“House of Discarded Dreams” is a biologist’s hallucination

With The House of Discarded Dreams , Ekaterina Sedia has written a satisfyingly complicated come - of - age novel where “ adulthood ” is n’t about leaving fantasy behind . In this beautiful , dreamlike story , a immature life scientist happen upon that dreaming are as meaningful as empiric research .

Vimbai is an undergraduate biology major in New Jersey , fight to break from her immigrant parent – peculiarly her mother , a professor of Africana Studies who is haunt with social liberation , except when it comes to her sheltered girl . Though she ’s grown up steeped in her immigrant parent ’ Zimbwaean political science , Vimbai is more interested in examine horseshoe crabs than get a line about her household ’s tradition . Which is why she decides to move into a dilapidated house on the beach with a group of twenty - something slacker .

Except these slacker have problems more bizarre than Facebook drama and midterm . One of them has a portal to another universe in his hair , and the other has a brood of fantastical possum - heel creatures who follow her everywhere she goes . And their speech sound line contain a puppet who represents the congealed psychic zip of all the citizenry who have talked on it . Just when things ca n’t get any weirder , Vimbai ’s idle grandma get make them breakfast and the house float out to sea .

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Reading House of Discarded Dreams is like engross yourself in a delusion in which you on occasion dream of world . doleful and funny at the same clock time , the novel is an over-the-top departure from Sedia ’s previous novel , Alchemy of Stone , the story of a windup girl in a steampunk urban center which favored political naturalism over phantasmagorical domesticity . But this script , like all of Sedia ’s piece of work , inquire what it means to last between worlds – whether those public are nations , or region of phantasy .

There ’s also a realistic aroused core to House of Discarded Dreams . Even as Vimbai is have conversations with horseshoe crabs and sportfishing disembodied heads out of her roommate ’s pocket population hair , she ’s still preoccupied by everyday head – about conflicts with her mother , her chance at get into a good graduate school , and what it entail that she is nursing a crush on her distaff roomie .

But the longer she stay on adrift at sea , the more Vimbai has to cover the dream logic she relate with her Zimbabwean granny ’s ideas . Though she ’s always rejected the idea of magic , preferring biology rather , she has to accept that magical thinking is the only way she and her roommates are going to come through their ordeal at ocean . And so , with a scientist ’s logic , she has to figure out how to sail the dreaming version of Zimbabwe that has bloomed inside the house , replacing hallways with rolling J. J. Hill , and bedrooms with towns .

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Though many part of Sedia ’s novel say like sheer arbitrariness , and there are plenty of featherbrained scenes , the book as a whole has a mournful timber that reflects the story of loss that lies at its nub . At times the thread view with psychic babies and talking Pisces narration may get thwarting for reader who are looking for a more straightforward plot . But Vimbai is n’t on a straightforward path . She ’s navigate unusual soil , psychologically and literally .

What works about House of Discarded Dreams , ultimately , is the way Sedia pass up to give this fairy fib story a fairy tale ending . Vimbai is left to conciliate – chaotically- aspects of herself that seem irreconcilable . She ’s forced to embrace her family history , even the part that once felt “ half-witted ” to her . Not only does this make her stronger , but ( in a refreshing wrench ) it give her a more naturalistic perspective on skill : Not all problems can be solved with empiricist philosophy .

House of Discarded Dreams is a deceptively simple story . It will extract you in with playful meaninglessness , then leaving you think about how much your sense of self is based on ever - shifting illusion .

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