What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours Review
What Is Non Yours Is Not Yours: Stories
- By Helen Oyeyemi
- Riverhead Books
- 336 pp.
- Reviewed past Erin Elliott
- June 23, 2016
What if fairy tales had it right all along? That is, what if information technology's truthful that we must endure an uncanny and brutal world through a thin veneer of civility and morality? Helen Oyeyemi specializes in showing us that earth and, though it sprouts from her riotous imagination, convinces united states of america that it was there all forth.
Oyeyemi's new book of stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, rests firmly in the modern world, simply fairy-tale rules apply. In "Sorry Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea," a young girl, Aisha, becomes disillusioned after her celebrity idol brutally beats a prostitute, and his fans assail the victim on social media. Aisha recruits the mysterious Tyche to send Hecates — the goddess of doorways and transitions — after him, resulting in a long string of public apologies from the celebrity.
Information technology takes time for the reader to realize that it is Aisha herself who is nigh inverse past the experience, and one might be left wondering who Hecates was really guiding. In the concluding line of the story, Aisha coldly "reckons [the celebrity] is getting closer to identifying his mistake, and says he should keep trying." The preteen she was at the beginning of the story — emotive, outraged, trusting, loving, appalled — is gone.
In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?" a group of student puppeteers works to hone their craft. Humans dispense puppets, mostly. Simply some of the puppets were once homo, some of the humans were once puppets, and in the end, the students find themselves manipulated by a master.
The marionettes are described equally "not living, simply i step away from living, always one pace away. They know when human life is near them, and they demand human life to be near them; information technology keeps them from going…wrong." Ii-thirds of the story is narrated by the oldest boob. She tells us that "a person doesn't easily recover from the sadness of finding that it's not ever analogousness that draws us together (not ever, not only)…"
The darkness of the stories doesn't hide Oyeyemi'due south humour and insight. Aisha reappears as a pocket-sized character in a later story, "Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?" Freddy observes that he is "a simple lad, unfortunately the kind that Aisha can't actually smiling at unless she wants a boyfriend."
Of the Hotel Glissando, which Freddy'due south family operates, "There are 3 telephone booths in the lobby. Their numbers are automatically withheld and they're mainly used for lies." Freddy's male parent was once "imprisoned for repairing the cleaved faces of clock towers without potency. He'd incurred the wrath of those who crave certain things not to piece of work at all."
The pulsating free energy in these stories gives a new perspective on Oyeyemi's last novel, Boy, Snow, Bird. A retelling of Snowfall White, the novel follows a woman (Boy) as she tries to protect her dark-skinned daughter (Bird) from the family's worship of her white-skinned stepdaughter (Snow). This new story drove highlights the careful restraint that Oyeyemi exercised in the novel — she must accept checked herself a m times as she worked. Boy, Snow, Bird is spare on the surface, merely breathtaking partly considering the reader senses the writer's depth. In What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, the turbulent body of water at work in Oyeyemi'south head is on display.
In every story, surprising and beautiful phrases fall carelessly from the author'due south pen. Which is a good reminder for aspiring writers: Trust that your imagination is infinite. Creativity is not like currency; spending it doesn't leave you with less. Thinking creatively inspires more creativity. Oyeyemi shows us what can exist accomplished with accented trust in the expansiveness of 1'due south imagination. If you're feeling uncertain, just dip into What Is Non Yours Is Not Yours for the proof.
Erin Elliott is a lifelong reader and is studying writing at Johns Hopkins Academy. In between good books, she works as an engineer.
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Source: http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/what-is-not-yours-is-not-yours-stories
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