Mr Fox
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Review
'An outstanding addition to an impressive body of work, this is Oyeyemi's best, most beautiful novel yet.' Independent on Sunday
'Her depiction of Mr Fox's hard-boiled swagger and Mary s life as a lonely English governess is funny and fresh.' --Daily Telegraph
'The dialogue zips along and Oyeyemi reveals a twinkling sense of humour . . . Lovers of metafiction, magic realism and all things fabulist will find Oyeyemi's energetic imagination a delight.' Independent
'funny, deep, shocking, wry, heart-warming and spine-chilling. She offers a phantasmagorical rendering of the deepest emotional truths, not least among which is a razor-sharp dissection of the topsy-turvy logic of misogyny that blames women for the violence inflicted on them. She's not real, honey, St John assures Daphne about Mary. 'She's only an idea. I made her up.' Oyeyemi breathes life into ideas like nobody else.' Guardian
'this prodigiously talented writer s take on the Bluebeard myth is a piece of modern magical realism that is not just vibrantly imaginative but filled with wit and wisdom . . . Oyeyemi's remarkable gift for depicting multiple worlds populated with the living, ghosts, of the dead and creatures of the imagination makes Mr Fox her best book so far.' --Metro
'Her depiction of Mr Fox's hard-boiled swagger and Mary s life as a lonely English governess is funny and fresh.' --Daily Telegraph
'The dialogue zips along and Oyeyemi reveals a twinkling sense of humour . . . Lovers of metafiction, magic realism and all things fabulist will find Oyeyemi's energetic imagination a delight.' Independent
'funny, deep, shocking, wry, heart-warming and spine-chilling. She offers a phantasmagorical rendering of the deepest emotional truths, not least among which is a razor-sharp dissection of the topsy-turvy logic of misogyny that blames women for the violence inflicted on them. She's not real, honey, St John assures Daphne about Mary. 'She's only an idea. I made her up.' Oyeyemi breathes life into ideas like nobody else.' Guardian
'this prodigiously talented writer s take on the Bluebeard myth is a piece of modern magical realism that is not just vibrantly imaginative but filled with wit and wisdom . . . Oyeyemi's remarkable gift for depicting multiple worlds populated with the living, ghosts, of the dead and creatures of the imagination makes Mr Fox her best book so far.' --Metro
Review
"Oyeyemi's writing is gorgeous and resonant and fresh . . . a shimmering landscape pulsating with life."--Aimee Bender, "The New York Times Book Review
""Oyeyemi has an eye for the gently perverse, the odd detail that turns the ordinary marvelously, frighteningly strange."--"The Boston Globe
""Dazzling."--"The Washington Post
""Cheeky and imaginative."--"The New Yorker
"
"Startling, beautiful . . . [Mr. Fox] should not be ignored."--"Chicago Sun Times
"""Mr. Fox" is a wonderfully original novel, full of images and turns of phrase so arresting, so vivid and inventive, its pages almost glow with them. Helen Oyeyemi has given us a work of playful charm and serious narrative pleasure."--Sarah Waters, author of "The Little Stranger
""A sly, tender, and elegant novel, graced with a magical charm that makes this novel's wisdom about love and loss all the more captivating to read. "Mr. Fox" is a novel for those who love stories and who believe in their singular power to alter and heal our fragile souls."--Dinaw Mengestu, author of "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears "and "How to Read the Air"
""Oyeyemi has an eye for the gently perverse, the odd detail that turns the ordinary marvelously, frighteningly strange."--"The Boston Globe
""Dazzling."--"The Washington Post
""Cheeky and imaginative."--"The New Yorker
"
"Startling, beautiful . . . [Mr. Fox] should not be ignored."--"Chicago Sun Times
"""Mr. Fox" is a wonderfully original novel, full of images and turns of phrase so arresting, so vivid and inventive, its pages almost glow with them. Helen Oyeyemi has given us a work of playful charm and serious narrative pleasure."--Sarah Waters, author of "The Little Stranger
""A sly, tender, and elegant novel, graced with a magical charm that makes this novel's wisdom about love and loss all the more captivating to read. "Mr. Fox" is a novel for those who love stories and who believe in their singular power to alter and heal our fragile souls."--Dinaw Mengestu, author of "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears "and "How to Read the Air"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I really wanted to love this book. It sounded such an interesting idea - Mr Fox is an author, married to Daphne, and he is visited by his muse, Mary Foxe. She accuses him of being a "serial killer" and he tells her not to be "so sensitive about the content of fiction." So far, so good. There are letters between Mary Foxe and the author where she is a British born tutor and asks him to read his stories and I felt very engaged with the characters. Then the story jumps to different incarnations of Mary - as a florist, a model, etc. Interspersed with all these stories are other fables and stories, which were beautiful storytelling but which eventually seemed to make the book unconnected and were distracting. Because, undoubtedly, the best parts of this novel are those turning around the trio of Mr Fox, Mary Foxe and Daphne.
There is no doubt that Helen Oyeyemi is a magical storyteller, but somehow she has failed to produce a complete novel. I enjoyed her writing, individually the varying stories were wonderfully structured, imaginative and descriptive. I just wish that, somehow, the whole had been more tied together as I hate to say it, but I lost interest in the characters along the way. Yet Daphne and her marriage worries, the enigmatic Mary Foxe and their love for Mr Fox were wonderfully written. Flashes of brilliance here, but as a novel it fails to hold together, which is a shame as much of the book I truly did enjoy.
There is no doubt that Helen Oyeyemi is a magical storyteller, but somehow she has failed to produce a complete novel. I enjoyed her writing, individually the varying stories were wonderfully structured, imaginative and descriptive. I just wish that, somehow, the whole had been more tied together as I hate to say it, but I lost interest in the characters along the way. Yet Daphne and her marriage worries, the enigmatic Mary Foxe and their love for Mr Fox were wonderfully written. Flashes of brilliance here, but as a novel it fails to hold together, which is a shame as much of the book I truly did enjoy.
Format:Paperback
Author St. John Fox stands accused of multiple murder - by his own muse and creation Mary Foxe. He also finds himself on the brink of divorce from his jealous wife, Daphne, who believes he is having an affair. Is St. John in love with Mary or Daphne? And does choosing one necessarily mean the end of the other? What's a man to do?
Stories within stories, slipping times and locations, where do memories and fantasies collide and divide? If you prefer a linear narrative, this is not the book for you. It reads like a dream, fragmenting when you try to make sense of it, but coming together in an inexplicable but satisfying way. Thankfully, Oyeyemi is cleverer than her potentially pretentious premise (and structure), and while I began reading sceptically, by the end I was hugely entertained by the way she turned the tables. (Although I was not quite convinced by the actual final chapter, feeling that the narrative had already reached its natural conclusion by that point.)
The plot stems from the contrived premise of a character coming to life with accusations against her creator. But as St. John writes and re-writes, constructs, deconstructs and reconstructs Mary's life (/lives) more and more is revealed about him and his own life. At first I was unconvinced by what seemed like a thin framing device for a collection of short stories. I was marginally annoyed by that, because I really enjoyed the individual short stories (and I am not usually a fan of story collections) and thought framing them as a novel was something of a cheat doing neither novel nor stories justice. The stories have a different rhythm to the connecting tissue of St John Fox's `real' life and interaction with Mary, echoing the formula of fairy tale. In fact, several of the stories are re-workings of traditional tales (Reynardine, Fitcher's Bird), and in fact, as I read on and realised how the stories and framework intersect, this built up to a realisation that the entire novel is a re-working of the aforementioned tales, and it all began to make a lot more sense as a whole.
I did this book an injustice by approaching it with scepticism (despite wanting to like it) and trying to analyse too early what turned out not to be the themes of the story. I was very pleasantly surprised by the journey on which this unexpected (love) story took me, and am already looking forward to reading it again on a future occasion, without my own pre-conceptions clouding my expectations. Next time, I will just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Stories within stories, slipping times and locations, where do memories and fantasies collide and divide? If you prefer a linear narrative, this is not the book for you. It reads like a dream, fragmenting when you try to make sense of it, but coming together in an inexplicable but satisfying way. Thankfully, Oyeyemi is cleverer than her potentially pretentious premise (and structure), and while I began reading sceptically, by the end I was hugely entertained by the way she turned the tables. (Although I was not quite convinced by the actual final chapter, feeling that the narrative had already reached its natural conclusion by that point.)
The plot stems from the contrived premise of a character coming to life with accusations against her creator. But as St. John writes and re-writes, constructs, deconstructs and reconstructs Mary's life (/lives) more and more is revealed about him and his own life. At first I was unconvinced by what seemed like a thin framing device for a collection of short stories. I was marginally annoyed by that, because I really enjoyed the individual short stories (and I am not usually a fan of story collections) and thought framing them as a novel was something of a cheat doing neither novel nor stories justice. The stories have a different rhythm to the connecting tissue of St John Fox's `real' life and interaction with Mary, echoing the formula of fairy tale. In fact, several of the stories are re-workings of traditional tales (Reynardine, Fitcher's Bird), and in fact, as I read on and realised how the stories and framework intersect, this built up to a realisation that the entire novel is a re-working of the aforementioned tales, and it all began to make a lot more sense as a whole.
I did this book an injustice by approaching it with scepticism (despite wanting to like it) and trying to analyse too early what turned out not to be the themes of the story. I was very pleasantly surprised by the journey on which this unexpected (love) story took me, and am already looking forward to reading it again on a future occasion, without my own pre-conceptions clouding my expectations. Next time, I will just sit back and enjoy the ride.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
My experience of this novel is quite different to the few reviewers already listed and part of that might be due to my having a love of this kind of playful magical realism as well as re-told faery tales.
This was a book that I fell in love with from its first pages and remained enchanted throughout. So much so that on completion of the print edition I was quite happy to revisit it immediately via its Audible audio edition. The exquisite writing of the novel was further enhanced by Carole Boyd's rich voice and range of character voices.
Foxes naturally feature prominently and the cover art for the USA edition makes this clearer with its anthropomorphic foxes while the UK cover, with its elegant 1930s motif, is more ambivalent. I actually liked both for different reasons.
Oyeyemi draws on myth, fairytale and fable from various lands with special emphasis upon Bluebeard and his English equivalent, the were-fox Reynardine. Oyeyemi weaves these into the fabric of her central story and tales with the skill of a true storyteller. There are also themes linked to creativity and the relationship between artist and muse. It is sophisticated and witty and, for me, a pleasure.
This is a novel that I cannot recommend highly enough to those drawn to works of magical realism, tales of animal transformations and re-told fairie tales. This is the third of Oyeyemi's four novels I have read and each has been memorable though overall I found this the most accessible to date.
This was a book that I fell in love with from its first pages and remained enchanted throughout. So much so that on completion of the print edition I was quite happy to revisit it immediately via its Audible audio edition. The exquisite writing of the novel was further enhanced by Carole Boyd's rich voice and range of character voices.
Foxes naturally feature prominently and the cover art for the USA edition makes this clearer with its anthropomorphic foxes while the UK cover, with its elegant 1930s motif, is more ambivalent. I actually liked both for different reasons.
Oyeyemi draws on myth, fairytale and fable from various lands with special emphasis upon Bluebeard and his English equivalent, the were-fox Reynardine. Oyeyemi weaves these into the fabric of her central story and tales with the skill of a true storyteller. There are also themes linked to creativity and the relationship between artist and muse. It is sophisticated and witty and, for me, a pleasure.
This is a novel that I cannot recommend highly enough to those drawn to works of magical realism, tales of animal transformations and re-told fairie tales. This is the third of Oyeyemi's four novels I have read and each has been memorable though overall I found this the most accessible to date.
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