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DCUM book club: Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout (spoiler alert)
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Anonymous
| This is the thread to discuss the book [u]Olive Kitteredge[u]. Can't wait to join the discussion. |
Anonymous
| Didn't like it. Well written but it nearly drove me to drink. |
Anonymous
| I thought it was ok - I like a good character study. But I thought it would be better. Kinda depressing. |
Anonymous
| I LOVED the book...couldnt put it down....really want my Mom to read it, just the way it encapsulated many parts of one personality--the hard to like and the likeable....terrific.... |
Anonymous
| It took me a looong time to get into it, but by the end I was crying. PP, I also want my mom to read it too. After a major transition, I think I'm having an early mid-life crisis, so the entire theme about aging really struck a chord with me. |
Anonymous
|
I really liked it. I rarely get into short story collection (I much prefer novels), but I thought that this one really worked. As unlikeable as Olive was at times, she felt human to me, and I appreciated that.
One question: In the story towards the beginning of the book where Olive is in the car with her former student who has come back to town to kill himself, as we to understand that the young man has killed his mentor back in NYC, or is that just my reading? |
Anonymous
I did not interpret it that way. |
Anonymous
This is 12:41 again. Yeah, I read a review and the reviewer didn't seem to interpret it that way either. OK thanks. |
Anonymous
What drove you crazy about it? Unlikeable characters or just the form? I remember hating "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler," by Italo Calvino because it was written like a series of short stories. But I later grew to love that author and reread it and felt differently. I'm not sure Olive will stand up to time as well, from what I'm hearing here. Anyone really like it? Any favorite parts? |
Anonymous
|
Since the book is a few years old, I thought it might be fun to dig up an old review. Seems like it matches what many of you are saying you liked about the book (even if you had a hard time with it). The part about the anorexic woman got to me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/books/review/Thomas-t.html |
Anonymous
|
I'm one of the ones who really liked the book. A few of the stories that really stood out (forgive me if I don't remember some of the characters names):
The first story. It was such a tender portrait of Olive's husband Henry. His platonic relationship in his pharmacy assistant -- and the way is seemed to positively affect his own marriage -- was really interesting. And then when her husband died and she married the guy that turned into a jerk, that was devastating. I love the way that story swings from Henry as a young-ish man to Henry as an older man. The story where Olive is in her son's house on the day of his wedding and she steals her new DIL's bra and shoe. Priceless! And her rationale -- so the DIL will doubt herself every once is a while -- totally worked. (The tragedy of Christopher marrying this woman becomes even more poignant when we learn in a later story that the marriage only lasted a few months.) The story in which Olive and Henry are taken hostage in the hospital. I like this not for the drama which would be so easy to exploit (being naked in a hospital gown while a pig-faced kid holds you hostage), but for the drama that is unexpected: While under duress the long-married Olive and Henry say the cruel things to each other that they have been holding back all these years -- and that are impossible to take back. It made me think about the "unspeakables" in my own marriage, and what would happen if I ever said some of them to DH. The last story. I didn't love this story for the story itself, but for the fact that it offered Olive a type of redemption. She is miserable, and yet she is not human. She misses her husband and she wants contact and so even if the new guy (sorry, I forget his name) is a Republican, she feels something for him. And while that something will never be what she had with Henry, it is enough. |
Anonymous
| I dunno. I kept asking myself "Why Am I reading something that makes me feel like i'm 74?" I'm only 46! Is it good writing if it makes me feel 30 years older while I'm reading it? I guess that is good writing - but isn't there a TON of good writing out there? Why do i need to read something that makes me feel old? Do we read these things for the little gems of wisdom we find in them? I'd rather search for shells on the beach, and read something fun and exciting... or classic. Thanks for reading my post. I read constantly and don't have the patience for book clubs or book club books so I thought i'd give this a try. |
Anonymous
Sadly, no. I thought this was an excellent book, elegantly written, with complicated and well-developed characters, although I agree that it wasn't exactly fun. |
Anonymous
| I also really enjoyed it - as pp says, the characters were well-developed, and I grew to care about them and wanted to see how they would behave and what would happen to them. Even Olive, regardless of how dislikable some of her traits were. |
Anonymous
| I too found the title character off-putting (I suppose we were meant to) but found myself caught up in the writing and the rich, complex characters. It did make me cry, and feel pretty despondent about growing older and the inability of people to truly know one another. I don't know if I would recommend it to a friend but I can understand why it was an award-winning novel. It also reminded me a little of The Dubliners. |