Sheila Heti’s new novel, “Pure Colour,” is about a young woman who turns into a leaf. “Unrequited love’s a bore,” Billie Holiday sang. So, it turns out, is photosynthesis.

The young woman’s name is Mira. Her transformation is disorienting, to us if not her. One moment the reader is consuming shot after shot of Heti’s strong, familiar brand of espresso. The next we’re sipping as if out of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup at MoMA.

“Pure Colour” has an intricate philosophical superstructure. Mira, who early in the novel works in a lamp store and attends a prestigious school for art critics — the first sign that this book is a fable — is clearly living in end times.

The heat is grievous. (“Seasons had become postmodern.”) The internet has splintered comity. (“There was so much more hate than any of us had the capacity to understand.”) Everything seems dirty, sad and wrong. The colors are leaching from things.