A New New Me through Helen Oyeyemi evaluation – a delusion about self-mythology

How many selves can we area? Thousands, concept Virginia Woolf. Are they one and the similar? Not in keeping with the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, whose modify egos – writers similar to him – got here with their very own distinct names, biographies, mindsets and sizzling takes at the international. Born of him but working independently, he referred to as them “heteronyms”. Are our selves at the identical workforce? You want, Helen Oyeyemi may say, preserving up her new novel, which includes a protagonist cut up seven tactics, one self for every day of the week, and no two ever in complete settlement.

Oyeyemi made her debut in 2005 with The Icarus Girl, the tale of eight-year-old Jessamy, bothered and imaginative daughter of a Nigerian mom and British father, whose mysterious playmate, a girl named TillyTilly, is most likely her personal damaging modify ego. A New New Me might in the beginning look appear to be a thematic cousin; tonally, alternatively, it belongs with Oyeyemi’s newer works: playful, self-aware stories that revel within the hijinks of storytelling.

The motion, set over per week, takes position in Prague, the place Oyeyemi has lived since 2013. Unlike her 2024 novel, Parasol Against the Axe, it doesn’t function narration through the storied town itself, however through the seven variations of 40-year-old Polish-born Kinga Sikora, AKA Kingas A-G. Each reputedly pursuing an time table unbeknown to the others, they take turns guidance their shared life, conferring thru a communal pocket book. How has this come to be? Well, OG Kinga bailed on them, after leaving them in fee for what was once best intended to be a brief association. It’s now 2024, greater than a decade since any person ultimate noticed her.

What’s the guide about? As ever with Oyeyemi, it’s exhausting to mention, and in all probability completely irrelevant. At occasions you get the sense its writer has fortuitously surrendered regulate of her subject material, letting it run whichever method it pleases, trusting the narrative to bump into that means alongside the best way. I’d describe this riddling, befuddling however at all times very humorous novel as a delusion about self-mythology: how we construct ourselves up during the tales we inform, best to travel over them, or need to rewrite them later. A comedy concerning the mask we put on, if you’ll, in addition to an existential thriller: is it ever conceivable to understand which amongst our internal selves act in our favour and which don’t? Oh, and there’s a person tied up within the Kingas’ condo. Who is he? How did he get there? Which of the Kingas may have taken him in, and why? So, then, a thriller each existential and literal.

The first Kinga we meet is Monday Kinga, Kinga-A, “squad leader” and tone-setter for the week. A matchmaker facilitating “partnerships” for staff at a financial institution, she’s satisfied she is aware of what’s perfect for everybody, and springs off as overbearing and self-centred. Her largest offence? According to Kinga-B, quarantining in France with their brother Benek for 3 complete weeks all over lockdown with out consulting them (“She ripped our conscious hours away first and apologised afterwards”). Kinga-A claims to not know the tied-up guy, accuses Kinga-G of secret Sunday church visits, and chastises everybody for his or her way of life alternatives. She additionally thinks there’s one stressed Kinga amongst them who may result in their downfall.

Done with Kinga-A’s condescension and main-character delusions (“As far as she’s concerned, we’re Kinga-A and Her Backing Dancers”), Kinga-B has determined to strike – no going to paintings, no laundry – and is rallying the remainder of the Kingas to do the similar on their very own respective days. The remainder of the week, courtesy of Kingas C to G, unfolds in a thicket of delightfully random tales and encounters, laced with clues and pink herrings. Egos collide, outdated wounds smash open, the lies and recriminations pile up, and mutual suspicion helps to keep at bay any semblance of a solution as to the enigma of the person in the home. Along the best way, we be told that Kinga-C has secretly cosied up with him, that OG Kinga may well be in need of to make a full-time comeback, and that the seven Kingas can have been suppressing her messages in addition to jazzing up “the actual course of events with things that didn’t happen”. We additionally uncover that their psychotherapist has completely bring to an end touch.

The denouement, when it in any case comes, is so gloriously absurd, you’ll’t assist however salute Oyeyemi’s knack for clever nonsense. She is a gleefully unapologetic trickster; whether or not you like this novel or chuck it around the room might come all the way down to how a lot mischief for the sake of mischief you’ll take care of. My wager is you’ll end it, as I did, feeling bemused but additionally perversely entertained, and thankful for the experience.