SOURCE: Paddock, Christopher. Review of Gut Symmetries, by Jeanette Winterson. Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 3 (fall 1997): 225–26.

In the following positive review, Paddock evaluates the strengths of Gut Symmetries.

Winterson's latest novel compares favorably with her previous work, particularly her brilliant Sexing the Cherry. Gut Symmetries is an alchemical blend of multiple narrators, fairy-tale allusions, and quantum physics theory. Winterson displays the same well-crafted, seraphic prose that has established her as one of Britain's most intriguing and prodigious younger authors.

Gut Symmetries revolves around Alice, a young British physicist who has become the defining corner of a bizarre love triangle. She finds herself involved with a distinguished peer, Jove, whose pragmatic theories are the “future” of physics. His assured demeanor provides a point of reference for the uncertain Alice: “I could not define myself in relation to the shifting poles of certainty that seemed so reliable. What was the...