DCUM book club: Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout (spoiler alert)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is interesting. I actually have the same reaction to so many books, especially "clever" books that are designed to humanize or make you identify with / sympathize with a less than cheerful protagonist. I think the making you feel old was intentional. The book review I posted earlier excerpts some of the novel's narrative and the reviewer (correctly, I think) points out when the narrative turns from objective to Olive's voice. Reminds me of a shirt we bought my editor sister-in-law, which says "unreliable narrator." (which is one of my favorite literary concepts, but one that drives me NUTS.) I sometimes think, when books like this make me angry, that I'm an unsophisticated reader. But then I sometimes think some of the tricks the authors use to make us eventually empathize with the title character can be cheap. Most of us humans really do feel sorry for miserable people because we know that deep down they're suffering. When their meanness is directed at us or at other people, we don't sympathize. But when they "get theirs," we can see them as human again. I thought the prose of this book was beautiful, striking even, but I thought some of the twists and turns came across as almost cheap. If that makes any sense.

[Anonymous]

13:54 here again (also, I'm OP of the book club threads, finally having had a chance to finish this). I actually thought that John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces did a much better job of redeeming an unpopular / terrible protagonist. But of course, that was a much different book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is interesting. I actually have the same reaction to so many books, especially "clever" books that are designed to humanize or make you identify with / sympathize with a less than cheerful protagonist. I think the making you feel old was intentional. The book review I posted earlier excerpts some of the novel's narrative and the reviewer (correctly, I think) points out when the narrative turns from objective to Olive's voice. Reminds me of a shirt we bought my editor sister-in-law, which says "unreliable narrator." (which is one of my favorite literary concepts, but one that drives me NUTS.) I sometimes think, when books like this make me angry, that I'm an unsophisticated reader. But then I sometimes think some of the tricks the authors use to make us eventually empathize with the title character can be cheap. Most of us humans really do feel sorry for miserable people because we know that deep down they're suffering. When their meanness is directed at us or at other people, we don't sympathize. But when they "get theirs," we can see them as human again. I thought the prose of this book was beautiful, striking even, but I thought some of the twists and turns came across as almost cheap. If that makes any sense.

pp, here....yes, olive took over the storytelling, that's in her personality. I don't recall her being awful all the time, she had a lot more patience to sit in the car with her former student than I would have.

[Anonymous]

I found it tiresome that each and every story was, in its own way, filled with despair, desperation, or something else that generally made me wish we kept more liquor around. Yes, yes, it's a serious piece of literature, but since when does that mean that it has to be so depressing?