Parasol Against the Axe

A Novel

De: Helen Oyeyemi

Narrado por: Dorje Swallow

ONE OF BIBLIOLIFESTYLE’S “BEST LITERARY FICTION OF 2024”

"A shape-shifting novel about the power of stories…Helen Oyeyemi is a literary pied piper — her voice is the kind that readers gamely follow into the most bewildering and unnerving of situations." – The New York Times

“A metatextual masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“Oyeyemi writes here as an heir to Calvino or Borges…A dizzying, dazzling romp.” —Kirkus Reviews

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about competitive friendship, the elastic boundaries of storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague

In Helen Oyeyemi’s joyous new novel, the Czech capital is a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out.

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.

An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared history. How much is a tale influenced by its reader, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?

A surrealist chocolate box of delights

Oyeyemi is one of my favorite authors, and with this book she continues to be. If nothing else, the prose is gorgeous and witty and capricious. I've never been to Prague, have wanted to see if for decades (will probably never happen), but Oyeyemi obviously has great affection for it (only makes me want to see it more). This is DEFinitely not a book for everybody. And though it is very challenging in a narrative sense, it is so playful and real and full of tricks and sur-reality that it was a delight to experience.

As a narrator, Dorje Swallow is exceptional. So many characters to handle, which he did with perfectly distinct voices, not to mention handling Czech. I'm already looking for other books he performs.

I listened to it twice in immediate succession, and I'm glad I did. I was able to fall more freely into the second reading, and my linear brain could be told to wait on the sofa til I was done. Maybe not my very favorite of Oyeyemi's novels (some hit right at the right time), but a joy nonetheless, and I will listen again. Recommended for people who embrace surrealism, playfulness, fluidity, narrative acrobatics, and phrases that sparkle like gemstones, and narration that is nothing short of bewitching.

Amazing concept for a book

Yet another beautiful story by Helen Oyeyemi, I felt like I was in her mind the whole book.

Narrator’s Czech accent sounds like a low budget Dracula

His Czech lines were unbearable! Okay narration otherwise but wow this missed the mark for me (a Czech speaker)