Monthly Archives: July 2009

2009 Pulitzer: Olive Kitteridge a study in loneliness and humanity

Olive Kitteridge: Fiction

2009 Pulitzer Prize, Fiction

The most striking this about this novel is its structure: it is a landscape novel with the title character as a running theme or motif as a constant among thirteen stories. This landscape is lonely; each character essentially lives life within him or herself, despite living in a close, small Maine community. The narrative voice is strangely detached, heightening the sense that the characters are separate from one another. The reader is therefore kept at an emotional distance. Death is a frequent visitor to the characters, and marriages are presented as mostly contentious and negative.

A nonlinear, nonchronological narrative structure must be built with extra care so as not to confuse the reader. Strout reveals this as the greatest strength of this work: by keeping the narrative voice simple and clear, she avoids the complexity trap that has befallen so many experimental storytellers. Jumps in time are kept to a manageable number, and are cleverly elucidated.

Of all of the different interpretations of loss and pain that are portrayed, it its Olive Kitteridge herself that, surprisingly, emerges as the most whole. The reader encounters different views of her from various perspectives as other characters give their views of her. We see her argue with her husband, son, and commit childish acts. But it is the revelation of who she is that adds depth and push to stories that otherwise would have a tendency to get sleepy. Olive is the type of character that leaves an impact far greater than her personality or actions might suggest.

The mature, embittered woman encountered early on becomes more so by the end, only the reader comes to understand Olive better by seeing different angles of who she is. Elizabeth Strout achieves the coveted feat of making us like an unlikable character , mainly by showing that Olive Kitteridge is human just like we are.

All the Living a Haunting, Melancholy Novel

Morgan, C.E. (2009). All the Living, a novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN: 9780374103620

A young woman from poverty in the rural south goes to live with her lover on his farm after his entire family is killed in an accident. A story rich with details of people acting, living and thinking by themselves and yet forced to relate to one another.

Much has been made about this being C.E. Morgan’s first novel, and rightly so, because their is a depth of feeling, a wealth of human experience captured just so in the language. The author has a special gift for crafting a story; she reveals the exposition cautiously but with just the right intriguing pace. She doesn’t overstate, she lets the images do much of the work in telling the story.

One of those recurring images is sex, presenting here in a raw form. Aloma and Orren’s sexual relationship shows the powerful human need for sex and also the ways sex can be used as a tool. It is refreshing to see a female character honestly, directly face her sexual nature, but it comes off as sort of passively accepting what he world brings instead of taking ownership of the experience. The choices the characters make, not just sexually, affect not only themselves but others, and yet the characters seem so often pulled along by fate.

As beautifully written as the book is, it is a heartbreaking tale of people who do not know how to relate to one another. Aloma, the lead female character, blindly accepts conventional female roles, puts her own dreams of accomplishment last, and seems to value her partner primarily through sex. It sin’t that this isn’t realistically portrayed, but that it is profoundly sad. Again, though, it is a magnificently constructed novel in that it shows this sadness, these situations the characters are in, and it doesn’t try to judge or make tidy solutions. The reader can think about the story, and this is one story that promises to stay with the reader long after the book has been put down.

Saturday at a Phillies Game

Philliles Won 14-6 Against St. Louis Cardinals. It was Christmas in July, so lots of Christmas music played.

Game delayed because someone pointed a laser at Pujols of Cardinals:http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20090725_Rollins__Phils_slam_Cards__14-6.html

After we left, someone killed in a fight! http://cbs3.com/topstories/Killed.Dead.Fight.2.1101364.html

Rifling Paradise, Jem Poster

Poster, Jem (2009). Rifling Paradise. New York: Overlook Press

This novel takes Victorian themes of repression and stifling structure and applies contemporary psychological interpretations to them. It also offers a post-colonial interpretation of exploration and British cultural influence. Still, the Victorian setting heightens the exotic feel and the social constraints of the era add drama to rather complex human realities.

Taken as a whole, the plot is very simple: the characters suffer in fairly predictable ways, yet the metaphor of nature connected with good and evil, and the lush descriptive language used to build that metaphor, save this book from being another tiresome contemporary psychological novel. This is a moving and entertaining story. Structurally it maintains a good balance of descriptive detail and narrative movement. Because these characters seem so psychologically developed and self-aware, it is impossible not to wonder how these same characters would fare in a contemporary setting.