Gingerbread
Ratings22
Average rating3.5
‘'The colour of my heart is black.''
A mother tries to persuade everyone to try her gingerbread. A daughter tries to survive the harsh school environment and a reality that doesn't seem to be ‘'real'' at all. Fairy tales and magic find their way to the human soul.
Harriet is a gifted teacher raising her daughter, Perdita, alone, haunted by the traditions and the memories of her homeland. She comes from Druhastrana, a fictional country, in the borders of the Czech Republic, a small nation of magic and dark folklore. When Perdita puts her life in danger, Harriet attempts to ‘'save'' her daughter by narrating her childhood and adolescence, a course where magic blends with teenage troubles.
‘'Suppose we're not even character characters by figments of another character's imagination.''
The first part of the novel reads like a midsummer night's fairy tale. There is a distinct Medieval atmosphere, haunting depictions of the inimitable Gothic atmosphere of the streets and cathedrals of Prague, references to beloved Whitby. There are hints of the Hansel and Gretel story, mentions of Lady Macbeth, Prokofiev, Jekyll and Hyde. There are plenty of Art and Literature references, beautifully inserted in the narration. There are talking dolls, lullabies, and magic wells. Oyeyemi also refers to the issue of cyber-bullying, the favourite activity of modern lowlife that lurks everywhere. Certain parts read like a labyrinth. You have to find your way out and this is fascinating when done right.
...and this is where I thought that another writer had taken over...
The story stalls when centered around Harriet's youth. It becomes disjointed and confusing. The plethora of information in each chapter, the stream-of-consciousness style and the lack of paragraphs didn't help. I was tired, my mind was wandering and my fingers were turning the pages fast. This writing style would have been ideal for short stories but it is always risky in a novel. In addition, it seemed to me that it lacked the quality of the prose and the whimsical tone of the First Part. The dialogue was bad, the themes were cheapened by indifferent execution. I failed to see the significance and I was disappointed...
Magical Realism, family drama, coming of age tale, Gothic Fiction, social commentary, Folklore. The novel wanted to be many things but, in my opinion, it didn't succeed. Apart from the beautiful prose, I found nothing else to admire. I will read more of Oyeyemi's work but I will keep my expectations low. What I read was by no means encouraging.
On a side note, the fact that it shares the same title with Robert Dinsdale's masterpiece, published in 2014 and the similarities that can be found between the two books- and I don't believe in coincidences- form a literary crime. It is as if someone is comparing a teenage-show screenwriter to Shakespeare. All in all, a disappointing reading experience...
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DNF @ 32%
I wanted so badly to like this book and for the first 70 or so pages I did. After the story takes a turn and enters a different timeline, I became completely lost. I don't mind complex stories or many characters but at one point I literally had no idea what was going on and I felt like I was just swimming in words with no meaning.
I think someone who likes Finnegan's Wake or maybe something really strange and, perhaps, Kafka-esque might enjoy this. Unfortunately, I just could not continue. In the end, it just wasn't for me.
I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did. I'd describe it as dreamlike, it's dangerously close to being confusing but somehow it never is. Everything flows naturally.
This book is written in an extremely strange, surrealist style and is definitely not for everyone. I found it tough to get into at first, but I'm glad I stuck it out. The bulk of the story is a mother explaining to her daughter the circumstances of her birth (which are of course very weird, involve more gingerbread than you'd think, and sound like a fairy tale). The book had a lot to say about capitalism, hierarchies, charity, immigration, and just relationships in general - there are some darkly hilarious moments with the parent-teacher committee at the daughter's school, for example - and I would have rated it 4 stars but the actual ending kind of disappointed me. It sort of seemed to run out of steam.
This book was so dreamy and beautiful and had really lovely magical realism, it reminded me of Susan Sontag dreaminess and Sourdough by Robin Sloan rompy mystery and Angela Carter and also like a Wes Anderson movie somehow? Felt the most British of any of hers so far and I got a lot of Douglas Adams vibes. It's really cool to have both the gorgeous, surreal, amorphous magical language and storytelling with the dry British humor and to have these things blend so well.
I got the sense that she's letting herself be a little freer with the whims her sentences take, sometimes to understand something I'd have to kind of step back from it and try to see it without focusing on it, kind of like those trippy picture puzzles from the 90s where you unfocus your eyes and see an image in the chaos. It's really exciting to figure it out in Oyeyemi's writing because so much can come across at once this way.
Moving, cathartic, and hilarious novel of nested fairy tales, ghost stories, gothic romances, and changelings that left me wanting to reread it the moment it was over.
This book was an absolute treat. At the reading I attended for this book, Oyeyemi cautioned against using the f-word (fairytale) to describe the work, and I can see why. The characters in this book have so much more depth than any fairytale creatures, though the book is built on a familiar skeleton. It's a tale of pairs and parallels: Harriet and Gretel, Harriet and Perdita, London and Druhastrana, Ari and Ambrose, Gabriel and Rémy. Her prose sparkles (or shines, whichever is more complimentary) and it's the cleverest, funniest novel I've read in a long time. As with all great books, I'm inspired to dive into the author's back catalogue.
