Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
SJ Fox, a celebrated author, has two women in his life: Mary Foxe, his own creation, and his wife, Daphne. This story begins when Mary, his muse, visits, but with a deeper purpose than that she usually brings: to halt Mr. Fox’s continued murder of his female protagonists. Mr. Fox brushes her concern away, calling it “ridiculous to be so sensitive about the content of fiction.” Mary’s retaliation is to turn the tables: she brings him into stories, allowing him to walk in the subject’s shoes while they struggle for authorship.
If I had to describe this novel in one word, it would be charming (albeit, strongly rivaled by “confusing”). The cover, what first drew me to Mr. Fox, is incredibly charming, the writing style is charming, the format is charming, and the characters all come to be rather charming in their own way as well.
The narrative alternates between “reality” and then the different stories that the characters find themselves inhabiting. At times it is evident who is who, but I also found myself with plenty of leeway for speculation, especially once Daphne joins into their game, as we follow the tale of two students at an academy for good husbandry, or that of an Egyptian orphan or that of two solitary foxes.
I did feel that what I expected this novel to deal with and where it began differed from where it ended. We start with Mary’s confrontation of Mr. Fox’s compulsive murder of his female characters, and when considering the allusions towards Bluebeard and Reynardine, it appears that this novel has a taken a fairly overt feminist cast. Yet this novel evolves to prod and examine the relationships between the characters, which left me wondering where Mary’s initial goals went—although perhaps it was simply to provide a catalyst for the events that then occurred and to enable a more subtle exploration of attitudes and violence towards women.
Despite any confusion on my behalf, I found Mr. Fox to be as clever and delightful as the cover suggested—and confusion does make everything more interesting anyways.
