Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for the curious novel, Olive Kitteridge.  Oprah selected it for her book club.  Several friends recommended it, and I stated to read it, but I found the title character a miserable, thoroughly unpleasant individual.  The “Rule of Fifty” quickly took over, and I had almost forgotten it, when a miniseries of the novel appeared.  Olive was played by Frances McDormand, an actor I greatly admire.  I decided to watch the 4-part miniseries, and I am glad I did.  Normally a film follows a reading, but in this case the film drew me back to the novel for a second go.

Olive is married to Henry, a pharmacist in a small town in Maine, and they have one child, Christopher.  Olive is a demanding wife and mother, and she never misses an opportunity to skewer Henry, or her son, her students, or anyone else not up to her standards.  Olive does not suffer fools lightly.  Henry obviously loves Olive, and he most often silently submits to Olive’s barbs.  Occasionally, he will come back at Olive, but then ends up submitting.  Strout writes, “Olive had refused to go to church the day before, and Henry, uncharacteristically, had spoken to her sharply.  ‘Is it too much to ask,’ he found himself saying, as he stood in the kitchen in his undershorts, ironing his trousers.  ‘A man’s wife accompanying him to church?’  Going without her seemed a public exposure of familial failure. // ‘Yes, it most certainly is too […] much to ask!’  Olive had spit, her fury’s death flung open.  ‘You have no idea how tired I am, teaching all day, going to foolish meetings where the […] principal is a moron!  Shopping.  Cooling.  Ironing.  Laundry.  Doing Christopher’s homework with him!  And you –‘  She grabbed on to the back dining room chair, and her dark hair, still uncombed from its night’s disarrangement, had fallen across her eyes.  ‘You, Mr. Head Deacon Claptrap Nice Guy, expect me to give up my Sunday mornings and go sit among a bunch of snot-wots!’  Very suddenly she had sat down in the chair.  ‘Well, I’m sick and tired of it,’ she said, calmly.  ‘Sick to death’.”  // A darkness had rumbled through him; his soul was suffocating in tar.  The next morning.  Olive spoke to him conversationally.  “Jim’s car smelled like upchuck last week.  Hope he’s cleaned it out.’  Jim O’Casey taught with Olive, and for years took both Christopher and Olive to school” (9).  Now, I can’t help hearing Frances McDormand as Olive. 

Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins

Olive has numerous struggles in her life, not the least of which involve Henry and Christopher.  She also has a secret life, which has a tragic ending devastating to Olive. Unlike the novel, which begins innocuously with Henry opening the pharmacy one morning, the film begins with a scene of Olive contemplating suicide.  This subject comes up several times in the novel with various results following Olive’s chance encounters with other characters outside her family.  Spoiler alert, she does not follow through with her plan. 

I am sorry I did not get back to Elizabeth Strout’s funny/sad, poignant/obnoxious novel, Olive Kitteridge.  A good example of why keeping those novels I abandon early on safely on the shelf patiently awaiting a second chance.  Still, Olive did make me a bit squirmish, so I give it 4 stars

--Chiron, 6/25/15

 

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this novel won a Pulitzer Prize. The committee must have had an overstock of shrinks and therapists! Practically every character is either suicidal, anorexic, depressed, paranoid, just plain loopy, or all of the above. Crosby, Maine must be one hell-hole of a place to live.

Olive Kitteridge, retired school teacher, lives with her husband Henry, the town pharmacist, and her son Christopher. Chris marries a woman whom Olive, naturally, hates. She has disparaging comments about everyone in town, which sometimes she bases on nothing more than rumor. Her husband tells her she has never apologized for anything. In the closing chapters, she admits this. So guess how many people, including her son, she called and tried to make amends? Zero. Olive is one of the most despicable characters I have encountered in quite a while. Why are people afraid to apologize – when they are wrong or even when right, and the dispute is not worth the loss of a friend? Is saving face that important? Is the possibility of appearing weak that repulsive?

However, the novel is well written. Numerous passages sprinkled throughout have a certain luster, a smooth polished surface that kept me reading. Here is one example:

“He was as much a stranger up here now as any tourist might be, and yet gazing back at the sun-sliced bay, he noted how familiar it felt; he had not expected that. The salt air filled his nose, the wild rugosa bushes with their white blossoms brought him a vague confusion; a sense of sad ignorance seemed cloaked in their benign white petals” (31).

I gather these chapters are intended as a collection of short stories, but does the reader need to be told in nearly every chapter that Olive taught math in seventh grade? Some more skillful editing would have helped this story become a bit more enjoyable.

All of these stars are strictly for the writing. 3 stars

--Chiron, 5/29/11