skygiants | (no subject)

Fiction 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.

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I found White is for Witching less scary than The Icarus Girl (which, D:) but it was still pretty scary. Agreed on unsatisfyingness of the ending -- thought it was worse with White than Icarus Girl. Bah! But perhaps she'll learn to write endings in time, as Diana Wynne Jones did.

I also think the ending was worse with White than Icarus Girl, but I also expected it more, because argh, postmodernism! Proper endings seem to be against the rules.

I hope this is the case though! (Though I grew up so much on DWJ endings that I can't actually remember the first time I read any of her books, and therefore all her endings were perfectly satisfying to me! Even though objectively I can recognize many of them as utterly bizarre.) But her prose, her prose! *__*

I started reading DWJ as a teenager. I love all the other bits of her books, but her endings are so unsatisfying! The ending of Howl's Moving Castle made me go aaaargh. It is like having a delicious cheesecake snatched away from you mid-bite.

I figured this was just a thing she would have FOREVER, though, so was v. surprised when a few years ago she started writing actual endings. :O Improving on perfection *_*

Haha, I always worry that too much DWJ at too young an age has robbed me of my ability to write endings that are satisfying for anyone else. But of course it is fine to end on a line of casual dialogue after resolving twelve plotlines in three pages, why would this be a problem?

The ending of Howl's Moving Castle made me go aaaargh.

I was amused a while ago to realize that DWJ does the same thing Agatha Christie does - throw all the characters into a room and have them talk at each other until something has been resolved, preferably but not necessarily with some sort of investigator at the top. (With Chrestomanci as her Poirot, which explains the dress sense.)

Millie has like +100 intelligence points on Hastings, though, it must be said.

Pond sludge has +100 intelligence points on Hastings. :-) But yeah, the comparison isn't perfect.

Hahhahahahah I have been about... a third? of the way through House of Leaves for about a year now. It has some of the WORST writing--just run-on sentence after run-on sentences, digressions into digressions, whatever. But that's part of the point, since it is about a person who is a terrible writer, and then it will shift into reviews of his writing by various critics who will complain he is a hack and whatever. Uh. My point is that it's a book with a really awesome premise and narrative structure, but it is mind-bogglingly difficult to read for longer than five minutes at a time.

This sounds more up my alley though! I shall check it out.

Hahaha, I kind of suspect the actual book would drive me UP THE WALL, which is one of the main reasons I have not actually read it! Like, I think the conceit is very cool, but I am not quite ready to commit to that much frustration.

However the structure of White is for Witching is much, much less frustrating - the main thing that Oyeyemi does that I have seen people get irritated with is switch between sections like

this

is the way that Oyeyemi often switches between perspectives and POVs, with a 'header' that's the last word of the last section and the first word of the next. Except obviously she does it much better than I just did! Personally I think it is kind of cool.

Boo, this sounds right up my alley, but I cannot abide the creepy twin trope. Maybe I shall try to find Icarus Girl instead.

Haha, the funny thing is that Eliot actually complains about it towards the beginning, all "everyone just assumes that twins are going to be codependent and creepy, no one even bothers to ask!" and then the book cheerfully goes on to invoke the exact same thing.

You should read The Icarus Girl, though! Helen Oyeyemi writes some of the most intelligent horror I've ever read.