 | A WRITER'S WIT |  F. Hurst |
MY BOOK WORLD
Strout, Elizabeth. Olive, Again: A Novel. New York: Random, 2019.
I love Elizabeth Strout’s writing. It reads so simply; the pages just fly by. But one must not mistake this ease of reading for a lack of complexity. Her characters only seem to step out of real life and onto the page with little effort. I fell in love with Olive in Olive Kitteridge: She blurts out what she thinks, no matter whom it may offend or hurt. Even so, she’s had two loving husbands, both of whom have died on her.
In Olive, Again I fall in love all over again. “Olive” and I are now in the same age range. Strout writes effectively in a charming way about being old. (As I say to my friends, “I didn’t mind getting old, but I hate being old.”) As a retired school teacher from the region (Maine), Olive continually runs into (grown) people who were once her pupils. Some of them she doesn’t like and vice versa. Others she has a soft spot for. After Olive experiences a heart attack, her son arranges for her to receive home healthcare until she can manage by herself. One of the helpers is a former student who has, to Olive, an offensive bumper sticker on her car—one promoting an oranged-hair man who becomes president. Yet, in the end, she asks this woman to tell Olive her story, and once again, in her own gruff manner, she accepts this woman, political views and all.
Olive’s son has been thoughtful enough to put her name on a wait list at a local facility featuring a variety of settings for seniors, so she doesn’t have long to wait when she makes the decision to move there. She abhors the idea but realizes she can no longer manage the house she shared with her second husband (besides, it was formerly his house and she’s never felt at home there). At the facility, Olive finds herself alone in most situations; she just has no patience for people who don’t think like her, and she often tells them so in one way or another. After some time, however, she does make friends with someone she names Mousy Pants. Mousy Pants turns out to be an Isabelle, who shares her life story with Olive, and they realize they have a great deal in common: adult children who care for them but live at some distance, for one. They go so far, after a health scare, to exchange door keys. On alternating nights, one stops by to wave good night and see that everything is all right. Olive is relieved to find out that she’s not the only resident using what she calls poopy pants (adult diapers). On the next to the last page, eighty-five-year-old Olive comes to this realization:
She was going to die. It seemed extraordinary to her, amazing. She had never really believed it before.
But it was almost over, after all, her life. It swelled behind her like a sardine fishing net, all sorts of useless seaweed and broken bits of shells and the tiny, shining fish—all those hundreds of students she had taught, the girls and boys in high school she had passed in the corridor when she was a high school girl herself (many—most—would be dead by now), the billion streaks of emotion she’d had as she’d looked at sunrises, sunsets, the different hands of waitresses who had placed before her cups of coffee— All of it gone, or about to go (288).
Strout’s novels are all award winners in one way or another; it is not hard to see why. And Olive, Again is no exception!
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Debbie Macomber
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Arvavind Adiga
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Gabrielle Zevin
FRI: My Book World | David Sedaris, The Best of Me
I love Elizabeth Strout’s writing. It reads so simply; the pages just fly by. But one must not mistake this ease of reading for a lack of complexity. Her characters only seem to step out of real life and onto the page with little effort. I fell in love with Olive in Olive Kitteridge: She blurts out what she thinks, no matter whom it may offend or hurt. Even so, she’s had two loving husbands, both of whom have died on her.
In Olive, Again I fall in love all over again. “Olive” and I are now in the same age range. Strout writes effectively in a charming way about being old. (As I say to my friends, “I didn’t mind getting old, but I hate being old.”) As a retired school teacher from the region (Maine), Olive continually runs into (grown) people who were once her pupils. Some of them she doesn’t like and vice versa. Others she has a soft spot for. After Olive experiences a heart attack, her son arranges for her to receive home healthcare until she can manage by herself. One of the helpers is a former student who has, to Olive, an offensive bumper sticker on her car—one promoting an oranged-hair man who becomes president. Yet, in the end, she asks this woman to tell Olive her story, and once again, in her own gruff manner, she accepts this woman, political views and all.
Olive’s son has been thoughtful enough to put her name on a wait list at a local facility featuring a variety of settings for seniors, so she doesn’t have long to wait when she makes the decision to move there. She abhors the idea but realizes she can no longer manage the house she shared with her second husband (besides, it was formerly his house and she’s never felt at home there). At the facility, Olive finds herself alone in most situations; she just has no patience for people who don’t think like her, and she often tells them so in one way or another. After some time, however, she does make friends with someone she names Mousy Pants. Mousy Pants turns out to be an Isabelle, who shares her life story with Olive, and they realize they have a great deal in common: adult children who care for them but live at some distance, for one. They go so far, after a health scare, to exchange door keys. On alternating nights, one stops by to wave good night and see that everything is all right. Olive is relieved to find out that she’s not the only resident using what she calls poopy pants (adult diapers). On the next to the last page, eighty-five-year-old Olive comes to this realization:
She was going to die. It seemed extraordinary to her, amazing. She had never really believed it before.
But it was almost over, after all, her life. It swelled behind her like a sardine fishing net, all sorts of useless seaweed and broken bits of shells and the tiny, shining fish—all those hundreds of students she had taught, the girls and boys in high school she had passed in the corridor when she was a high school girl herself (many—most—would be dead by now), the billion streaks of emotion she’d had as she’d looked at sunrises, sunsets, the different hands of waitresses who had placed before her cups of coffee— All of it gone, or about to go (288).
Strout’s novels are all award winners in one way or another; it is not hard to see why. And Olive, Again is no exception!
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Debbie Macomber
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Arvavind Adiga
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Gabrielle Zevin
FRI: My Book World | David Sedaris, The Best of Me
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