Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout #USfiction

In some ways this will be the easiest book response I've ever written. Quite simply, Olive, Again is all the same wonderfulness that was Olive Kitteridge. If you loved the first Olive; you will adore the second.

I don't want to say too much so as not to spoil your own reading experience. Except that Strout has once again employed the use of short stories to tell us about Olive. Most of the stories are from Olive's perspective, but there are some from her family and various other town people. Olive has a cameo appearance in these particular chapters as we get to see her through the eyes of others. In one memorable scene, Olive is also given a chance to see herself through the eyes of someone else.

One of the special delights, for me, was suddenly realising that we were getting a brief glimpse into lives of the Burgess boys and Amy & Isabelle years after the events that Strout wrote about in their books. These intersections felt perfectly natural and reinforced the idea that all our small stories are interconnected and woven together in ways we can never dream of or fully comprehend.

Olive has mellowed somewhat with age and she has finally learnt the value of moderation - she no longer has to say out loud every single thing that pops into her head.

Strout also explores the ageing process in unsentimental terms. Not only with Olive but the other characters that flit through the story.

However since the words are still failing me at the moment, let me list some of the comments that others have written about Olive, Again on Goodreads.

Jacqui - Sometimes a book is just so perfect that it feels wrong somehow to break it down, as if by doing so one destroys the magic or fails to capture what makes it so special.

Jaline - The world within and the world without.

skilful
keen observer
larger than life
subtle
wrenching emotional honesty
emotionally radiant
fierce
compassionate
beloved curmudgeon
recalcitrant
psychological complexity
indignities of ageing
autumnal years
profound loneliness
estrangements and secrecy
vulnerable
authentic
meticulous
magnificent
tour de force

To finish I will leave you with the words of Strout herself on why she felt compelled to write a sequel for Olive.

The New Yorker | Elizabeth Strout on Returning to Olive Kitteridge | Deborah Treisman | July 29, 2019.

I never intended to return to Olive Kitteridge. I really thought I was done with her, and she with me. But a few years ago I was in a European city, alone for a weekend, and I went to a café, and she just showed up. That’s all I can say. She showed up with a force, the way she did the very first time, and I could not ignore her. This time, she was nosing her car into the marina, and I saw it so clearly—felt her so clearly—that I thought, Well, I should go with this.

Facts:

• Strout's 'guilty reading pleasure' is War and Peace.
• Her greatest influences are William Trevor and Alice Munro.
• She has not yet read Moby-Dick.
• Won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for Olive Kitteridge.

Favourite Quote: 

All love was to be taken seriously.

My response to Olive Kitteridge.
And The Burgess Boys.

The Middlepause: On Turning 50 by Marina Benjamin

The big five-oh is fast approaching and books like this now have a curious appeal.

Suddenly finding yourself experiencing perimenopausal symptoms and not knowing what to do with them can be rather startling if not frightening at times.

Considering how much medical knowledge we have about pretty much every other aspect of our physical lives, I am surprised by how much myth and mystery still surrounds menopause and it's various stages.

Fortunately, the baby boomers have never done anything quietly or on the sly, which is good for us Gen X-er's that follow along. As the boomers have hit each stage of life, they have brought it kicking and screaming into the public eye, thrown money at it and done everything possible to conquer it, fix it or normalise it.

Books like The Middlepause are popping up everywhere as boomer women embrace menopause and want everyone to know about it.

Personal stories about individual experiences are an important part of the normalisation process - they help us to see that everyone has their own story, their own way of going through menopause and that they are all perfectly valid. Menopause is not a prescribed process with specific signs and symptoms that everyone follows. Every woman's experience will be different and that is normal.

Part of the reason why you pick up a book like this, though, is to be reassured that you are normal when you feel far from it! You want to know that there is some common ground, some regular, formulaic way of getting through this phase of your life.

I confess that I was hoping for practical information when I picked up this book, but after the first few chapters about hormones, Benjamin veered off into stories about books, movies and her particular family situation. Which may have been interesting if I knew who she was (I don't), or if my situation reflected hers (she had an emergency hysterectomy). But it doesn't.

Like Benjamin was, I am expecting that 'gradual transition' of menopause, when 'age will have crept up on you the way fine lines do.'

I empathised with Benjamin's sudden descent into menopause after her operation and this book could be helpful for others who have found themselves in a similar position.

But I was looking for more of the stuff around peri-menopause, more insights that could help one to realise that you are not alone when you feel,

'the sort of mood swings and rounadbouts not encountered since adolescence, but when experienced in maturity they lead to a volatile and vertiginous brinkmanship...you flirt with extremity, skirt with madness...the whole thing is like some fairground House of Horrors experience.'

Comments like that are comforting when  you've just had one of the weirdest weeks of your life where everything feels like it's on a knife edge and you seriously wonder if you're going crazy.

I was looking for answers and what I found here was someone else wondering what on earth was going on for her and searching for answers.

This is a very personal account of one women's experience with ageing which highlights that we all go through these phases in our own unique ways. And that's perfectly okay.

Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf

Published posthumously in 2015, Our Souls At Night is a beautiful, gentle love story between two elderly neighbours, who bravely decide to seek comfort in the arms of each other every night rather than being sleepless and alone.

I first came across this book thanks to the rave reviews on our ABC's Bookclub program last month. Everyone loved it - a lot - and the next day at work we were swamped by requests for the book.

After waiting for the publishers to reprint the book, we finally got our stock and Our Souls At Night has been sitting on our bestsellers shelf ever since!

It's a slim book, with a simple story, that I read in about four hours. Not a lot happens, but the humanity and tenderness that oozes from every word makes for an enriching, unforgettable experience.

The only discordant note comes from the son who struggles to accept this new arrangement. His meanness of spirit is in such stark contrast to his mother's loving kindness that it almost felt a little contrived.

Jane Fonda and Robert Redford are starring in a Netflix production based on this book, which is fitting, as there were times when the emotions evoked in this story were reminiscent of those I experienced when watching On Golden Pond all those years ago.

Holt, Colorado is a fictional town that Haruf used for all his stories.

He was awarded the Wallace Stegner Award in 2012 for "faithfully and evocatively depicting the spirit of the American West."

Our Souls At Night continues this tradition as it is also firmly rooted in place. Although, Holt is fictional, his descriptions of the local area are very real and very evocative.

Max Liu @Picador wrote this lovely post, with photographs of the area, a couple of years ago when he met Haruf (pronounced to rhyme with sheriff) at home in Salida, Colorado.

I also enjoyed the fun Haruf had in chapter 34 when his characters were talking about going to the theatre.

Did you see they're going to do that last book about Holt County? The one with the old man dying and the preacher.

They did those other two so I guess they might as well do this one too, Louis said.

Did you see those earlier ones?

I saw them. But I cant imagine two old ranchers taking in a pregnant girl.

It might happen, she said. People can do the unexpected....

He could write a book about us. How would you like that?

I don't want to be in any book, Louis said.

But we're no more improbable than the story of the two old cattle ranchers.

The books referenced are Benediction (2013) which really was turned into a play performed at the Denver Centre Theatre in 2015, Plainsong (1999) and Eventide (2004).

Highly recommended for anyone with a heart!