The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi
260 pages
Published 2007
Read from May 1 to May 5
Rating: ★★★★½ out of 5
My lack of literary education leads me to invent terms and categories that no doubt have satisfactory names of long standing. Today I wish to invent a category of prose style I'm tentatively dubbing the "somatic sympathy cringe." It's the sort of style (most often in my experience employed by upcoming women writers, though I'm sure it's been used by generations of the more cadaverous esthetes) that digs in to bodily responses and savors the gristle and spit of life, a morbid, mortal esthetic that alters your breathing and makes your salivary glands tingle to read it. There will be blood, and bruises, and thin knives, and bony growths like green wood within the ribcage, slick stone behind the teeth. It's uncomfortable and intrusive reading, but also appallingly good.
This is my first exposure to Oyeyemi, my current "must read everything by" author. I can't say I entirely understand everything she conveys in this brisk story, but I'm not sure it's so important I do. The Opposite House is a delicate balance of impressions, ideas shown rather than spelled out, something I must adapt to if I hope to climb out of my genre pit. It's the sort of book that rewards lingering and slow intimacy, yet Oyeyemi's prose is swift and decisive, sliding you to the end before you find your bearings. The best book I've read in a couple months, for sure.
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