537. Olive, Again
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Elizabeth Strout
Genre: Fiction
289 pages, published October 15, 2019
Reading Format: e-book on Hoopla
Summary
The sequel to Olive Kitteridge, Olive, Again continues the story of the unique Olive Kitteridge as she enters old age, struggling to make sense of her own life and the lives of others in the small town of Crosby, Maine.
Quotes
“I think our job–maybe even our ‘duty’–is to–To bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.”
“Because in February the days were really getting longer and you could see it, if you really looked. You could see how at the end of each day the world seemed cracked open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees, and promised. It promised, that light, and what a thing that was.”
“And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect.”
“When you get old,” Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, “you become invisible. It’s just the truth. And yet it’s freeing in a way.”
“But we’re both old enough to know things now, and that’s good.” “What things?” “When to shut up, mainly.”
“What frightened him was how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing. It caused him to feel an inner trembling, and he could not quite find the words—for himself—to even put it exactly as he sensed it. But he sensed that he had lived his life in a way that he had not known. This meant there had been a large blindspot directly in front of his eyes. It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived
“God, Olive, you’re a difficult woman. You are such a goddamn difficult woman, and fuck all, I love you. So if you don’t mind, Olive, maybe you could be a little less Olive with me, even if it means being a little more Olive with others. Because I love you, and we don’t have much time.”
“And Olive thought about this: the way people can love those they barely know, and how abiding that love can be, and also how deep that love can be, even when—as in her own case—it was temporary. She thought of Betty and her stupid bumper sticker, and the child who had been so frightened that Halima Butterfly had told her about, and yet to tell any of this right now to Betty, who was genuinely suffering—as Olive had suffered—seemed cruel, and she kept silent.”
“No. I had enough of babies growing up.” “Never mind. Kids are just a needle in your heart.”
“You’re an easy woman to please,” he had said to her. And she had said, “You may be the first person to think that.”
“But it was almost over, after all, her life. It swelled behind her like a sardine fishing net, all sorts of useless seaweed and broken bits of shells and the tiny, shining fish—all those hundreds of students she had taught, the girls and boys in high school she had passed in the corridor when she was a high school girl herself (many—most—would be dead by now), the billion streaks of emotion she’d had as she’d looked at sunrises, sunsets, the different hands of waitresses who had placed before her cups of coffee— All of it gone, or about to go.”
“I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”
“When you get old,” Olive told Andrea after the girl had walked away, “you become invisible. It’s just the truth. And yet it’s freeing in a way.”
“I am the opposite of a snob.” Jack laughed a long time. “You think being a reverse snob is not being a snob? Olive, you’re a snob.”
“And that woman is not politics. She’s a person, and she has every right to be here.”
“And so the day they had had together folded over on itself, was done with, gone.”
“he was an old man who was talking to himself on a wharf in Portland, Maine, and he could
“Stop it! Tell me how it’s really been! He sat back, pushed his glass forward. It’s just the way it was, that’s all. People either didn’t know how they felt about something or they chose never to say how they really felt about something.”
“She did not have a family as other people did. Other people had their children come and stay and they talked and laughed and the grandchildren sat on the laps of their grandmothers, and they went places and did things, ate meals together, kissed when they parted.”
“Her son had married his mother, as all men—in some form or other—eventually do.”
“the way people can love those they barely know, and how abiding that love can be, and also how deep that love can be, even when—as in her own case—it was temporary.”
“thought of the ants that were still going about trying to get their sand wherever they needed it to go. They seemed almost heartbreaking to him, in their tininess and their resilience.”
“Personality disorder? Given the extensive and widespread array of human emotions, why was anything a personality disorder?”
“Betty was still weeping, but she was smiling more too, and she said, “Oh, it’s just a life, Olive.” Olive thought about this. She said, “Well, it’s your life. It matters.”
My Take
It was a pleasure to revisit the character of Olive Kitteridge. Through her, author Elizabeth Strout shares so many insightful observances of human nature that I often found myself re-reading portions of the book to make sure I registered what was being said. If you have read Olive Kitteridge and enjoyed it, then by all means read Olive, Again.
