âââŚPlease to tell a story about a girl who gets away.â
âGets away from what, though?â
âFrom her fairy godmother. From the happy ending that isnât really happy at all. Please have her get out and run off the page altogether, to somewhere secret where words like happy and good will never find her.â
âYou donât want her to be happy and good?â
âIâm not sure whatâs really meant by happy and good. I would like her to be free. Now. Please begin.ââ
TITLEâWhite is for Witching
AUTHORâHelen Oyeyemi
PUBLISHEDâ2009
PUBLISHERâPicador
GENREâliterary gothic horror, dark academia
SETTINGâDevon, England
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTSâsentient/haunted house, twins & siblinghood, Snow White, boutique hotel, soucouyant, mental illness, Haiti, Dover, familial legacy & inherited trauma, university life, immigration, photography, English xenophobia & racism, changelings
WRITING STYLEââď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
CHARACTERSââď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
STORY/PLOTââď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
BONUS ELEMENT/SâThis book truly gets better and better with every reread. đĽ°
PHILOSOPHYââď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
âStill, I wondered if the salt and pepper were really necessaryâthey seemed too cruel when it would be easier to despatch her by blowing out her flame before it grew, or by holding a mirror up to her wrinkled face and saying, âI donât believe in you.â But then, maybe âI donât believe in youâ is the cruellest way to kill a monster.â
My thoughts:
This is my third read of this book and itâs so damn good I just truly donât know how Oyeyemi writes like this: ââŚthe place was almost friendly, like being carried on salt water towards yourself.â or ââŚI smoked both our gollies, with narrowed eyes and nervous intensity, like a Beat poet facing out his typewriter at dawn.â or âShe threw rose attar over herself in a hasty splash, as if it were a liquid jacket.â or âLooking at those last photos was like flipping through a book of silence, all the information conveyed with the certainty of a glimpse.â
This is why Helen Oyeyemi is my alltime favorite writer. No one writes like her. I never get tired of reading her writing. I could open any of her books to any page and just start reading and struggle to put it down again. I could read and reread it over and over again forever. If I had to only ever read one writerâs work for the rest of my life it would be the easiest choice in the world. *happy sigh* Just grateful for her and her work. đđđť
I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in trying one of Oyeyemiâs works and enjoy darker themes and imagery.
âMiranda went down barefoot, like Eurydice. She walked with her fingers spread over her face, because no one must see.â
âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
CW // eating disorder, suicidal ideation, racism & xenophobia (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Readingâ
- everything else by Helen OyeyemiÂ
- THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, by Shirley Jackson
- TELL ME IâM WORTHLESS, by Alison RumfittÂ
- BABEL, by RF Kuang
- the original âSnow Whiteâ
- ALICE IN WONDERLAND, by Lewis Carroll
- Gwendolyn Brooks
Favorite Quotesâ
âIncongruous smiles were a sort of nervous thing with Miranda, a way of protecting herself from consequences, I think. Just like putting sunglasses on, or opening up an umbrella.â
âThere was a change in the shadows and I twisted around, looking into the corners where the lamplight cracked. Miri is the older twin. Maybe she has seen things that craned their necks to look at her and then withdrew before I was born, thinking that to consider one of us is to consider both.â
âWhy do people go to these places, these places that are not for them? It must be that they believe in their night vision. They believe themselves able to draw images up out of the dark. But black wells only yield black water.â
âMiranda.
Look at me.
Will you not?
It is useful, instructive, comforting to know that you are not alone in your history.
So I have done you good
and now,
some harm.â
âHeâd pulled the green ribbon down through Mirandaâs ponytail, tied it around his sleeve and said to her, âIâm your knight.â Miranda pushed him. He took a single step back and scowled. Miranda said loudly, âIâm Morgan La FayâIâve got spells and I can stick up for myself.ââ
âIn a psychomantium, glass topples darkness. Things appear as they really are, people appear as they really are. Visions are called from a point inside the mirror, from a point inside the mind. Miranda looked in.â
âIt was a dress to be worn by the sort of girl whoâd check that no one was looking, then skip down a quiet street instead of walking, just so the fun of it was hers alone.â
ââŚshe didnât know where the thought had come from, she probably had to be careful because she had been mad.â
ââŚsomeone who had lived in a different house from her when sheâd thought they were all living in the same house, safe as little fishes in folds of the deep blue sea.â
ââI miss her. So much that sometimes Iâm scared Iâll bring her back.ââ
âââŚThen when you were three, your GrandAnna had a crack-up. A⌠well, a really big crack-up, and she had to go into a home. You wouldnât remember,â Lily said.
âŚ
âGrandAnnaâs crack-up. It was like the heraldic pelican,â Miri said. ââŚThe bird that pecks itself to death to feed its children. She tried to give us her blood but we didnât want it.â
âŚ
âThere is nothing⌠mysterious and Gothic about a crack-up. If anything itâs just⌠sad.â Lily was so angry she was almost singing, her temper changing the stress she put on her words. âThere is no need to make up stories about it.ââ
âHow dare people sleep, how dare they lie so blankly in the dark?â
âThe skull was temporary, the skull collected the badness together and taught it discipline, that was all.â
âI know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that donât have names.â
âWhite is for witching, a colour to be worn so that all other colours can enter you, so that you may use them. At a pinch, cream will do.â
ââŚthe soucouyant, the wicked old woman who flies from her body and at night consumes her food, the souls of othersâsoul food!âin a ball of flame. At dawn she returns to her body, which she has hidden in a safe place. I read to the walls. âKill the soucouyant.â Dawn tore a rosy line through the clouds. âFind her skin and treat it with pepper and salt. How it burns her, how it scratches her. Only the night gives her her power, and if she is unable to re-enter her body by sunrise, she cannot live. Kill the soucouyant, that unnatural old lady, and then all shall be as it should.ââ
âAs always, the soucouyant seemed more lonely than bad. Maybe that was her trick, her ability to make it so you couldnât decide if she was a monster.â
âThe night didnât listen to usâit had a noise of its ownâŚâ
ââŚto whom I couldnât write âI love youâ because I meant it angrily and she would know.â
âI am lucky, in her GrandAnnaâs mountains hand. She was lucky. Had it been the fifties, her father wouldnât be taking her home from here, heâd be dropping her off at a clinic that specialized in electroshock therapy. Sheâd be on her way to the gag and ball.â
âIt was like dancing with a mask that was attached to a stickâshe dared not lower it, no matter how tiring it was to hold the mask up.â
âThese are the things that happen while youâre not looking, when youâre not keeping careful watch. When clear water moves unseen a taint creeps into itâmoss, or algae, salt, even. It becomes foul, undrinkable. It joins the sea.â
âI told her about the soucouyant. While telling her I realized that the story of her is much more to do with how she is ended than how she began. We know that the soucouyant has preyed on younger souls for years and years, longer than anyone can remember. Itâs as if sheâs so wrong that even in the mind of the storyteller she must be killed immediately.â
âMiranda Silver was not, could not be herself plus all her mothers.â
âWhen she opened her mouth her teeth lifted, then sliced her bottom lip again. She couldnât see the teeth, only the cuts they made. But she felt the teeth. Her features couldnât accommodate the length of them, they were her skeleton extended.â