Mr Fox

Book Title: Mr Fox

Author: Helen Oyeyemi

Date Started: September 21st  2024

Date Completed: October 7th 2024

Genres: Magical Realism

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I love me some magical realism, I love fairy tale retellings, or be concise; I love Helen Oyeyemi. She is undoubtedly one of the most exciting, creative and dynamic storytellers out there. Her books feel so original even though they're steeped in stories we know like the back of our hands (or, I have to remind myself, are familiar even if you're not an amateur folklorist like me).

Mr Fox retells the Victorian fairy tale of the same name by Joseph Jacobs - as well as the countless other adaptations of Charles Perrault's Blue Beard and the dozens of very similar fairy tales involving a husband who punishes his new wife's curiosity once she discovers the corpses of his previous spouses. Oyeyemi's Mr Fox takes the wit and wariness of Vonnegut's version alongside the wicked vibrancy and liberation of Marina Warner and Angela Carters'. And I don't use those names to compare, but to celebrate the well-deserved place Oyeyemi has carved out for herself among them.

I'm discovering that Oyeyemi's novels are omnipotent yet aware of their own edge and irony; the novelist is simultaneously hidden behind her characters and yet oh so obvious as the author. Her narratives are magical realist and literary but also delve into downright fantastical and even social realist in tone, their transitions meticulously timed. It's the kind of book you descend into and have to blink a few times once the pages have stopped turning to reorientate yourself.