Boy, Snow, Bird | Helen Oyeyemi
“Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.”
For my diploma paper last year, I translated two short stories by Helen Oyeyemi. And it was by complete chance that I found her. I knew I wanted a female writer and there was a requirement for how old the stories were to be. As I started reading her work I became more and more entranced. I fell in love with her magical words, her transporting storytelling, the amazing, vivid worlds she created. Therefore, I decided that I was going to read some more of her writing -- and that's how we got to "Boy, Snow, Bird".
“You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.”
The Boy, Snow and Bird from the title are all names of the characters in the book -- all three of them female. It took me a while to get used to such unusual names, but I got over it. The story is supposed to be a retelling of Snow White, hence the character named Snow, but I struggled to find connections beside the most superficial ones.
The girl's name is Snow and she is a stunning little girl everyone fawns over. Boy is her step mom who is so disconcerted by her beauty that she sends her away to live with her aunt. Also, there is a weird thing with mirrors, where all three protagonists sometimes disappear and just cannot see their reflections in a mirror, though no one else seems to notice anything amiss. There are also some magical elements that simply left me confused but I suppose were intended to contribute to the overall fairy tale-like atmosphere.
“She ought to know that if you want to set yourself up as queen and have everything the way you want it and keep sisters apart then you’re not going to have a big fan club. She ought to know that where there’s a queen there’s often a plot to overthrow her.”
This book contains certain revelations, unveilings of long-hidden and deeply-buried secrets. One of these pertains to race and I can appreciate the way it's done. The fact is - I am white and Oyeyemi is black and I have nothing to contribute to her handling of this issues. All I can say is that it was an interesting subplot and that I like how she made it a point that all secrets are revealed over time. The other big revelation is about Boy's father. This one was unexpected and I feel like it was just gratuitous - put there to shock the reader, but I never felt any build-up to it nor any payoff. It was all very bizarre and I still don't know how I feel about it.
“Most of the people who say beauty fades say it with a smirk. Fading is more than just expected, it’s what they want to see.”
All in all, I felt let down by this book. I expected much more but what I got was simply, well - weird. It took me while to get through this book and I contemplated DNF-ing it several times but my pragmatic side won out - I spent money on it, I needed to read it. I am glad that I got through it, but I don't feel like I could honestly recommend it to someone.
Have you read this novel? What did you think about it?
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