise for the wonderful and the evocative? The commendable characterisation, the enriched setting or the overwhelmed throbbing of heart the book leaves the reader with? Shall I commence with this story’s grandeur, the marvellous pace which kept me at the edge of my hypothetical seat, unable to put it down, fearful of losing the moment which grasped all my senses? What about setting off with the breath-taking details of an intricate city I have lived in and loved since reading this book? Or begin with the vivacity in which this incredible story thrives in, the vibrancy of the living and the dead, the unadulterated passions, the boundless and cosmic aura of war striking its chords against a myriad of other sins?
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