Norma

Summa summarum- Just plain too much!This was my first Sofi Oksanen read, and following some research on the author and the novel I was really intent on liking the book. I was further fooled by the beautiful cover which is by far the book's best feature...The pace is sluggish at best and nothing really happens through the first third or even half of the book. The reader is immersed into complete and utter confusion by the constant introduction of supportive characters with no rhyme or reason (Alla? Albino?), non-stop twisting between different time-points in the past and present, and the mixture of the banal and supernatural. Important (mostly feminist) issues are addressed by the novel but the main characters including Norma are one-dimensional and even gravitate to the repugnant side of the spectrum (maybe it's just me but I felt absolutely no connection or compassion to the main character as through the 300 hundred pages the reader is reminded in a repetitive dull manner THAT NORMA HAS SUPERNATURAL SUPER-FAST GROWING HAIR. And that my folks is all that Norma is.) and completely obliterate any kind of interest in the subject matter.I would advise against purchasing this book as it is one of the rare reads I consider a complete waist of time.

The product was a book which I enjoyed reading

My daughter gave me this book - my name is Norma. And for her sake I have tried, I really have tried, to read this tangle of ridiculous rubbish about hair which grows several feet in a day and curled if there is danger, or anything much really, with an international criminal gang which specialises in, wait for it! Wigs!Oh come on. Confusing, nonsensical: I've finally come to my senses and given up on page 173 (of 305). Usually I will not rate a DNF, but for this I'll make an exception and give it two stars for the sheer audacity at putting out something like this and, presumably, believing in it

Being one of the most attractive features in women, this novel focuses on the importance of hair and explores how hair is adored in various cultures around the world. Norma has supernatural hair with special attributes such as speedy growth and responding to her mood - even going on to represent snakes! Besides her own emotions, her hair also allows her to respond to the emotions of others around her. Norma seeks to discover the real cause of her mother's death, which is where the concept of illegal hair trafficking in the hair industry surfaces. Along the way, she goes on to discover even darker, mysterious issues within exploitation in black markets.The book can seem a bit strange but is also very engaging. The plot and characters are also quite interesting. If you enjoy magical realism or would like to challenge yourself to something new, then this may be an interesting read.

Norma has magical hair. It grows metres each day, can detect illness and can read the moods of people around her. But she is no Rapunzel. Her hair is her secret, a burden to bear with just her mother. But now her mother is dead, an apparent suicide. And then she meets a man who knew her mother. Her hair tells her he’s dangerous and that her mother’s death may not have been a suicide. Norma has to overcome her grief, and her fear of exposure to find out what really happened to her mother.To be honest, at first I found myself unsure of what the story was about. The information given to the reader appears sporadic. I felt at times that I had started reading half way through the story. Eventually however things became clearer.This is not a usual mystery story. It is more an exploration into the role of women in society, how they are used, how people work around systems and rules to benefit from them. It shows the control of men, and women and the roles they play in exploitation of women, be it directly or indirectly through silence and lack of drive to find out the truth behind a product or a service. This is all told through the allegories of hair extensions and surrogacy, a strange combination that works and makes the reader think.The book is very easy to read. Short chapters lend themselves to allowing the reader to read ‘just one more’. The translation is also very well done. The sign for me of a good translation is the inability to spot that the book has been translated. That was the case with Norma. It never really occurred to me that the novel’s first incarnation was not in English, I read the novel as Sofi Oksanen’s words, not those of the translator, Owen F. Witesman.Norma is a mixed character. Rebelling in her youth, in her own way, spending money she didn’t have, sleeping with people she probably shouldn’t have, she is now facing being alone as the only person she could be her true self with is gone. Controlled by the moods her hair inflicts, she has to self medicate with a number of anti nausea drugs, vitamins and other items to get through each day. She is taken out of her comfort zone and has to examine all she has ever known, when she decides to look into the truth of her mother’s death.There is a surreal quality to the novel, lent obviously by the magical qualities of Norma’s hair, but also by the prose and by the way the story of the surrogacy business and the almost clandestine and criminal hair weave business is laid out. There’s a hint of a fairy tale to the story, but one with a darker core, and ultimately with a dénouement that allows the heroine to realise things about herself. I spent a lot of the time wondering if I was enjoying this novel, then the rest of the time realising I was.An interesting, thought-provoking read. I’ll be keen to read more by Sofi Oksanen in the future.