Olive Kitteridge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is Elizabeth Strout's third published book, which won Pulitzer prize in 2009. At first few chapters I asked myself, how on earth could this book win a Pulitzer? It seemed an ordinary literary fiction. But after finishing it, I realized there's the hidden layers beneath the seemingly a book about the lives of some residents of a coastal town Of Crosby in Maine. It is not a novel, to begin with, but a structure that is called short story cycle or story sequence or composite novel - a collection of short stories in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. [Wikipedia]

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is the main character here, although she didn't always appear as one. Sometimes she's just a passing character that someone mentioned, or just commented upon; but sometimes, like at the last chapter, she became the main character. Nevertheless, she is the connecting element that tied tall the stories together. Olive was a high school math teacher, a cantankerous woman with sharp tongue and abrasive manner. The first story, "Pharmacy", is about her husband, Henry Kitteridge. He's a pharmacist, and had a soft spot for his employee, Denise Thibodeau. At this stage (Henry and Olive were in their 30-ish, with an only son who's in junior high school), I bitterly thought that it's no wonder that Henry is thinking of having an affair with another woman; his wife was always so rude and sharp, either to him or to their son Christopher. But Henry is always a sensitive man, and still loves his wife, despite all that.

🔴 Through thirteen disjointed stories, we followed eventful events of the Kitteridges, as well as some other residents. And as the stories unfolded, I slowly realized what had shaped Olive to be her self. Her past (tragic death of her father and her mother's abandonment) wounded her soul deeply, that I think it had hardened her. Though beneath, she's still a generous and kind person. A bitterness that came during her marriage with Henry, only added the sourness in her. Later on, her perimenopause and menopause stage only made things worse. Her disappointment over her son Christopher's unsuitable (to her) marriage, seemed to be he last straw. And so, she became this unbearable woman.

🔴 On the whole, this hasn't been a charming book to read. It seems that in telling the real lives of people in a town - which is greatly relatable to ours - Kitteridge focused mainly on the dark aspects only; disappointment and disillusionment ranked on top, with bitterness of love (and the lack of it) followed soon. Most of the characters have had hopes and dreams, but more often than not, the opposite happened. It seems that all our adult lives were spent to learn about it, so that in seventies, you'd learn finally to accept things as it is - things that's beyond your control.

🔴 Though this book distressed me a little, I loved the ending - Olive certainly deserves that. She is the epitome of strength, courage, and resilience. I was reminded of what my father had taught me when I was a teenager. When you put an egg and a potato into the same boiling water, they would react differently. The egg would be hardened, but the potato would be softened. Whenever you are having hard times, you can choose how to react, like the egg or the potato. Like Olive, most of us react like the egg; but only a few then change to be a potato in the end. Happiness is in store for the latter!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐