After reading the blurbs on this book, I expected a character sketch of Olive Kitteridge. The initial characters have only tangential relationships to her. I began to wonder how she would fit in to all these lives.
When she was portrayed interacting with her husband and son, I was prepared to see Olive as the monstrous villain who tied all these lives together. Perhaps she would be the cause of all their miseries?
But the lives multiplied, making it hard at times to keep track of the characters without a spreadsheet. Olive's part in each of them became more complex.
As I headed into the last third of the book, I began to get a recurring, uncomfortable thought--that MY kids would see me in Olive, that my spouse would see me in the woman who never said sorry. I began to get the uncomfortable feeling that what I considered my own "truth telling" might be just as vindictive and self-defensive as Olive's. Maybe I am just as dimly aware of my own reflection as Olive is of her own.
The power of this books comes through the subtlety with which the mirror is held up to our own reflections, through Olive. By the end, I felt mercy for this woman, grappling with her own identity, trying desperately to incorporate the cracks of reality she let in. And I wished the poor soul well. That is the power of these sketches.
When she was portrayed interacting with her husband and son, I was prepared to see Olive as the monstrous villain who tied all these lives together. Perhaps she would be the cause of all their miseries?
But the lives multiplied, making it hard at times to keep track of the characters without a spreadsheet. Olive's part in each of them became more complex.
As I headed into the last third of the book, I began to get a recurring, uncomfortable thought--that MY kids would see me in Olive, that my spouse would see me in the woman who never said sorry. I began to get the uncomfortable feeling that what I considered my own "truth telling" might be just as vindictive and self-defensive as Olive's. Maybe I am just as dimly aware of my own reflection as Olive is of her own.
The power of this books comes through the subtlety with which the mirror is held up to our own reflections, through Olive. By the end, I felt mercy for this woman, grappling with her own identity, trying desperately to incorporate the cracks of reality she let in. And I wished the poor soul well. That is the power of these sketches.
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