Dans Mon Catalogue

316 pages

English language

Published Dec. 11, 2015 by Penguin.

ISBN:: 9780143187448
OCLC Number:: 894750834

(1 review)

"[R]ecasts the Snow White fairy tale as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity. In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty--the opposite of the life she's left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she'd become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy's daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. And even as Boy, Snow, and Bird are divided, their estrangement is complicated by an insistent curiosity about one another. In seeking an understanding that is separate from the image each presents to the world, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the …

"[R]ecasts the Snow White fairy tale as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity. In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty--the opposite of the life she's left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she'd become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy's daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. And even as Boy, Snow, and Bird are divided, their estrangement is complicated by an insistent curiosity about one another. In seeking an understanding that is separate from the image each presents to the world, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold."--Back cover.

9 editions

Taru Luojola reviewed Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Asetelmistaan ja lähtökohdistaan huolimatta ei jaksa vetää mukaansa

2 stars

Hmmm. Vähän tahkoamiseksi meni, vaikka asetelma ja käänteet ovat aika kiinnostavia. Ehkä Oyeyemin kirjoitustyyli ei vain ole minun mieleeni. Kirjassa siis kerrotaan henkilöistä nimeltä Boy, Snow ja Bird, ja he ovat samaa perhettä. Eletään Yhdysvalloissa 1900-luvun puolivälissä ja sen jälkeen, rotuerottelu on vielä voimissaan ja rotukysymykset ovatkin kirjassa kautta linjan mukana. Koko kirjakin alkaa hersyvällä peilikohtauksella, jossa valkoiseen ihmiseen kohdistetaan sellaista katsetta, joka yleensä on tavattu kohdistaa mustaan. Ja kaiken muodostuminen sosiaalisista konstruktioista tulee kirjassa monin tavoin ilmi. Mutta silti, jotenkin ponneton ja sekava kokonaisuus minun makuuni, ja loppuratkaisu (jos sitä nyt edes voi ratkaisuksi sanoa) jätti vähän happamaksi.

Subjects

Fiction
Mothers and daughters
Fairy tales
Stepmothers
Adaptations

Places

Massachusetts