Bence’s Book Nook: Helen Oyeyemi - Parasol against the Axe by Bence Bógnar

 I bought this book in late spring and scheduled it carefully to be a light and breezy summer read: this is exactly what it was, and yet, so much more than expected. The blurb on the back describes the novel as “kaleidoscopic,” which is, to date, the best adjective I’ve found to describe it. 

Oyeyemi’s work is a mosaic of constantly moving, interconnected parts, all sufficiently colourful individually, but which, when combined, form an unparalleled, dazzling tapestry. It would be incorrect to classify Oyeyemi as “up-and-coming,” having published nine novels over twenty years, and winning a significant number of awards over said period. Perhaps because of the relative unapproachability of her earlier texts. Fortunately, those wishing to familiarise themselves with the author’s works – which, were it anyone else, I may call “magical realism,” but Oyeyemi prefers to classify her books instead as “fiction sometimes getting extra fictional” – could readily start with Parasol against the Axe. While admittedly convoluted in terms of its narrative, this title places less focus on the specifics of the linear plot, instead letting the reader digest all its moving pieces at their own pace, forming their own unique arrangements of them. Indeed, the word “kaleidoscopic” seems to be the best way to describe the constantly changing, colourful array of events that form the core of the novel. 

Despite having lived in Prague for almost a decade leading up to it, Parasol against the Axe is Oyeyemi’s first book set in the city, so it may not come as much of a surprise that it is also primarily about the city, the way it resists all forms of oppression and other attempts to exert control over it, living a life of its own. The two main characters (both queer expat women, one nicknamed “Parasol,” the other “Axe”) engage in a constant duel through their parallel, yet rarely intertwined, narratives, as they navigate the surreal events of a city with a will of its own. Both of them are partially guided (or, rather, further paralleled?) by the mysterious book within the book, Paradoxical Undressing, possessing abilities akin to Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler... If you’ve read it, this should be enough reason to pick Oyeyemi’s novel up as well; if you haven’t, anything else I could say about the central structure of Parasol against the Axe would constitute a spoiler, so I might as well stop here. Buy it or loan it, but certainly read it. I promise it’s worth the time, and even the initial, albeit somewhat constant, confusion over what the hell exactly is going on in Prague nowadays.