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Feb. 22nd, 2011 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFiction doesn't really scare me very often these days - backlash, I think, from fifteen years ago when I was the kid who wouldn't read Goosebumps because it freaked me out. But now, now I am older and my nerves have become steel! I laugh at Stephen King's demonbaby werespiders, I watch the stone angel episodes of Doctor Who by myself at 1 AM with nary a qualm.
I say this so that when I say that Helen Oyeyemi's White is for Witching is a book that really scared me at points, you will understand that this is not usual for me.
White is for Witching is about a house, creepy and constantly shifting in the tradition of houses in horror; and about a family, troubled not quite in the tradition of families in horror; and about teenaged twins Miranda and Eliot, codependent and creepy completely in the grand tradition of teenaged twins in horror. It also integrates questions of gender and immigration and mental health and race in ways that are often not at all obvious, or in the grand tradition of horror at all.
It's easier to write about the style of the book than the plot, such as it is - which can largely be reduced to 'Miranda and Eliot's mother dies while abroad; everyone fails to cope, Miranda most spectacularly; and both house and Miranda get creepier and creepier and creepier.' The book switches back and forth in narration between Eliot; Ore, a girl Miranda meets at Oxford, who loves her; and the house, either in first-person as its creepy creepy self, or in close third person with Miranda. It is the sort of narrative that might be called postmodern, I think, but I often don't like postmodern tactics in writing, and I liked this. Also the writing is just ridiculously gorgeous. If I had to write an X meets Y statement, I would call it House of Leaves meets An Experiment in Love, but it is a bit disingenuous for me to say this since I have not actually read House of Leaves, only heard lots and lots about it. Nonetheless that would be my impression.
As a completely unrelated sidenote, it also features the best description I've ever seen of Edgar Allen Poe:
"I think Poe's quite good, actually. The whole casual horror thing. Like someone standing next to you and screaming their head off and you asking them what the fuck and them stopping for a moment to say 'Oh you know, I'm just afraid of Death' and then they keep on with the screaming."
"Hm," said Miranda. "I'd rather they talked to someone about this fear."
"A psychiatrist couldn't put up with all the screaming."
The one thing I will say is that while in many ways I thought this was much better than The Icarus Girl - which was already pretty amazing - I found the ending unsatisfying in a similar way to the ending of that book, and I don't think I am willing to put that down to style. It was absolutely worth the ride, though.
I say this so that when I say that Helen Oyeyemi's White is for Witching is a book that really scared me at points, you will understand that this is not usual for me.
White is for Witching is about a house, creepy and constantly shifting in the tradition of houses in horror; and about a family, troubled not quite in the tradition of families in horror; and about teenaged twins Miranda and Eliot, codependent and creepy completely in the grand tradition of teenaged twins in horror. It also integrates questions of gender and immigration and mental health and race in ways that are often not at all obvious, or in the grand tradition of horror at all.
It's easier to write about the style of the book than the plot, such as it is - which can largely be reduced to 'Miranda and Eliot's mother dies while abroad; everyone fails to cope, Miranda most spectacularly; and both house and Miranda get creepier and creepier and creepier.' The book switches back and forth in narration between Eliot; Ore, a girl Miranda meets at Oxford, who loves her; and the house, either in first-person as its creepy creepy self, or in close third person with Miranda. It is the sort of narrative that might be called postmodern, I think, but I often don't like postmodern tactics in writing, and I liked this. Also the writing is just ridiculously gorgeous. If I had to write an X meets Y statement, I would call it House of Leaves meets An Experiment in Love, but it is a bit disingenuous for me to say this since I have not actually read House of Leaves, only heard lots and lots about it. Nonetheless that would be my impression.
As a completely unrelated sidenote, it also features the best description I've ever seen of Edgar Allen Poe:
"I think Poe's quite good, actually. The whole casual horror thing. Like someone standing next to you and screaming their head off and you asking them what the fuck and them stopping for a moment to say 'Oh you know, I'm just afraid of Death' and then they keep on with the screaming."
"Hm," said Miranda. "I'd rather they talked to someone about this fear."
"A psychiatrist couldn't put up with all the screaming."
The one thing I will say is that while in many ways I thought this was much better than The Icarus Girl - which was already pretty amazing - I found the ending unsatisfying in a similar way to the ending of that book, and I don't think I am willing to put that down to style. It was absolutely worth the ride, though.
