Literary Letters Vol. 3 -Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine
Hi all! I had some amazing conversations with a few of you about this book this past month. Everyone who reads this seems to form strong opinions about it pretty early in- which isn't a bad thing! This book is built for strong opinions. It covers mental illness, societal expectations/norms, the internal process of therapy, tragedy, extreme happiness, and that just scratches the surface. It truly takes you into the deepest inner being of the main character and it's easy to make your judgments- good or bad- about her. Mine tended to evolve rather quickly! And immediately, I wasn't so sure if I'd enjoy the book.
As I said on Instagram a while ago, I'm not a huge fan of how the book begins. It goes to great lengths to get across to the reader just how much of a dramatic (self-proclaimed) loner Eleanor is and that she prefers things that way, and in the last paragraph of the chapter that is explaining that to you, it all dramatically shifts gears and talks about how she falls in love with a random man by glancing at him. It feels odd, like we weren't quite sure how to begin the book and this is what happened. I also found myself annoyed with Eleanor's attitude, however sympathizing with her loneliness.
When you eventually get to learn more about Eleanor you can begin to understand why she acts the way she does and thinks the way she thinks. But in my opinion, this doesn't excuse the actions. The fact that Eleanor doesn't see this and clearly doesn't understand at all the implications of the things she's saying makes it all the more frustrating! (Note: this book made me feel something strong, LOL. A good thing.) I eventually ~slightly~ warmed up to Eleanor as she's basically forced to start interacting with others and begins to learn more about herself and those other people. Experiencing her learning and growing is what caught my attention and the book begins to be a comfortable read, rather than a sort of strenuous one.
Side note, again: even if I didn't enjoy the first half (?ish) of the book, and even if it turned out I hated the rest (I didn't), I can't help but be super impressed with the author. Isn't it amazing how authors have these entire other human beings being fabricated in their minds? Authors create entire other people and their thoughts, personalities, even their entire families. To me this just seems so astonishing! Anyone else think it's super cool or am I just easily impressed? 😂
I think this is an important book to read. Even if you're not too fond of the main character (ahem, moi) it helps you sympathize with every single person you come across in real life. Sometimes you think you know so much about a person but that's rarely true! Not until you've sat down with someone and taken the time to really learn about them are you in any position to think you know them- and by extension, have an opinion about who they are. I hope that makes sense. I suppose this book is just saying (among other things) to realize we all have internal struggles and try to be a little more tender to people!
Reading the cover of the book leads you to believe that it will be a slightly odd, humorous, and quirky story. To some extent that's true, but it's also a pretty dark book. The darkness is hidden by humor and casual easy-going relationships but you feel the darkness of the story through it all. A good book, it just caught me off guard. The author talks about her inspiration and thought processes that led up to the book and then led to its success. One of my favorite parts of that interview is when she explains some of the secondary characters, who were great helps to Eleanor Oliphant, are simply kind people who let Eleanor be herself. It would be a beautiful thing if all people were simply kind and allowed one another to just be who they are 😊
Thank you for reading! I'm looking forward to choosing a new book today and if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!
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