Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
270 pages, @2008
Where oh where have I been? That is a good question. You know sometimes when you just need a break from life to clear your head? Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. I had a stressful two weeks and just needed a break from everything. I hope you won’t hold it against me. Anyway, now I’m back, and contemplating a 40 day challenge, so that I blog continuously for 40 days, just to get me back on track. I’ve got a lot of great blog entries coming up (that’s what happens when you take a 2 week break) so let’s get to it.
Our February (or was it March) book group book, picked by my friend Jen was Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I have to say of the 9 books that I’ve read to date (well, I’ve read more, but that I’ve blogged about to date) this is definitely one of my favorites of the year. While the book is a fictional novel, each chapter is essentially a short story of a character that lives in the small town of Crosby, Maine, where Olive Kitteridge is a teacher. Each character is somehow related to Olive, whether they were her student, neighbor, husband, son, friend or herself directly, because of that the book reads more like a novel then a book of short stories.
When discussing what the book was really about we agreed that the following quote from the author summed it up nicely:
“I would hope that my readers feel a sense of awe at the quality of human endurance, at the endurance of love in the face of a variety of difficulties; that the quotidian life is not always easy, and is something worthy of respect. I would also hope that readers receive a large understanding, or a different understanding, of what it means to be human, than they might have had before. We suffer from being quick to judge, quick to make excuses for ourselves and others, and I would like the reader to feel that we are all, more or less, in a similar state as we love and disappoint one another, and that we try, most of us, as best we can, and that to fail and succeed is what we do.”
This book was certainly not an uplifting story as it dealt with betrayal, deception, lies and how while on the outside someone’s life may appear picture perfect, that isn’t always the case. It dealt with personal insecurity as a person (mother, daughter, friend, husband, son, neighbor, etc). It also dealt with how people handle their own mortality and that of their spouse, parent and/or child. I felt the book was very relatable. However, it’s not something I would recommend to people in their 50′s and 60′s because it might hit “too close” to home.
Overall, I thought it was masterfully written, subtle yet poignant, with incredibly strong characters. While it is not uplifting, if you ever marvel at the resiliency of human beings, you’ll have a warm spot in your heart by the end for Olive and some of the her neighbors in Crosby, Maine. I thought that this book blew Strout’s other book that I recently read, Amy & Isabelle, out of the water. She has definitely improved as a writer.
4 1/2 stars
Post in Comments:
What is your favorite book by Elizabeth Strout? And if you read Olive Kitteridge, what did you think of it?
I definitely enjoyed Olive Kittredge as well but I would probably give it 3 1/2 stars. I personally just don’t like books with a lot of characters (i started to write chocolate…oh my) because i feel like I can’t really get INTO a book and get lost in it. But I thought the stories were touching and Strout really showed the breadth of relationships she can capture.
By: Shion on March 31, 2010
at 11:20 am