Olive Kitteridge

I’ve not finished this book, and I think I’m going to set it aside. So this isn’t a book review proper — yet I find that I want to write about my experience with it so far.

My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, the book is amazing. Following on the heels of Abide with Me, it only increases my appreciation for the skill of Elizabeth Strout. How does she do it? How does she create such real, complex characters? She must bring a notebook everywhere, and jot down mannerisms, impressions, descriptions — kind of like Harriett the Spy in the children’s classic. I find her to be an extraordinarily perceptive writer with regard to people and relationships.

On the other hand, having read half of the series of short stories that make up Olive Kitteridge, I’ve yet to find a ray of hope. There’s a man having an affair. A mother estranged from her son and his new wife. A married pharmacist who gets emotionally involved with his assistant. A suicidal son of a suicidal mother. A hostage situation in a hospital emergency room that reveals the worst in a married couple’s feelings toward one another.

I’m in a reading season when I shy away from books like this. The good writing doesn’t outweigh the depressing effect of the stories. The world is a troubled enough place already. I think of Eustace trying to navigate the landscape in Dawn Treader when he’d “read none of the right books,” and I realize that I’m trying to choose books that equip my mind and heart to maintain a hopeful perspective in the landscape of today’s world.  Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to hop across a bed of hot coals, and I’ve accumulated quite a pile of abandoned books.

There is truth in Olive Kitteridge, the partial truth of fallen humanity. From time to time we see a shaft of glorious possibility in these characters, but for the most part they are losing their personal battles. Though I’ll never see the private life of even one person I know with the clarity and detail that Strout grants to numerous characters in this collection, I wouldn’t say these stories strike a false note. It’s just that the isolation and bewilderment they depict is never relieved. In that sense this is a very different book than Abide with Me. The whole experience has raised questions for me about why we read, what we read, and the different seasons of our reading lives.