pagesofjulia

I am a glutton for punishment, if that’s what this is (it isn’t). I’m a glutton for keeping myself slightly confused? Considering the challenge I generally feel when I read Oyeyemi, a sense of something unfinished and not entirely understood, it seems a little odd that I keep doing this; but the enjoyment frequently makes the unsettled feeling worthwhile. Sometimes more than others – I think Gingerbread (the first I read) was my favorite, with The Icarus Girl least rewarding. I remember feeling very pleased recently by that story collection, although I see I rated it no higher than Icarus, so what does that mean? At any rate. The challenge and (often) frustration I feel seems to still balance against what I’m getting out of these. I have another waiting on the shelf now.

The Opposite House holds together in that I’m always fairly sure what’s going on: a good start. There are two young women in this plot, whose worlds we alternate between. One is more or less a mortal human in a world I recognize as my own; the other, less so. Yemaya Saramagua lives in the somewherehouse. “A somewherehouse is a brittle tower of worn brick and cedar wood, its roof cradled in a net of brushwood… The basement’s back wall holds two doors. One door takes Yemaya straight out into London and the ragged hum of a city after dark. The other door opens out onto the striped flag and cooking-smell cheer of that tattered jester, Lagos–always, this door leads to a place that is floridly day.” Other people (?) live in the somewherehouse, too, seemingly unrelated and not especially in touch with Yemaya (frequently just Aya).

And then there is Maja, who lives in London with her boyfriend, Aaron. She is newly pregnant with the son she has always known she would someday have. She was born in Cuba to Black Cuban academics; her mother is also a Santería priest (rare for a woman). Maja has a younger brother named Tomás, nicknamed “the London baby” because he was born there. (Maja believes “there’s an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in another country, another language like hot oil scalding the first language away. I arrived here just before that age.” She was seven.) She has a best friend, Amy Eleni. Together, this crew navigates Maja’s pregnancy (though few know about it within this novel’s timespan) and other challenges.

Meanwhile, Aya struggles to inhabit her identity as spirit / god alongside the people / gods she relates to in various cultures… in this world, the deities of Yoruba and Santería faiths move around, as their congregants do, which is why she is disjointed, and why the confusion of the other residents of the somewherehouse. This part is a bit squishy for me (not least because I’m not particularly familiar with any faith traditions). The Yoruba gods get crossed with Catholic ones, going underground at some points in cultural & regional history for safety’s sake. Are Maja and Aya linked? Are they… the same woman? I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

Maja’s rather more rooted, human life makes more sense to me than Aya’s does, but the uncertainty of the two threads are working for me here, better than they sometimes do.

Lovely; I will certainly keep up with my muddled studies in the Oyeyemi worlds.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: Oyeyemi, speculative fiction |