Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

I mean!

Look, I gotta say this book floored me. Everyone is always like, have you read Helen Oyeyemi - and I was like, have I? (this, unfortunately, does happen to me. Also sometimes I confused 2 authors that might have similar or completely different names and writing styles or even genres. I never said my mind was in tact.) But now I know, of course I had not, because I would have remembered (maybe).1

In praise of world creation

I don’t know if you noticed yet from my previous post about Library of Brothel but I love me a bit of parallel world creation. I like it when I can be transported kind of adjacently to a slightly different version of a recognizable world. I love it because you can immediately suspend your disbelief - the same rules apply; everything must check out in context, but you are learning the logic of the world as you go. Delicious.

I knew almost immediately that’s where I had landed with Peaces - so exciting and delightful when you don’t expect it! And - oh! the humour! Xavier and Otto are funny and in love and charming. And of course there is a mysterious woman on the train they are on for their “honeymoon” train trip, and she plays the theramin and also has a bizarre and mysterious story that they must unpack. And the villain! Is he a shape-shifter? Is he a ghost? Does he even exist? I frequently had to reread passages in order to kind of, sort of, know what was happening.

Everyone’s backstory is mind-bendingly complex and binds you to them instantly.

2Which brings me to…

Arguably the most interesting and charming characters in the novel are Árpád XXVII and Chela, the mongooses. Chela ‘belongs’ to Ava Lapoor (the mysterious woman on the train trying to prove her sanity) - or does Chela belong to her? Well, I won’t get into that now, but when we meet her she does. Árpád ‘belongs’ to Otto Montague, the narrator of the story and unraveller of the mystery some would say of his own making. The mongooses are treated like the intelligent and important creatures they are with tempers and senses of humour and problem-solving skills. And when Chela and Árpád meet, let’s just say, they barely part again. It’s so romantic.

The structure of the book is 1) meeting characters, 2) their backstory which invariably introduces a plot twist and another mystery and/or reveal including letters written to Ava by each character to explain their connection to her story. The language is old-fashioned (“chop-chop”), but current modern life tools (smart phones). The references are pop-culture (soju milkshakes, Ted Talks, Instagram!) and old timey (pinhole cameras and a postal-sorting train car!) or magical technology (a slate water wheel that sings alongside you for sale in the bazaar, and highly rare and perfect scrying balls), and everything funny. As you can see from that awkward sentence, it all is a little bit indescribable.

Peaces/Pieces

You see the story itself is in pieces, and being woven together by the characters as it transpires. Are they creating the plot with their actions as they move through the story? Well, yes, maybe, but of course because it’s being written by someone. (A communication is handed to Ava from the Agency for Introducing a Sense of Proportion in Novel Writing, but is discarded out the window by Otto. oh well!) There are some truly absurd and slapstick fight scenes which end up being comical rather than violent. But still, and above all, you see it and believe it and are transported and can’t wait to see what happens next.