I just love the ellipsis… JIC you are unsure of what that is, ellipsis refers to leaving something out to refer to something further. I use the punctuation form of ellipsis in hopes that if you’ve been reading my blog for the 9 years that it has existed,we have some shared context for understanding what I mean.

It happens sometimes that a writer constructs a novel that is built upon the concept of ellipsis but instead of a few periods, meanders of into ellipsisville. Marcel Proust another author I’m discovering, creates an ellipsis effect by way of theming, digressions, rabbit holes and wormholes. If you’re patient and capable you’ll arrive at Proust’s point. I love and hate Proust’s approach to craft, but it takes me on a long vacation from my own brain and so I flow on the stream of Proust’s consciousness. In this issue of Bookisshh I’ll look to another writer who is Proustian, but uses time and geography to expand her reader’s consciousness while discovering humanity, history, culture and geography every time her reader turns the page.

Helen Oyeyemi is an author whose oeuvre I am slowly working my way through. I bring Oyeyemi and the ellipsis together because so much of Helen Oyeyemi’s narrative exists within what she doesn’t include on the page. I think of Oyeyemi’s works as coming with a secret syllabus consisting of strategically inserted philosophers, artists, scientific thinkers and others who have shaped and contributed to the human condition.

Oyeyemi’s literary tales are a whirlwind of creative concerns, artistic and architectural accomplishments, philosophic bits and bobs, psychological conflicts and/or diseases, funhouse nightmares and fractured/archetypal fairytales. All I ask dear reader is that you suspend and sustain your imaginations, curiosities because you will close her book and leave differently.

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi / Fiction 2024

A little bit about Oyeyemi… Currently the author lives in Prague and can be quoted saying, “Prague is a city frozen in time, yet in the most individual ways is also progressive. People work hard and live sturdy authentic lives but Prague magically nurtures a breeding ground for eccentricity on all scales in life.” Parasol Against the Axe brings forward some of the most crazy cast of characters that I have ever read.

The story… A destination wedding brings a group of female friends to Prague. Two women are getting married to each other and the rest of the group has brought a lot of baggage along (and not filled with clothing). One of the friends has an axe to grind regarding long since passed antics that were life-changing in that bad sort of way. Violence is attempted but no one dies. Meanwhile time portals are discovered in odd places like bookstore bathrooms, alleyways tucked between historic buildings and on a tour of Prague’s infamous anthropological clocks.

Using fragmented stories that emanate from minor characters— Prague residents— Oyeyemi advances and interferes with the plot. All of this is held together by one magical mystery book, read all or in part by the storied characters (past and present) who need to read to the end to either be released from the mystical powers of Prague or unresolved conflicts stemming from the past. For example, some of the women at this hen party were former roommates, and in order to afford living as non-citizens in Europe, resorted to non-citizen economics… The roommates once ran an eccentric Only Fans account appealing to kinky voyeurs asking for pornographic foot fetish driven images. One patron became obsessed with one of the roomies and this resulted in emotional damage—the kind that shapes a life.

Then there’s this mysterious book that falls into the hands of the wedding guests and key minor characters. Should anyone dare to read this book, let alone complete it, they will change and possibly become one with their inner demons or risk the unknown and evolve in possibly improved ways. This book is SO abstract in that fever dream kind of way, and I wonder if maybe Oyeyemi needs some therapy or medication? Other readers finished this book and say, “WTF did I just read?” However, as a completist, I read to the end and sort of enjoy the blank page/canvas that I have left with.

This is kind of a point to Oyeyemi’s work. She populates somewhat familiar stories or tropes with international characters, with gorgeous and somewhat unpronounceable names in contexts non-world travelers never get to. She infuses her stories with philosophers and conflicts that are forgotten or unheard of and gets one’s brain a-wiggling. It’s kind of like unmaking a bed, washing and drying the bedding and remaking it into a new relaxing experience. I just love that.

So if you want to attend pre-wedding and actual wedding events, read Parasol Against the Axe. If you want to experience gossip and petty resentment among an eccentric female friend group, read Parasol Against the Axe. If you want to wander in Prague and witness its magic and mystique both past and present, read Parasol Against the Axe. If you want to get lost in a book and find your own brain, just read this. I plan on reading her catalog and have read 4 out of 12 so far, so look back to this space. Enjoy!