Pam's Book 16: Olive Kitteridge

For those who are following this blog, I apologize for the third appearance in so short a time of this book. Like Blythe, I read it for our book club, and I actually wasn't going to post on it, but my sister, who thinks this is a competition, insisted (and I have yet to master the art of saying no to my big sister). So here we are. I promise this will be brief.

After reading Erin's blog, I was sure I would hate this book. I also am not big on short stories, nor am I big on deeply depressing stories. However, I fell in love with the writing within the first page and with Olive Kitteridge within the fifth story. Reading the first story, written from Olive's husband's perspective, I thought, "Wow, what a complete and utter bitch this woman is!" Then as I continued to read, her hidden redeeming qualities slowly began seeping through. It wasn't until she cried for the anorexic stranger, though, that I fell deeply, irreversibly in love with Olive Kitteridge. Yes, she is a domineering beast (her own, rather accurate, word); yes, she has treated her son and her husband terribly. But she cries for strange girls, and she talks to troubled boys, and she sits with grieving widows.

My favorite moment in the book is at her son's wedding, when Olive finds these beautifully passive-aggressive little acts of revenge to pull on her perfectly awful daughter-in-law. It's not so much the acts I appreciate so much is what she says about them:
"Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as 'big bursts' and 'little bursts.' Big bursts are things like marriage and children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really."
Then, after her revenge:
"As a matter of fact, there is no reason, if Dr. Sue is going to live near Olive, that Olive can't occasionally take a little of this, a little of that--just to keep the self-doubt alive. Give herself a little burst. Because Christopher doesn't need to be living with a woman who thinks she knows everything."

Somebody in our book club wondered whether Olive had mental problems. Another viewed her as an irredeemable horror. Another as perhaps one intellectually gifted and living in her own stratosphere. Another saw herself in Olive. I saw her as, simply, human. And I loved her.