Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive - but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted - while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she's avoided all her life. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than. . . fine?

Comment: This is a very much hyped book of last year, even though its original publication is from 2017. The premise seemed intriguing so I also added it to my reading list but only now I finally got to it. I was positively impressed although I would say the impact of the final twist wasn't as high for me because the clues were there during the novel regarding some secrets.

In this book we meet Eleanor Oliphant, a young woman working in accounting, a job she has had since she finished college. Eleanor considers herself to be fine all the time, she has a very easy life, with simple routines and she rarely deviates until the day she decides she will get a HEA with a singer she sees suddenly and after she and a co-worker randomly help an old man after he has a heart attack on the street.
As the story progresses through Eleanor's eyes and experiences, we get to see she has some secrets, she has some pain and terror in her past but her mind allows her to function as best as she can. If others would describe her as weird, she can't understand, after all she is a very logical person...

Eleanor is a fascinating character. I'm reluctant to label her as being autistic or having a syndrome since this is never done in the novel but the reader can clearly see her mind processes things in a very unique manner. However, I would also say this doesn't affect Eleanor's likability, as the author has said she didn't want Eleanor to be like a victim and despite some more touching scenes and affirmations which can sound so, Eleanor is a good person underneath all her quirks and often her experiences in the daily life routines can be quite amusing, like when she decides to have a manicure.

The story is pretty simple. Eleanor leads a very easy, simple life. She organizes all her days around the same usual expectations and even new things are often planned too. Her interactions with others are easily perceived by the reader as being a little too heavy on the silly possibilities but, honestly, when seen through her eyes, everything does seem to get a better/different meaning.
It was easy to like Eleanor and thus, the pages went by very quickly and in a very fluid way as well.
The steps Eleanor takes to change things, her perspective included, don't seem forced. Things and people happen around her and she feels challenged to response. What feelings come through that can be quite deep, depending on how one looks at it.

I think the author has done a great work pacing this novel. Things happen at the perfect pace for the drama to increase and for the details to come to light as Eleanor needs to deal with them. I think the only issue is that the story is divided into segments related to how Eleanor is coping, from good days, to bad days and better days. The transition from good to bad is explained but I don't think the process as as smooth as that. A bit more transparency in Eleanor's steps prior to that moment would have helped, I think.

An interesting component of the novel is the concept of loneliness. The author has also said this was one of the things that made her write the novel, how more and more people are alone and lonely and not just older people for several reasons. Younger people find themselves alone too and some not by choice. I think the author didn't really try to portray Eleanor as a desperate lonely person even though at times it can look so. Thankfully, the process of taking Eleanor from a status to another is well paced and believable, considering how she behaves. Would this have worked, without other clichés, with another type of character? I wouldn't say it would, as easily.

Personally I don't think about Eleanor's loneliness here. In a way she had her routines and interests. Yes, it can be seen as lonely by those who center their lives around many other people but I don't know if her life was that bad (apart from the obvious emotional content derived from her past but that's another issue) from a social POV, had it been a choice. The question is, I'd day, does Eleanor really have a choice, considering the way things are and how she is made to think of herself by life and experiences and her past?

The story goes a certain rout, of course. It all goes towards a final situation where the reader discovers things about Eleanor. I felt pity and sorry for her but I don't think she is a pitiful person; I think she coped in a way that enabled to carry on, even though her life hasn't been easy.
The book doesn't end promising countless romantic or ambitious scenarios where Eleanor is "cured". I liked how she felt like maintaining herself as she has been but aware of her issues and trying to find a way to understand them.
Yes, this might not have been the perfect book but it was very good and entertaining for certain.
Grade: 8/10

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