White is for Witching [Paperback]

Everything about Helen Oyeyemi's third novel screams divisiveness. White is for Witching is the sort of novel you'd think you would either love or hate: dense, difficult and deliberately disjointed, hardly more than 200 pages long and yet told from the perspectives of four dramatically different narrators - one clinically insane and another inanimate - it's a haunted house story second and a unapologetically literary novel first. Breathlessly poetic at times, though often so ethereal as to be frustratingly obfuscative, Oyeyemi's remarkable voice distinguishes White is for Witching from the countless other genre efforts to touch on similar territory. And yet I didn't love this book. Nor did I hate it.

Miranda and Elliot are twins in their late teens living in a stark gothic house in Dover that's been in their family for four generations. Inseparable until their quirky photo-journalist mother dies abroad on assignment, Miranda takes her loss to heart. "She won't forget or recover, she is inconsolable," as her brother puts it, and when Miranda is discharged from the mental hospital she had checked into after the tragedy, the distance between them is palpable. Elliot looks ahead; Miranda looks back. Her efforts to move on - in her state of body and mind, her further education and her relationships - are lamentably lackadaisical, no matter her determination. Because something, some thing, is holding her back. Wherever she goes, the house is with her...

The seeds of a great, creepy tale are all sown early on, but a tremendously promising start does not stop White is for Witching from losing any sense of forward motion in the going thereafter. Oyeyemi's idiosyncratic narrative techniques, which to begin with allude and collude tantalisingly, gradually come to overpower the tale, to manhandle its development in order to properly showcase a few neat literary tricks. But the cost of the author's protracted dalliance is substantial: halfway through this short novel, there's been so little movement in terms of character, plot and conflict that the reader's very investment in any of the aforementioned elements is called into question.

Thankfully, the pace picks up when Miranda starts her first semester at Cambridge. Oyeyemi introduces a new narrator for these passages, and Ore functions admirably both as a device to imbue much-needed context on all the vague craziness of White is for Witching's first half and as a character in her own right. Ore's more earthly presence means that the going, tough and sinewy to start with, gets markedly easier after her introduction. It's only a pity that Oyeyemi so delays her arrival.

What White is for Witching is, undeniably, is funny. The interplay between Elliot and his sister is superb, snappy and smart, revealing character and history absent in Oyeyemi's somewhat indulgent exposition; and Miranda's pica, a condition that compels her to gobble chalk and plastic in favour of the sumptuous treats her gentle father prepares, makes for a few particularly memorable moments. Oyeyemi has a wonderfully wicked sense of humour that lifts the dreary proceedings from the dark and the deathly towards something altogether lighter and more pleasant.

White is for Witching has a chilling and atmospheric, if rather diminutive narrative at its heart, but its greatest failing is that the author seems substantially more interested in storytelling than story, and though the latter half of Oyeyemi's third novel improves in that regard, its early-going is enough of a trial, I fear, to dissuade many readers. Literary smarts do not in themselves a great novel make, and White is for Witching could have done with more attention paid to the basic elements underpinning what amounts, ultimately, to much ado about very little. That said, if you have the head for it, there's every chance you'll love this book - or else despise it. Would that had I managed to muster such extremes of feeling in either direction myself...

I found it really easy to get into this book - the strange, fragile characters and dark, supernatural atmosphere really drew me in - I love Oyeyemi's sinister and mysterious brand of magical storytelling. I found myself surprised and a little cold at the ending but after some thought I came back around to my appreciation of it - I think it challenged my expectations. Very interesting escapism.

(3.5 stars)

Twins Miranda and Eliot live in a house that is haunted by generations, a house with its own way of getting its own way. Eliot seems immune to the ghosts they live with, but following the death of their mother, Miranda sees and hears more and more of them and her own existence becomes proportionally less and less. Which family will claim her - the living or the dead?

Oyeyemi's prose style will not be to everyone's taste, with strongly poetic imagery, fragmented structure, and multiple narrators (including the house itself). I liked it. The writing seemed a lot more concise and considered than in her debut novel, The Icarus Girl (which I also enjoyed). It is essentially a gothic horror/ghost story built around a teenage girl coping (or failing to cope) with the grief after her mother's death. There are also issues of twinship and friendship, and folklore of various countries. If anything, I think the folklore elements were overplayed. There are many passing references to European fairy tales which did not seem to add much to the story (for me). The Nigerian story of the soucoyant was far more relevant but really did not need to be referenced so repeatedly to put across the obvious parallels in storyline.

Although I enjoyed Oyeyemi's use of language, I did begin to tire of the story in the second half of the book. Yes, Miranda's relationship with the house and its occupants/memories grew darker and more oppressive, but the ultimate outcome lacked any real emotional impact, and did not seem as well wrought as the earlier, tension-building scenes. Definitely an interesting read, though.