Bestselling Finish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen's latest novel draws on strong feminist themes throughout, but leaves some characters underdeveloped.
Norma, published in Finnish in 2015 but now coming out in English, billed as “spellbinding,” “a hair-raising thriller.” I couldn’t wait.
The novel begins enticingly. Norma Ross, thirtyish, fiercely private and newly unemployed, has lost the only close connection in her life: her mother, who jumped in front of a train. At the funeral a stranger named Max confronts her, saying he and her mother once had “some real adventures together,” and suggests he and Norma now have “unpleasant business” to take care of.
Norma senses danger — that is, her hair senses danger. Strangely sensitive to her environment and her emotions, Norma’s supernatural hair twists and undulates of its own accord, especially when peril lurks.
Strong feminist themes run throughout. One female salon worker says, “Century after century we’ve given our faces, our hair, our wombs, our breasts, and still the money ends up in men’s pockets.” But like an updo in the rain, the story sags. Some characters aren’t well developed — I kept getting Marion and Margit mixed up — and the most interesting are the dead ones. Norma herself is so bleak and distant that not even the magical realism of her marvellous hair could make me care deeply about her plight.
The novel has intriguing Gothic elements (one character goes mad from rolling up and smoking magical hair), but a thriller it’s not. Norma is an odd sort of hybrid, its important social criticisms only partially seen through a story that, like Norma’s hair, has a few too many tangles.
Norma, published in Finnish in 2015 but now coming out in English, billed as “spellbinding,” “a hair-raising thriller.” I couldn’t wait.
The novel begins enticingly. Norma Ross, thirtyish, fiercely private and newly unemployed, has lost the only close connection in her life: her mother, who jumped in front of a train. At the funeral a stranger named Max confronts her, saying he and her mother once had “some real adventures together,” and suggests he and Norma now have “unpleasant business” to take care of.
Norma senses danger — that is, her hair senses danger. Strangely sensitive to her environment and her emotions, Norma’s supernatural hair twists and undulates of its own accord, especially when peril lurks.
Strong feminist themes run throughout. One female salon worker says, “Century after century we’ve given our faces, our hair, our wombs, our breasts, and still the money ends up in men’s pockets.” But like an updo in the rain, the story sags. Some characters aren’t well developed — I kept getting Marion and Margit mixed up — and the most interesting are the dead ones. Norma herself is so bleak and distant that not even the magical realism of her marvellous hair could make me care deeply about her plight.
The novel has intriguing Gothic elements (one character goes mad from rolling up and smoking magical hair), but a thriller it’s not. Norma is an odd sort of hybrid, its important social criticisms only partially seen through a story that, like Norma’s hair, has a few too many tangles.