"And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. And we can't know the lives of others. And we can't know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed.And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change."

When I finished this book, I stared at the wall, unthinking, for at least 15 minutes. I was unexpectedly moved. I could inexplicably feel tears in my eyes, inexplicable because the story did not end sadly. But the themes and the motifs of this story were deeply touching and relateable. 

The Gap of Time is a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Conveniently, for those who are unfamiliar with this particular story, Winterson includes a synopsis at the beginning that I found really helpful in keeping track of characters, as well as drawing parallels between her story and the Bard's. 

The first chapter of this book almost broke my heart. I could palpably feel his immense sadness, his remorse, guilt and longing in his clipped, disjointed sentences. That chapter alone almost had me at my computer writing a pre-review. But then I got to Chapter 2 and almost gave up on the book entirely. Leo (Leontes) is crass, vulgar, rude and has the mouth of a sailor. I skipped Chapter 4 entirely, where he believes he's caught his wife having an affair. His anger, his insults, his language. It sent me reeling. It didn't help that everything he said was in caps, so it was like getting punched repeatedly. Then there was sex under the bridge, attempted rape - the rest of that portion of the book, I felt like I was just sprinting forward with my eyes closed, feeling my way towards what I hoped was the eye of the storm. 

Which did come. 

The first Interval of this book, just two pages long - I want to make photocopies and pin them up on my wall, hand them out at street corners, staple them to every light post. The first Interval is what convinced me to continue reading. 

The rest of the book was much more mild, laced with introspection and commentary about how time and this world work. It really resonated with me. To the point that I didn't know if I wanted to get rid of the book or keep it, despite the beginning portion (which is really saying something, let me tell you). The Gap of Time is a lesson in moving forward, that "the past depends on the future and the future depends on the past"; of regret, of tragedy, of loss, and the "sense and senselessness" of it; that mistakes do not have to be repeated through the generations; that time can't be undone but that redemption lies in the future.

"Time, that sets all limits, offers our one chance at freedom from limits. We were not trapped after all. Time can be redeemed. That which is lost is found..."

"Maybe then I will remember that, although history repeats itself and we always fall, and I am a carrier of history whose brief excursion into time leaves no mark, I have known something worth knowing, wild and unlikely and against every rote. 

Like a pocket of air in an upturned boat. 

Love."

p.s. Other than the described portions above, which are really rather explicit (with more f-bombs than I could keep track of), there's also some college sex scene flashbacks between Leo and his roommate Xeno, a quick scene involving a teenage boy and needing to run to the restroom to "cool down" (if you know what I mean), and some more language towards the end of the book when Leo comes back into the picture. 

If you'd like to learn more about this book, go ahead and click right here.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.