Boy, Snow, Bird
Boy, Snow, Bird is Helen Oyeyemi's latest book and the third one of hers that I've read. It got a lot of attention last year, and after I fell deeply in love with Mr. Fox, I had to pick this one up. This one didn't speak to me on quite the level that Mr. Fox did, and I really didn't like the ending, but it's overall a good book and an interesting meditation on race and womanhood.
This story uses the framework of Snow White to comment on beauty and families and secrets. Boy doesn't set out to become a wicked stepmother, and she sort of redeems herself by the end, but she does send Snow away, jealous on some level of her beauty. Snow was born to a couple who were both from light-skinned black families. They had fled the south for Massachusetts, where they were able to pass as white. And the whole family was overjoyed when Snow was born lighter than anyone else in the family, beautiful and with a life of opportunities ahead of her.
Of course her mother dies, and her father remarries, this time to an actual white woman, much to his own mother's pleasure. But when their daughter, Bird, is born with darker skin, the families are disappointed and urge Boy to send Bird away, lest their secret be revealed. Boy sends Snow away instead, worried that her presence will make Bird's life that much harder, starting with the grandparents' obvious preference for Snow and spiraling out from there.
This story is more straightforward than either of the other two I've read by Oyeyemi. Time proceeds linearly, the narrators are human and honest, and magic only peeks in around the edges. But for all that it was simpler to read, it was also harder. The ending reveals some things about Boy's parents that are really hard to stomach. A trans* character is presented as having multiple personalities, or possibly being under a spell, and it's not at all flattering. Which was even more disappointing to read on the same day as Caitlyn Jenner's debut. Ultimately it warps what Oyeyemi has to say about womanhood and motherhood to a point that I really don't agree with her. Not that I'm entirely sure exactly what she's saying, since it's all a little vague, but it left me uncomfortable.
And then the book just ends. Which is something Oyeyemi tends to do and one of the big reasons I've started filing her with Margaret Atwood in my brain. She has this tendency to take her characters up to the edge of a narrative cliff and then just imply that they're about to leap over it on the last page. It worked really well for Mr. Fox, which is all about disappointment and unrequited love, but it's something of a letdown here.
I don't know. I haven't fully parsed this book yet. Much like White is for Witching it made me feel a lot of things and think a lot of things and it's going to take me a while to sort through all of it.
This story uses the framework of Snow White to comment on beauty and families and secrets. Boy doesn't set out to become a wicked stepmother, and she sort of redeems herself by the end, but she does send Snow away, jealous on some level of her beauty. Snow was born to a couple who were both from light-skinned black families. They had fled the south for Massachusetts, where they were able to pass as white. And the whole family was overjoyed when Snow was born lighter than anyone else in the family, beautiful and with a life of opportunities ahead of her.
Of course her mother dies, and her father remarries, this time to an actual white woman, much to his own mother's pleasure. But when their daughter, Bird, is born with darker skin, the families are disappointed and urge Boy to send Bird away, lest their secret be revealed. Boy sends Snow away instead, worried that her presence will make Bird's life that much harder, starting with the grandparents' obvious preference for Snow and spiraling out from there.
This story is more straightforward than either of the other two I've read by Oyeyemi. Time proceeds linearly, the narrators are human and honest, and magic only peeks in around the edges. But for all that it was simpler to read, it was also harder. The ending reveals some things about Boy's parents that are really hard to stomach. A trans* character is presented as having multiple personalities, or possibly being under a spell, and it's not at all flattering. Which was even more disappointing to read on the same day as Caitlyn Jenner's debut. Ultimately it warps what Oyeyemi has to say about womanhood and motherhood to a point that I really don't agree with her. Not that I'm entirely sure exactly what she's saying, since it's all a little vague, but it left me uncomfortable.
And then the book just ends. Which is something Oyeyemi tends to do and one of the big reasons I've started filing her with Margaret Atwood in my brain. She has this tendency to take her characters up to the edge of a narrative cliff and then just imply that they're about to leap over it on the last page. It worked really well for Mr. Fox, which is all about disappointment and unrequited love, but it's something of a letdown here.
I don't know. I haven't fully parsed this book yet. Much like White is for Witching it made me feel a lot of things and think a lot of things and it's going to take me a while to sort through all of it.
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