Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, was not only a very insightful read, but an excellent model of how short fiction can be strung together in order to create a longer, more connected piece, or in this case, a novel. Each “chapter,” was a self-contained story or a type of micro fiction. At first, I was less than excited to find out that this was the stylistic choice that author had decided to take, because I didn’t think much could be accomplished with a beginning, a middle, and an end in such a short time frame. I also thought it would be incredibly difficult to connect each individual story to all of the other stories going on in the little town of Crosby Maine. However, as with my usual first assumptions, I was wrong. Not even halfway through the book, I realized why this book had won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009.
Beginning in the past, the novel opens with Olive and her husband Henry’s younger days when Henry was a pharmacist and Olive was a teacher. The chapters then loosely spring from one person, place or connection to another, with Olive making an appearance in most all of the stories. Whether large or small, I always anticipated her appearance. Her character was so well developed and strong. In a way, I don’t think she was have been as relatable and fully sketched out had the book been one continuous story. I also think the same goes for a lot of the other characters. When given a snapshot of someone’s life, as we get in many of the chapters, we only know tiny bits of information. However, these tiny bits of information tend to be the most valuable pieces to understand each person’s character. The chapter-as-story format was also really useful when other characters were not necessarily involved in the story but they were being discussed from a person who really knew little to nothing about them, just like the reader. This tactic is extremely usual when writing realistic fiction with a focus on character, because it allows the reader to get a bunch of snapshots of a person, like they would in real life.
Strout’s use of time is great as well. She takes a chapter/story or two every now and then describes a big life event, like her son’s wedding, and later on the visit with his wife and children. Time is very evident when short stories are used in this way. The reader can feel that they are in a different place with each character every time a new story begins. The way in which time was dealt with in this book was perhaps the most realistic thing about, aside from the people.
It’s hard to imagine how the story of a friend’s cousin or that student your mother taught years ago is relevant to everything else, but Olive Kitteridge does a brilliant job at rejecting the difficultly in this. By selecting a focal point, Olive, the reader is exposed to the many interesting people around her, all of whom live seemingly quiet lives. But their lives are not quiet. There is both joy and sadness is each of the many, many characters of this book. Even the ones with only two sentences to their name feel like an important part of the book’s nonexistent plot. And to me, that is true skill. I enjoyed reading about how we all relate, or at least try to. And I enjoyed hearing about it in this unique way. Any writer who wants to write something longer, such as a novel, may want to try breaking it up into shorter pieces and connecting it from there. It could lead to some surprising insights.
No comments:
Post a Comment