Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
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Book Reviews of Olive Kitteridge
Book Review: A Wonderful Book of Interconnected Short Stories
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a difficult book to review because it defies categorization. It is composed of 13 short stories about or involving the title character, Olive Kitteridge. It can also be called a novel because the stories flow, one into the next building a context so that we get to know Olive, her surroundings and her life. Short stories can't do this yet novel chapters can not often stand alone.
Olive is both complex and simple. She has a mercurial, tough and direct manner and it is difficult to predict how she will respond to a particular circumstance. Yet she is also perceptive and can go out of her way to be kind to others in situations where she could easily turn her head. She has a tender side, a side aching for love and realizing the meaning of life as her days grow shorter.
She has interactions with others that can effect the course of their lives. In one story she takes the time to talk to a suicidal man who was once her student. In another story she has the gut feeling that a student in her class may be troubled and she takes the time to ask her if anything is bothering her. Yet she embodies the existential theme of aloneness, taking her loneliness and aloneness as a mandate - we are all alone and must face our deaths and fates solely by ourselve. She just hopes that when her death comes it will be quick.
She is a tough woman who intimidates others. Sometimes she will be callous and not give others the time of day. She can be coarse and prejudiced. She also has another side, one that is so sensitive that she can hardly bare the pain of appearing weak. She grieves the rift with her son who she loves so much yet her sensitivity gives way to self-sabotage. She desires love so much that the caress of a dentist's hand on her face creates a longing within her. On the other hand, she takes the precious days with her devoted husband in stride not realizing that life is not a dress rehearsal.
Do I like Olive? I'm not sure. Yet reading this book gave me the sense that I know her. She has stayed in my consciousness in many ways. This is a great book. I have been a fan of Ms. Strout's since her first novel, Amy and Isabelle.
Book Review: Best of 2009!
Summary: 5 Stars
Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" is the Pulitzer Prize Winner Fiction for 2009. Because I have so greatly adored the previous few winners I had to pick this up as soon as the winner was announced. It did not disappoint!
This book has depth! Be prepared to immerse yourself in the world created in this novel. It's not a quick read, it takes focus to get through it. I even took notes in the back few blank pages of the book.
The book is centered around Olive Kitteridge, yet most of the chapters and stories are not directly about her. Each story is about someone that was affected by her, or involved with her somehow. There are a few sections that are directly about Olive herself as well.
The characters are referenced in other chapters other than their own, so I opted to keep a chart of characters with a little blip about them and their relationships with other characters, as a reference. This came in handy! I would recommend keeping a character chart so that you can full experience the depth of the novel.
The stories are so real, its small town America! All of the people in the town know each other, they know each others secrets and have crossed each others paths on many occasions. Their lives are intertwined whether they like it or not.
The mothers and fathers desire so greatly to have their children in their arms forever. They want the best for their families and can't understand their children's need to run away all the time. They resign to the fact that all children hate their parents, but have a hard time understanding why.
Spouses find themselves having their needs fulfilled by people they never expected to want or need. They wonder how their relationships have gotten to the places that they are today. They wonder who they have become and why they should need another person to complete them.
The book deals with issues such as anorexia, divorce, aging, disaster, marriage, family and love.
The relationships are complex, and the writing is introspective. This is by far the best book I have read in 2009.
Book Review: Review of Olive Kitteridge
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm always a little bit intimidated when I pick up books stamped with a little gold seal that proclaims them a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. When I look at that little sticker a little voice inside of my head tells me: "You better like this book because people a whole lot smarter than you found it to be amazing".
Then I start to read, and as I read I have arguments with myself. I go back and forth with thoughts.
Well, it really is quite beautifully written.
Yes, but it's so incredibly depressing!
Well, I think she's attempting to show us human nature?
Yes, but are we all that depraved? Is it natural for people to be so unhappy?
And so on and so forth. And so, as I closed OLIVE KITTERIDGE (and at the risk of sounding like I'm a complete idiot who just doesn't get what those uber-smart Pulitzer Prize awarders get) I have to tell you that this book holds the honor of being in the top ten more depressing books I've read.
Elizabeth Strout says in an interview at the end of the book that one of the reasons for the short stories was to give us, the readers, a break from Olive Kitteride - and for that I will be forever grateful. Sure there were parts of Olive's personality that reminded me of women and men in my life, but as a whole package I found her to be one of the most horrifying specimens of humanity I've read about.
The redeeming factor in this book was a character by the name of Henry Kitteridge. The first story introducing Henry had my heart softening toward the book and toward Olive - and it wasn't until Henry began to fade into the background that I started to feel strong surges of anger toward Olive.
So for me - the book was just simply "okay". I did not feel as if I learned anything profound from it. I walked away feeling depressed and wondering if an outsider looking in at us would see us so hopeless. I wanted to believe that these stories were meant to show us the endurance of the human race - but instead I saw just how pathetic we are.
Book Review: Emotionally haunting
Summary: 5 Stars
Olive Kitteridge is a book of short stories that take place in Crosby, Maine over a span of thirty years and Olive is a character that plays a role, however large or small in the lives of all the characters.
Henry Kitteridge is Olive's husband and he works as a pharmacist. Olive is a school teacher and they have one son, Christopher.
The stories, thirteen of them, show the lives of Olive and Henry at various stages of their life together. In some of them, Olive is the main character, in others, she is just a small presence. Olive is not the most likable character "Olive had a way about her that was absolutely without apology..." Olive struggles with her relationship with Henry and her relationship with her son.
Pharmacy is from the perspective of Henry and in Ship in a Bottle Olive is remembered by one of her former students, a young woman who wants to escape the life of her family. In Security, Olive visits her son and his new wife in NYC and discovers that nothing is what it seems. All of the stories involve characters that are dealing with change, relationships, and wanting more. They are beautifully written and powerful. The stories are emotional and honest, haunting and yet hopeful.
This passage particularly struck me "What young people didn't know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. And if her platter had been full...and she had found it burdensome... it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered."
I read this book over a span of a few days, though I wanted to savor it more slowly. It is a book I will read again and most likely discover things I did not see the first time. I highly recommend this amazing work.
Book Review: A great read & choice for a book club selection
Summary: 4 Stars
For the second time this month, I've read a novel that actually reads more like a collection of short stories. But unlike my previous experience, I really enjoyed Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for literature, Olive Kitteridge is a collection of stories set in a small town in Maine. The common thread that ties them all together is a local school teacher and namesake of the collection.
Olive is strong-willed, brash, opinionated and sometimes even cold. However, she loves fiercely and deeply and through the eyes of her fellow citizens the reader see a women who is respected for her truth-telling and loyalty.
Anyone who has lived any amount of time in a small town will recognize the characters in Olive Kitteridge - the widow embarrassed by her husbands infidelity; the mother loyal to a son who has committed an unforgivable sin; the young man on the brink of suicide because he never quite outran his troubled youth; the older married couple thankful they've outlived their storms and can now enjoy the "dessert" of their relationship; the floundering live-in girlfriend desperate for her lover to commit; and many others.
And, most readers who have struggled with wanting to love well but who acknowledge they fall short will see a part of themselves in Olive. It isn't always pretty, but it is true.
Olive's own story contains her husband, Henry, and her son, Christopher. Her son marries a strong woman (not unlike Olive) who moves them across the US to California and then divorces him. In their later years Henry suffers from a stroke and loses the ability to communicate with Olive. Her character is tested immensely with both men.
One review I read of this early on recommended it for book clubs because there was so much to talk about. I whole heartedly agree. There are many complex characters who warrant their own discussion. Add Olive to that and you've got an evening of laughter, wonder and honesty.