I’m a great believer of “What’s within, without”, meaning that what’s inside us is reflected in what we show to the world. However, Okri goes on a different mission and through his little tale shows how what’s “without” effects what’s within and how if we do changes to the without then we can expect changes within.

His is an easy tale but like a still pond it has depth. So I took a deep dive and wondered and came up again wondering still and hope to remember and wonder again and maybe tweak here and there and unchain myself...........

Some quotations because I simply must:

People saw me differently. So I was different.

Personality is a construct which we mistake for the real thing.

It’s rare to find the real person in a person.

There was simply no way to tell which was which. Some inclination made people choose whether to elevate or depress themselves.

I absolutely flew through Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted. Okri’s writing is addictive, and I lost count of how many lines I wanted to save and come back to later. There’s something almost hypnotic about the way he writes - his words pull you in so completely that I barely noticed how quickly I was turning the pages. The premise itself is fascinating, and it sparked some really interesting dinner-table discussions that stayed with me long after I’d finished the book.

That said, I’m not entirely sure how much of it I actually understood. The fantastical elements left me feeling completely disoriented at times, almost as if I were in the same trance-like state as the characters. It felt like the book was constantly slipping through my fingers - just as I thought I was starting to grasp its meaning, it would drift away again. Okri seems to be exploring some profound questions - about love, time, intuition, and what it means to be human - but always in a way that feels just out of reach. And yet, that’s part of what makes it so compelling. I have a feeling this is a book that would reveal something new every time you read it.

Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted follows Viv's attempts to set up a festival for the broken hearted. There is fancy dress, an enchanted forest, and a very special guest in the form of famed fortune teller, Madame Sosostris. But when disaster threatens, friendships, marriages and reality will be tested.

This was a treat to read from beginning to end. Okri's writing is incredible and made this book hard to put down - I flew through it despite the advice at the opening to 'read slowly'. It's dialogue heavy, which I absolutely loved, with narrative sections drenched in imagery and philosophical musings on relationships, reality and love.

Ben Okri is such a wonderful writer that I came to this with huge expectations. When I finished, I put the book down with a shrug of the shoulders and a feeling that I had had a mere glimpse of what could have been a great novel.

Two couples , Viv and Alan and Beatrice and Stephen, organise a mystical party in the woods, inviting famous clairvoyant Madame Sosostris (her of 'The Waste Land' fame). Will they pull off a magical night for their friends and all invited? Will Madame Sosostris turn up?

There was so much potential, notwithstanding the obvious links to T.S. Eliot and Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream', but other than lots of dialogue at the start of the book, and the unfolding events in the woods, I just missed the point somehow. It is very stylised, a little hard to connect with, and after I had closed the book and shrugged I struggled to recall what it was I had just read.

Okri can write like few contemporary novelists, but this just left me a little cold and, as a result, a little disappointed. Somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars just because of the writing.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

Ben Okri has always been, and always will be, one of my all time favourite writers. However, with Madame Sosostris I just couldn’t help but feel he has gifted us a half-formed thing. Here is the bare bones of something that could have been spectacular, but feels instead rather shallow. The writing is superb, of course, but the overly long clever/witty dialogues feel more like an Oscar Wilde play than a Ben Okri novel. Besides, at less than 200 pages, it really is more a novella than a novel. If only he had fleshed this story out with more backstory, more prose, then I think I would have loved it immensely. As it stands, I read it in one sitting (despite reading it slow!) and I fear it will be forgotten before long. Farewell, Madame Sosostris.

Whenever you want to impart wise words, organise a masquerade ball and throw in a clairvoyant too, for good measure. And that my friends, is exactly what Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted is: a vehicle for Ben Okri to offer us, the readers, wise words to live by. And that's alright, because I've had fun! I loved the dialogues, the banter between the main 2 couples. I've agreed with many of the hard words thrown around in their arguments. And I loved how growth/change, in its different variations was experienced by the characters.

But, but, but I cannot, I repeat, I cannot accept the moral of the story: "There's no such thing as chance". I am sorry but by the very fabric of life, there is inherent randomness at subatomic level that we cannot escape no matter how much we want to fool ourselves we can escape the randomness of nature!

Abso,utely captivating. What more can I say about this magical and mysterious book that took me on such an unexpected journey? Ben Okri uses a masquerade setting to explore so many human themes in a totally original way. Love, loss, identity; mainly by way of conversations he makes the reader think about so many of the things we hold dear. It’s original. I speed read it in almost a single sitting, but this is a book spot sit and savour. There’s not a wasted word and every page has something profound. It’s haunting too; some of the exchanges are still floating around in my head. I loved it.

Viv, wealthy resident of Notting Hill and member of the House of Lords, is struck, on the 20th anniversary of her first husband leaving her by the thought that one never really recovers from a broken heart. She therefore plans a Festival for the Broken Hearted, which will take place in an enchanted forest in the South of France - this on the advice of Madame Sosostris whom she chances to meet in Parliament.and who promises to come and give readings for the festival goers. The day dawns, everyone arrives, all are in costume and masked. Nobody knows each other. Madame Sosostris however, has yet to arrive - will the festival fall apart.? Will Viv's marriage lasty the night - will anyone else's? Fum, entertaining novella.

This is one of those times that you read a book, want to zip through it because the writing is so good, but you have to force yourself to slow down to make sure you don't miss a thing.

It's also one of those books that I loved and loved reading but apart from a strange festival in which people are given strange advice by Madame Sosostris, the wisest woman in Europe, who reads their cards, I could not honestly tell you what it was about or even why I thoroughly enjoyed it.

To me it simply spoke of one of those times you reach in life where you wonder what you've been doing with your time and what you really need is to take a deep breath and take stock of your life. What better time to reevaluate and make a change than now?

I've not read any Ben Okri previously but I certainly shall now. I only hope I'm as bedazzled by his other work as I was by this short novel.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.

A wonderful playful romp that is funny and uplifting and very real, despite the magical setting and the strange and mysterious occurrences throughout. Such a clever and carefully written book leaving you with lots to consider about identity, reality and relationships, opening up many more questions than it answers and leaving you feeling so much better for it.

This is a slim novella which can be read in a couple of sittings, firmly in an English magic realist style. The story is simple enough: two urbane and intellectual couples undergo a night of magic and transformation in the woods redolent of the Athenian lovers from A Midsummer Nights Dream. In place of Puck and his magic potion we have a magic fortune-teller, Madame Sosostris, who is the centrepiece of a festival planned by Viv. Along the way, as the festival of the Broken-hearted is planned and unfolds (bringing to mind the fabulous chateau party in Les Grandes Meulnes), Viv’s husband Alan and her best friend Beatrice and her husband Stephen spend most of the novel swapping epithets on love, separation, truth, identity and much more.

Okri I feel here is playing around as much with the literary landscapes as anything else. The two feuding couples in the woods from Shakespare, the fortune-teller a character from TS Eliots’ The Wasteland, one of the central characters has the name of Eliots first wife who of course was rather more than merely broken-hearted on their separation, as Eliot had her committed to a mental hospital. To Fournier, Shakespeare and Eliot you can add Chekhov, he of the world-weary aristos musing on life and fate in a country house.

The period is curious, much of their dialogue appears to be Bloomsbury Set, but it is set in the present day. The characters are curious, likewise both contemporary and from history. Their stylised language is curious, again as if Virginia Woolf had written a novel set today. It's a curious novel, in the best sense, and if you don’t worry too much about where it is all headed there’s lots of fun along the way.

I am so disappointed with this - the concept is awesome and what a beautiful cover. Unfortunately, it was a book full of badly written dialogue (coming from someone with a degree in scriptwriting) and almost no prose AT ALL, 99.9% dialogue for such a concept seems like a crime. The characters were unbearable and half the time you have no clue whats going on or the POINT of anything.

A charming, immersive novel that takes me back to reading fairytales as a child. The dialogue is snappy and sharp - perhaps at the expense of realism, but that's not the aim of this book. It felt like walking into a dream.

A short novel, with lines and lines of conversation, some of which follow on so closely and for so long, that sometimes it's difficult to work out who is speaking, yet which holds the attention as one wonders whether the Festival for The Broken-Hearted will ever actually occur. And when it does, will Madame Sosostris ever arrive? And what will happen if she does not?

Ben Okri's novel (too short for a novel, too long for a novelette) is almost an adult fairy tale, looking at two couples whose marriages are broken. The more powerful wife, Viv, who happens to sit in the House of Lords, decides on a whim to organises a Festival for all those who are broken hearted, and enrolls her friend Beatrice to help. The Festival becomes a masked ball; and behind the masks the couples meet each other and may or may not recognise their spouses. And there are a number of faerie spirits and ghosts floating around too. Quite why (or indeed how) Viv manages to be in the Lords is never explained nor is it really fully fleshed out in her character and capabilities - other than being powerful enough to organise the Festival.

There are hints of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the forest and in disguise; of T S Eliott's Madame Sosostris in The Waste Land, the wisest woman in all of Europe; of myths and magic and mistaken identity. And underneath it all lie the questions of personality and identity, of love and marriage, of happiness and broken hearts and broken dreams.

The book begins, 'Read Slowly.' I wondered at first if the word 'read' is to be pronounced 'reed' or 'red' and thought it slightly pretentious, however it was meant to be 'red.' Maybe the conversational lines would be easier to understand if 'red' more slowly and considerately, but otherwise I continued at my usual pace, not wishing to have it dictated by the author. But perhaps if I had followed the instruction and 'red' more slowly I would have gained more from the book?

Sadly, the book didn't grip me; the characters were not developed except in their brief sentences of conversation which did not go very deep to find out more about them. Some of the banter was clever and witty, sometimes it seemed bizarre and sometimes just way off. I am still not fully sure of the reason the author wrote this. Unless it was to have it turned into a play or a film.

With thanks to the publishers and to Netgalley for an advanced reader copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ben Okri for this ARC!

This reads like tale of legend, both incredibly current in how it tackles the theme of heartbreak but full of almost a mythological kind of mystique as well. I really felt a sense of playfulness when I was reading this and I really enjoyed how this narrative moved.

Madame Sosostris & The Festival for the Broken-Hearted takes Eliot's character from The Wasteland and reimagines her is a modern setting. Two high-achieving couples seem discontented with their lives and with each other, Viv in particular. On the twentieth anniversary of her first husband leaving her, she comes up with the idea of a festival for the broken-hearted, noting 'the impossibility of recovering from real heartbreak'. Madame Sosostris appears, as if from nowhere, and seems to already know Viv's mind and, making very high demands, agrees to appear at the Festival. She is to be the star of the show and is a huge draw for potential festival-goers. But when festival plans go wrong, Viv must find a way to rescue what must inevitably be a disaster and one that will upturn her successful life. The outcome is perhaps unsurprising, but is very satisfying for all that.

Do you need to know Eliot's 'The Wasteland' to understand this story? Absolutely not. The more curious reader might wish to do some research afterwards, but Okri's re-imagining of the wasteland of post-war Britain and the death of culture into the 21st century can stand alone. Eliot's wasteland is full of allusion and reference, much of which might seem impossible to disentangle and understand. Okri's magical realism shows us the way, even when much of the festival seems nebulous. If we take his advice and 'Read slowly', we will be rewarded. In many ways this is a book of modern manners - or lack of them. Being beguiled by fame for fame's sake and chasing rainbows; losing sight of what is actually important. Is the 21st century just another version of Eliot's wasteland, Okri seems to be asking. But he asks it gently, poking fun at what is seen to be important, what life is apparently all about. There is some hope in his vision.


Magical realism imbues the book

Hmmm.... not quite sure what to make of this one.

It's sometimes compelling but sometimes I felt I wanted to skip through it as there appeared to be some repetition. I did read it quickly - though the advice was to read slowly - as it seemed to lend itself more to a rapid read. A mixture of The Wasteland, The Dream, and maybe a bit of The Magus thrown in (though maybe that's just my interpretation), this short novel is certainly intriguing. It raises questions of identity and authenticity (Hello, Sartre) and plays with reality.

A fortune teller, first seen giving readings in the House of Lords(!), is invited to a masked ball for the broken-hearted, held in an enchanted forest. She speaks ultimately through other people (don't want to give things away) and all the attendees, living or dead, have their futures told. Two couples are at the centre of this and the story(?) focusses on them.

There is a great deal of unattributed dialogue (I believe the book was performed as a play at one time) and though it's not terribly difficult to work out who's saying what, it makes for a rather odd read. With very little description or background information, or bits of business to break it up, the dialogue naturally becomes a rapid-fire exchange. However, I did not feel that the actual words were particularly outstanding - certainly not sufficiently awe-inspiring to make it a literary masterpiece. The ideas (identity etc) are interesting enough, but not new, and the whole thing is rather puzzling. I didn't not enjoy it but I didn't especially enjoy it either, and I'm glad it wasn't longer. So, it does not, perhaps, achieve whatever it's meant to achieve.

Unless it's just me and I simply didn't get it.

Ben Okri is such a masterful writer and this book is a delight to read. On the surface it is quite a whimsical and witty story. But it is actually full of depth and exploration of the shadow. We are drawn into the esoteric experience and further drawn into the significance of the wearing of masks, both literal and metaphorical. Okri advises us to read this book slowly. I couldn't put it down so I think I may have to read it again ... slowly this time.

This is a short novel that is in the tradition of magical realism and is thoroughly engaging and well written.

The main characters are two married couples and the two wives, Viv and Beatrice, are the best of friends. Their respective husbands, Alan and Stephen, lock horns rather than being friends. Viv, a high flying member of society, in the House of Lords no less, conceives of a Festival for the Broken-Hearted on the twentieth anniversary of the day her first husband left her.

The Festival for the Broken-Hearted. takes place on one Midsummer’s Night in the South of France because this is where the fortune teller Madame Sosostris has sent Viv.

Everyone is in fancy dress. Anonymous. Music plays. Guests wander the beautiful sacred woods and a very special guest is the famous Madame Sosostris, known as the wisest woman in Europe. She of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. All have questions, failures, disappointments.

To tell more would reveal the plot so best just to read it! I got hints of Marlon James, John Fowles alongside Shakespeare. Despite other reviews it is an easy read and I recommend it. I read an ARC provided by NetGalley and tge publishers.

Ben Okri has a way of making the reader believe everything that he writes, even when he is writing about magical things.
This book is a short book easily read in one sitting.
I loved it.
The depth of meaning was phenomenal.
As Ben Okri says, the story is best read slowly. It is also probably best to read it again an again when you feel down.
My thanks to the author for the hours of enjoyment that the book has brought me, I received an advance review copy for free.
I am leaving this review voluntarily.