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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Everytime I read an Elizabeth Strout book I think it can't get any better. I am going to have to start pacing them like sweets, otherwise I will run out.
This is a beautiful book about people, relationships and grief. All the characters are so realistically portrayed, and the imagery she uses it just so vivid and clever. I can't find the quote but there is wonderful passage when Tyler has a breakdown in church and he describes the congregation as looking scared like children having gone too far with a prank.
There was great humour, not laugh out loud, and maybe a little dark but still wonderful moments. Like the parishioner he convinced to tell her husband about the child she had and gave up for adoption when she was a teenager, who after long fretting and redemption came back to ask about whether he thought she should now tell him about the second child she had a year later also. Or the daughter drawing "obscene" pictures of her teacher defecating.
I also enjoyed in this novel the cold War backdrop, with the political tensions echoing the boiling pot of small town gossip. I don't remember her other novels having this external threat, but I felt it was a nice addition.
This is a beautiful book about people, relationships and grief. All the characters are so realistically portrayed, and the imagery she uses it just so vivid and clever. I can't find the quote but there is wonderful passage when Tyler has a breakdown in church and he describes the congregation as looking scared like children having gone too far with a prank.
There was great humour, not laugh out loud, and maybe a little dark but still wonderful moments. Like the parishioner he convinced to tell her husband about the child she had and gave up for adoption when she was a teenager, who after long fretting and redemption came back to ask about whether he thought she should now tell him about the second child she had a year later also. Or the daughter drawing "obscene" pictures of her teacher defecating.
I also enjoyed in this novel the cold War backdrop, with the political tensions echoing the boiling pot of small town gossip. I don't remember her other novels having this external threat, but I felt it was a nice addition.
3.5 stars. Elizabeth Strout weaves a compelling tale of a troubled Protestant minister in a small Maine town, but the novel is overwhelmed by references to theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Freud and other thinkers. This might work for some readers, but I found it reason to skim. Still, the warmth and humanity Strout shows in books like The Burgess Boys (which I loved) is on display here, too.
I enjoyed this book, or maybe the better word is I appreciated it, but I didn't care as much about the characters as I did with her other two books. As in her other books, the characters are flawed and there is much that is bleak and unhappy about their ordinary lives, but some of the warm empathy I felt towards the characters in Amy and Isabelle and Olive Kittredge is missing. The ending mends much of this and it becomes a lovely study of grief and the beginning of healing, so it's probably more like 3 1/2 stars, but still not as luminous as her first two books.
I should have written this right after reading it, but somehow I didn't. Nevertheless, the fact that it popped into my mind as a memorable book a year and a half later is testament to the fact that it was very well written, subtle, and rewarding. It respects the reader enough not to bombard you with drama because sometimes drama is quiet and painful in a tender and muted way and that is how this book reads.
So, about 2/3 of the way through, I finally started becoming invested in the characters and what happened to them. I'd actually call the strong final third a solid 4 stars, but not being able to really get into it for so long, I feel like 3 stars is more representative of my overall reaction to this novel.
Tyler Caskey is a minister in a small New England town. His wife, Lauren, passed away just over a year ago. Since then his youngest daughter lives with Tyler’s mother, coming up to visit at weekends. His eldest daughter, Katherine, has been almost speechless since her mother died. Only five years old she doesn’t really understand what is going on around her.
Only recently I read Strout’s Olive Kitteredge, after watching the tv adaptation, and seeing as I really enjoyed it though it would be a good idea to read more of her books. i Abide with me is her second book, and in many ways it has a similar feel to Olive, it is all about every day people and every day events.
The death of Lauren is not an important event to the world at large, but to her husband and children it is a tragedy, and of course it has ripples in the community in which she lived. Tyler is a respected, well-liked minister. But the people of West Annett weren’t too sure about Lauren herself. She was different from them, with her “fashionable” clothes. They didn’t understand her, and she didn’t understand them, nor did she try all that hard in fairness.
It is a lovely book, although one that deals with grief and death. It also deals a lot with faith and religion, but more so with the nature of people. They are all flawed, of course as we all are, but Strout never seems to judge them for that. And characters that I, as a reader, took a dislike to initially were later, not rehabilitated, but shown in a more favourable light. And of course the reverse also happens.
It is a lovely slow revealing of Tyler’s life, his meeting Lauren and her rich family. The hints of abuse in her past. ii Tyler’s grief at her death, but also his guilt and avoidance of actually grieving. He tried to continue on, not exactly as it was before, but almost, and this book tells how that grief comes out.
I do think that maybe the ending is a little rushed, and maybe a little “happily ever after”. Nevertheless it was a book really worth reading, despite my lack of religion and belief.
Only recently I read Strout’s Olive Kitteredge, after watching the tv adaptation, and seeing as I really enjoyed it though it would be a good idea to read more of her books. i Abide with me is her second book, and in many ways it has a similar feel to Olive, it is all about every day people and every day events.
The death of Lauren is not an important event to the world at large, but to her husband and children it is a tragedy, and of course it has ripples in the community in which she lived. Tyler is a respected, well-liked minister. But the people of West Annett weren’t too sure about Lauren herself. She was different from them, with her “fashionable” clothes. They didn’t understand her, and she didn’t understand them, nor did she try all that hard in fairness.
It is a lovely book, although one that deals with grief and death. It also deals a lot with faith and religion, but more so with the nature of people. They are all flawed, of course as we all are, but Strout never seems to judge them for that. And characters that I, as a reader, took a dislike to initially were later, not rehabilitated, but shown in a more favourable light. And of course the reverse also happens.
It is a lovely slow revealing of Tyler’s life, his meeting Lauren and her rich family. The hints of abuse in her past. ii Tyler’s grief at her death, but also his guilt and avoidance of actually grieving. He tried to continue on, not exactly as it was before, but almost, and this book tells how that grief comes out.
I do think that maybe the ending is a little rushed, and maybe a little “happily ever after”. Nevertheless it was a book really worth reading, despite my lack of religion and belief.
Audio. Well narrated. Lovely look at the life and struggles of Pastor Tyler Caskey and his young family in the early 60's. Gets in realistic detail about church dynamics, lonely lives, struggles, and the human sorrows that affect us all. Recommended.
I want to write this book.
Wow.
So rich - reminded me of the brokenness of berea and mom losing grandma. What incredible writing. Wow.
Wow.
So rich - reminded me of the brokenness of berea and mom losing grandma. What incredible writing. Wow.