Book Review : Charlene Elsby - Hexis (2020)
No one gave a fuck what Dostoevsky’s mother’s name was; no one was congratulating her on having such great children.
Upon crossing the Rubicon of teenage prom, I realized something: nothing was over and nothing would ever be. People don’t mature. An arbitrary and harmless rite of passage into adulthood certainly don’t help them improve. If you were trying to be cool, you’re now trying to look happy. If you were trying to look happy, you’re now trying to feel accomplished. The shortcut changes, but people stay the same. No one wants to acknowledge how complex and sometimes hostile adult life is.
No one, except perhaps Charlene Elsby, the author of a mysterious little book called Hexis.
What is Hexis, exactly? It is more difficult to define than your conventional novel. An unnamed female narrator tells the story of her ongoing struggle between who she is and how she exists in the world. Not sexy enough for you? She also compulsively kills her various boyfriends and love interests. The reasons vary on surface, but they mostly unwittingly fuck with her sense of self. Because what she’s looking for, she cannot and will not find in her bizarre and often violent relationships.
If you’re going into Hexis expecting vivid characters, a riveting storyline or any form of conventional entertainment, you’re not going to get your money’s worth. The closest thing I’ve ever read to it was Samuel Beckett’s trilogy, where the self and the novel gradually drift apart. Hexis is self-aware fiction in the most postmodern way possible. It is the type of book you read to empathize with a worldview, recognize yourself in it and, ultimately feel less alone (if the process worked).
I couldn’t remember having a sincere feeling. Maybe it was because I made an effort to destroy every positive image I had of something external to my control, in order to ensure that I wouldn’t value it too highly only to have it lost.
But does it work? I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, Hexis is one of these novels you’ll either love or hate because it makes a bold, divisive claim: human connection is an illusion. Whether people are vulnerable or aggressive, aloof or caring, they all want something for themselves. The narrator keeps seeking fulfillment in others (well, men) in superficial ways and always ends up murdering them because they behaviour conflict with her self image. It’s bluntly put and not even remotely implausible.
Of course, I did not love or hate Hexis. I thought it had an intriguing and original premise that pleasantly clashed with the conventional character arc of characters learning something about themselves and all that jazz. The loopy, reflexive style it is written in mirrors the mind of a psychopath in a way I hadn’t quite read before, but the exercise felt sometimes a little clinical for me. I was enticed intellectually and sometimes rebuked aesthetically. A novel that feels like a chore never fully connects.
That said, I thought Hexis was mostly a good novel. It is intelligent, original and it has heart in its own way. I suspect that I wasn’t the target audience for it and that it’s why I couldn’t emotionally connect at times. Oh well. Not the first or the last time it happens. I would recommend it to ambitious readers who feel like challenging their own habits and don’t mind something that errs on the brutal side a little bit.
7.1/10
