To me, the introduction of new characters in every chapter of Olive Kitteridge makes the story seem disjointed. I know the reappearance of Olive throughout the book is supposed to add a sense of continuity, even though Olive is often barely mentioned. Plus, I don’t think that Olive is a strong enough or interesting enough character to carry this plot-less book. I feel like I’m reading about my grandmother and the constant introduction of new characters just leaves me feeling frustrated and uninterested.
Really, Strout should have chosen several well developed characters and had the chapters differentiate between them, and showing interactions between a few characters. For example, along with Olive talking to Kevin in the car, maybe she could have shown us Kevin in middle school or Kevin’s mother dying; whereas, other characters—such as Angie—seemed superfluous and should have been cut out of the novel.
I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of random personalities as I read this novel and I really don’t like it.
As for the novel being depressing, that has no context in the defining of good literature and bad literature. 1984 was the most depressing and freakish book I have ever read, and I still liked it… even though I had the heebie-jeebies for weeks after finishing it! Many depressing books are truly excellent; however, this one is not. I think that the approach and style of Olive Kitteridge gets the point across but fails to pull me in as a reader—and actually has caused me to intensely dislike the novel.
Hopefully our next reading in this class will be much better—I’m looking forward to some good literature. I spend too much of my spare time reading airy fantasy novels below my level, and I need you to make me read something challenging, thought-provoking and excellent.
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hopefully there's some stuff on the syllabus that will satisfy all three of your requests! --- lisa
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on almost all counts. The book is extremely disjointed, and this leads to other problems. For example, I absolutely hated the passage in the chapter (or is it a separate short story?) "Basket of Tips" where Strout introduces Olive like a new character. True, there are many ways to give details about a character, but I much prefer the way Dostoyevsky characterizes Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: all at once, in the beginning. It leads to less confusion; less thinking about "would I have thought of that previous scene differently had I known that?".
ReplyDeleteI do think that the ideal solution would have been to not worry so much about the other semi-characters and go for an actual unified narrative. And quit it with the random passing of time.
As for the depressing aspect, the primary issue is that it points to deeper problems: again, Strout's utter inability to create a convincing plot. It seems like, in lieu of thinking things out, she decided to take a survey of the most miserable moments in the life of Crosby, and arrange them in a loosely chronological order. What a cop out.
And I wou;d put it to you that, although depressing things can be good; after all, I absolutely loved the movie Brazil (except for the idiotic dream sequences), which on a certain level makes Nineteen Eighty-Four look like child's play.
But the measure of a meal is not how unusual and interesting the interplay of the different ingredients was, but whether or not it tasted good.
I definitly agree with you that this book is very disjointed in the way it was written and having her bring in all these different stories would be sensless but there might be a reason why she did this and we probably just havfe to wait and see how all these stories come together in the end.
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