Her new novel reimagines Frankenstein for the AI era. The Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit author talks immortality, anger and why she´s still an evangelistResearching Frankissstein, her 11th novel, led Jeanette Winterson down some unlikely digital paths. `I did worry about that. Watching guys have sex with bots,` she announces cheerfully, attacking dessert in a smart London restaurant. Female sex dolls start at `around $2,000 for a really crap one`, she says, and it was no surprise to learn that they are `entirely fantasy. They´ve got huge tits and small waists and long legs`. A mother and daughter are celebrating a birthday with afternoon tea at the next table. `But of course what they haven´t got, and never will have, is a clitoris. They don´t have to worry about that!`The novel looks back 200 years to Mary Shelley and the industrial revolution and takes us into the present day revolution of artificial intelligence, sexbots and cryogenics. Declaring its literary genesis in neon pink on the cover, Frankissstein is subtitled `a love story`, because all Winterson´s novels are love stories. She is a romantic, with capitals and without: `Love comes in and out of fashion and I´m sticking to it,` she says. `Because everything is relational, everything is about our interaction with something else.` Continue reading...
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