Madame Sosostris & the Festival For the Broken-Hearted
Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted by Ben Okri is a book I found randomly on a recent trip to the bookstore at the National Theatre in London. If there is one thing I’m very susceptible to when it comes to books, it’s having a cool or interesting form factor, I’ve rarely met a fancy splayed edge book I haven’t liked, and this format of the book was specially sized and signed by the author, so I was basically forced to buy it.
The novel opens with Viv deciding, on the 20th anniversary of her first husband leaving her, that she should host a party for all those in the world who have felt the pain of heartbreak. She is grudgingly able to convince her current husband, and two of her friends to go along with this plan. She also has a chance encounter with the titular Madame Sosostris, a famous clairvoyant to the rich and powerful. Viv invites Sosostris to be the guest of honor at the party and to read fortunes for the guests. Sosostris reluctantly agrees and tells Viv of an enchanted forest in France that will be the perfect venue.
What happens in the rest of the book is left mostly to the interpretation of the reader. The book is very well written, and it has a style that I would most closely associate with a Shakespeare play. In fact, I think it compares very closely to A Midsummer’s Night Dream, but it also has a lot of what I can only call magical realism. We hear that preparations have been made for the party, and people from all over the world have seemingly heard about the party and have booked tickets to it. But none of that is shown and the two couples arrive after a long drive using handwritten directions through the French countryside that deliver them exactly to where they need to be.
In another nod to many Shakespearean plays, the party is also done in full costumes and masquerade. This, of course, allows for many cases of mistaken identity and confusion. I won’t give away the ending, but the entire party is thrown into chaos when the arrival of Madame Sosostris is thrown into doubt. As I said, I do think it’s well written, and I enjoyed reading the prose and the general vibe of the book. But I personally think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a little more grounded, a la The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which also centers around a magical gathering but in a much more “realistic” way.
In any case, Okri isn’t interested in the minutiae of party planning or guest lists, rather he presents a much more vibes-based approach to storytelling. If you are looking for a quick summer read, the book clocks in at a brisk 208 pages. If you are in the mood to enjoy a story that just sort of washes over you, then I think this would be a good choice, if you are instead desperate for a tightly plotted thriller, then I think your fortunes lay elsewhere.
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