Parasol against the Axe By Helen Oyeyemi Faber & Faber, £16.99 How do you review a novel that calls into question the subjectivity of art and memory? Subjectively, I suppose? “Parasol against the Axe” is a shape-shifting novel set in Prague (whereby the narrator is also intermittently the voice of the city). It follows a group of women in their forties on a hen weekend in that city.
But to distil the novel down to the plot does little to capture its essence. Prepare yourself for a meta reading experience – there are emails within a novel (a novel that changes with each reading) within the novel itself. It’s a curious approach that may tickle the fancy of some avant-gardists but for me interrupted any sense of flow.
Oyeyemi’s aphoristic prose is indeed witty, and thought-provoking, though it did little to move me. Brigid O’Dea Teeth: An Oral History By John Patrick Higgins Sagging Meniscus, $16 For as long as the author can remember, he has had bad teeth. “Bad teeth,” he deduces, “are a social failing”.
Higgins is on a mission to update his smile. His journey includes seven extractions, three root canals and more money than most authors earn on a book advance. However, Teeth is as much a memoir about teeth as it is the vanity and neuroses of a man in his middle age – and I say that only with affection.
Embellished with the author’s own illustrations and a helpful glossary that includes terms such as “plump for a Pot Noodle” and “my pub piano teet.
