Title: The Icarus Girl
Author: Helen Oyeyemi
Publisher: Doubleday
Rating: Worthy!
Helen Oyeyemi (is that an awesome name or what?!) was only eighteen when she wrote this novel. I've seen no word as to why a novel so closely tied to Africa has a title taken from Greek mythology! The story begins with Jessamy Harrison hiding in a cupboard. Her mother finally locates her and asks her how she would like to go to Nigeria for a vacation, and off they go to visit her mum's family. Jess feels just as alienated in Nigeria as she did in England, but things change for her.
Two things happen in Nigeria other than what the story purports to relate. One is Oyeyemi's annoying use of Nigerian words to 'describe' things without actually describing the thing - so we learn nothing of the Yoruba language or of Nigeria! I don’t know why authors do this! There's no glossary, but at least there's no prologue, so that kinda balances out!
The other thing is that Jess's grandfather is very patriarchal and condescending towards women. They’re more like servants than fellow human beings. He resents Jess's mom for not doing what he expected of her, which was that she would go to med school. Instead she went the English language route and became a writer. Despite this, Jess takes a liking to him. I don't know what bearing Jess's mom's history has on this story if any.
At one point, Jess's skin is described thus; "..milky coffee-colored...". I've seen someone complain about the use of foodstuffs (chocolate, coffee) to describe dark skin coloring. I don’t understand this complaint! Are we being accused of cannibalism? The people who complain about this seem not to grasp that things have more than one attribute. Coffee, for example, is a drink, a bean, a bush, and it's also a color. When people use the term to describe a person's skin, they aren't comparing that person with a beverage, or a seed, or a plant! What are we supposed to do? Say the person was as brown as dirt?! Describe them as the color of feces? Given that choice, I sure know which I'd rather be compared with! Having said that, there is always room for more thought on the part of the writer; perhaps some weight should be given to comparing a character's attributes with something which is much more personal to the character or their history.
One day, Jess notices a faint light in a building in her grandfather's compound which shouldn’t be there. She's been told the building used to be the boys (servant's) quarters but is no longer in use. Slavery in Africa! Jess, of course, has to investigate and she finds the place in complete disuse and covered in dust, but in one place in this dust is written 'HEllO JEssY', which causes her to feel distinctly uncomfortable, since this is the second time since she's been in Nigeria that she's been called something she's not used to. Her grandfather called her by her Nigerian name, Wuraola, when he first met her. I found it intriguing that both times the 'hello Jessy' term is used, the letters which are in lower case are the twin letters in each word.
Later, Jess meets Titiola, evidently the girl who wrote her name in the dust. The first few things she says are merely repetitions of what Jess says to her, but later Jess is drawn to her grandfather's locked study, where she finds the door unaccountably open and TillyTilly (as Jess has now dubbed her) waiting inside for her. The two of them look at some of his books, by candle-light - candles TillyTilly has apparently stolen from the house. Later, Jess finds a copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women by her bed with HEllO JEssY written in it. Evidently it's a gift from her new friend.
I like Jess already. She has a peculiar way of looking at life that actually comports with my own in many regards, and she loves books! I particularly loved her when I found that she likes to annotate the books she reads with her own improvements added in pencil to the original text! I don’t do this, but I do think this at times! So now Oyeyemi has me invested in her character, and I will never forgive her if she lets harm befall young Jess!
One day TillyTilly shows up and asks Jess to go to the local amusement park with her, except that it’s not so local when you have to walk there. Since it’s Sunday, the park is closed, but TillyTilly somehow makes the padlocked gate open and they spend a fun time in there playing until the electricity shuts off, whereupon TillyTilly suggests that Jess go home. She does, and gets into a bit of trouble from her folks for disappearing. Soon - surprisingly soon - it’s time for Jess to return to England. She's supposedly been in Nigeria for a month, but the way the story was told made it seem like it was only a week or so.
Back in England, school starts up again and Jess starts having her usual problems with people there. She has no real friends and resents the behavior of some of her class-mates. It’s almost like Jess is an actor, trying to perform in a certain way to fit in with the production called "day to day life", but her fellow actors are so average that she really can’t see how the performance will rise to the height it should be at, and all-too-often (once-per-week according to Jess's own calculations, on average), Jess evidently has a breakdown because of this, whereupon she doubles over, and screams and screams. This naturally causes considerable consternation, but no one seems to know what to do about it. The doctors can find nothing physically wrong with her and Jess doesn’t feel able to communicate anything of utility on this problem to her parents.
On the subject of her parents, I'm concerned that they don’t appear to engage Jess in any real way at all. It seems like Jess is left to her own devices way too often, which makes her a very lonely child. Her mother, at the start of the story, asks about her going out to play with the neighbor kids, but Jess lies about it, claiming that she's been out when she's done nothing save sit in the cupboard all afternoon! Her mother fails her in not pursuing this. Jess also feels like she feels she's not real at least some of the time. Is this because her parents fail to treat her as though she's really there? She often complains to herself about not being seen. Jess has to remind herself who she is, where she is, how old she is, as though she has to regularly verify and validate her own existence - or she’ll disappear or something?
This kind of thing made me wonder if taking her to Nigeria, removing her from a place she at least had some sort of security in (if only from its familiarity) and had some attachment to, to another place where although in some ways she would fit in, she also felt like a fish out of water because it was so alien in comparison with what she was used to. So now we’re left wondering, for the present, whether Jess is going to have a breakdown. And who is this Titiola, who has given her so much, but has never been seen by any other person? Is she real? Is she an imaginary friend? How will Jess cope now that she's not only had the shock of being transposed to Nigeria for a month, but she's also been wrenched back from that, leaving her only friend behind? I'm hooked!
There's an interesting play in duality and dissection running through the story so far. Jess's parents are a pair, but one is black and the other white. Jess is kind of straddled between two nations, England and Nigeria. She calls her best friend by the same name twice: TillyTilly; clearly there's a movement towards something here, so I'm anxious to see where that leads!
So TillyTilly turns up at Jess's house claiming her parents have moved there, which is weird in itself. This happens after Jess got into a fight at school after being bullied by one of the other girls. I seriously hope this kind of thing isn't tolerated in British schools. TillyTilly knows where this bully girl lives and she takes Jess into the house - but they're invisible - so even though the girl and her mum are home, they can’t see Jess and TillyTilly. They learn that the bully girl wets the bed and is beaten by her mum.
Later, when Jess's parents go out and a babysitter comes over to sit with Jess and her cousin Dulcie, who is very full of herself, TillyTilly shows up in sight of the babysitter and Dulcie, takes Jess down through the stairs into the ground underneath the house! Lidia the babysitter rationalizes this into Jess ducking down at the top of the stairs, and hiding. When Jess meets with Tilly Tilly at another time in the park, Jess makes the startling realization that no one but she can actually see TillyTilly, but this makes her no less real.
Jess is taken on a visit to a psychiatrist or psychologist, Dr. McKenzie, about which she's quite apprehensive (and against which TillyTilly is dead-set), but Jess ends up having a positive experience, and she bonds a bit with the psychologist's daughter Siobhan ("Shivs"), although where the heck one would find a psychologist who invites his client into his home and let's her run around the house is a bit of a mystery.
At slightly over 50% into the novel, things begin to crystallize. I should have known something weird was going to happen when I read this sentence: "...small and curly blond in much the same way as Dr. McKenzie was tall and red." Now what does that mean?!
Jess becomes somewhat ill at one point (and please take note that I'm recalling this from a less than perfect memory, so I may not have all of these events in exact chronological order!). TillyTilly visits her and tells Jess that she is a twin, but her twin sister Fern died in the womb before she could be birthed. TillyTilly tells Jess that now she is her twin. Jess raises this lost twin issue with her mother who now thinks Jess is somehow possessed by some African evil. Jess ends up cutting out pictures of twins (or of people who look alike) from school library books and gets into trouble over that. TillyTilly declares to Jess that she's going to "get" Miss Patel (Jess's teacher) for this, which puts Jess into a bit of a panic.
This starts Tilly-Tilly on a vengeance drive. She gets Jess's father, making him so tired that he can hardly function. She gets Shivs and makes her fall down the stairs. She survives the fall but we learn nothing of her fate. She starts swapping bodies with Jess, so that TillyTilly is in Jess's body and Jess becomes some sort of airy-fairy which has little substance. Finally, Jess is taken back to Nigeria to celebrate her ninth birthday, and there, after a car accident, she confronts TillyTilly on the dream plan and defeats her.
I recommend this book! It's cool and fun and interesting.
