A transgressive story of the flood: Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners

Jeanette Winterson’s overlooked revision of the biblical text of the Flood, Boating for Beginners (1985), epitomises postmodern narratives that question patriarchal and capitalist society by means of irony, parody and pastiche. Focusing on the theme of creation and re-creation, this article explores how — through several textual processes — discredit is brought on the biblical text and on the God figure, so as to reaffirm the power of creative writers. Yahweh, a subversive character, is allegedly the Creator, but quickly turns out to be Noah’s Frankenstein-like creation. Noah’s function as God’s maker and writer of Genesis furthermore mirrors the author’s own writing process. By using Feuerbach’s projection theory, I examine how, while the godhead is de-constructed, the status of the author is subversively reasserted.