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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Minister Tyler must deal with his crisis of faith and his five year old daughter who has not spoken since her mother died.
So I usually love books by this author, but I just can't get into this. I think the characters just did not seem relatable or interesting enough for me. I like the idea of how we find comfort and seek love within a community, but it just was not my favorite read
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Elizabeth Strout has crafted a masterpiece that warns about the dangers of over-identifying with the persona.
Tyler Caskey doesn't know who he is, but he doesn't have to think of that too much as long as he keeps his entire personality revolving around his work.
And it works for a time. His congregants love him. His ego is inflated because he feels he's touching lives. He's positioned himself as the gate between his congregants and God; no longer a mere mortal but a chosen man, laying down his life to fight the good fight.
The problem with laying down your life for a cause is that eventually, you lose sight of yourself. And without anything to root you to your core, your persona becomes all you have to offer.
And so it happens with Tyler. His congregation start developing a distaste for him. Nothing they can ever point at directly, but they intuitively react to the emptiness he shares with them.
And Tyler, unwilling or unable to get back to real human connection (if he ever had it in his job in the first place) withdraws further and further into the mask he's crafted.
Until Connie. Connie, representing the anima, is the only one who knows who he truly is. And he needs her in his life for him to be able to find his own way home. It's not a happy life, but it's one he can survive in. Until, of course, the projection fades, the pedestal crumbles, and Tyler is thrust back into his loneliness, made all the worse now because he knows what connection feels like and he wants it back, goddamnit.
In a future read, it would be interesting to explore the second parallel of man and anima through Charlie, head of the deacons.
Tyler Caskey doesn't know who he is, but he doesn't have to think of that too much as long as he keeps his entire personality revolving around his work.
And it works for a time. His congregants love him. His ego is inflated because he feels he's touching lives. He's positioned himself as the gate between his congregants and God; no longer a mere mortal but a chosen man, laying down his life to fight the good fight.
The problem with laying down your life for a cause is that eventually, you lose sight of yourself. And without anything to root you to your core, your persona becomes all you have to offer.
And so it happens with Tyler. His congregation start developing a distaste for him. Nothing they can ever point at directly, but they intuitively react to the emptiness he shares with them.
And Tyler, unwilling or unable to get back to real human connection (if he ever had it in his job in the first place) withdraws further and further into the mask he's crafted.
Until Connie. Connie, representing the anima, is the only one who knows who he truly is. And he needs her in his life for him to be able to find his own way home. It's not a happy life, but it's one he can survive in. Until, of course, the projection fades, the pedestal crumbles, and Tyler is thrust back into his loneliness, made all the worse now because he knows what connection feels like and he wants it back, goddamnit.
In a future read, it would be interesting to explore the second parallel of man and anima through Charlie, head of the deacons.
Quietly Stunning
Elizabeth Stroud is truly one of the great American writers. She captures both the despair and security of being WASP in the puritan world of 20th century America. The rigid , narrow unlikable townspeople tried my patience as did the unshakeable faith of the protagonist. But in the end , the finely crafted story and its morality play, released emotions of relief and maybe...hope. Some extremely lovely quotes in her writing that moved and hit the mark.
Elizabeth Stroud is truly one of the great American writers. She captures both the despair and security of being WASP in the puritan world of 20th century America. The rigid , narrow unlikable townspeople tried my patience as did the unshakeable faith of the protagonist. But in the end , the finely crafted story and its morality play, released emotions of relief and maybe...hope. Some extremely lovely quotes in her writing that moved and hit the mark.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
"I wonder if we are all condemned to live outside the grace of God." Reverent Tyler Caskey in Abide with Me.
I have long wanted to read Elizabeth Strout's second novel Abide with Me , ever since I first heard about it. Strout has been one of my favorite authors since Olive Kitteridge was being passed around a group of reading church friends ten years ago. I was lucky to review galleys of My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible.
Abide by Me drew me in particular because it is about a minister in crisis whose congregation turns on him when he is most vulnerable. It tests the faith of Reverend Tyler Caskey and that of his church in West Annett, MA.
My husband is a retired clergyman and I saw close up the parsonage experience and the blessings and burdens congregations can be to their spiritual leaders. Strout has a wise understanding of human nature, and it is evident in this book.
Set in the late 1950s, the novel begins with Tyler deep in depression two years after his wife died of cancer, caring for his equally depressed oldest daughter while his mother has taken over his youngest daughter to raise.
"Life, he would think. How mysterious and magnificent, such abundance!"
Tyler's wife Lauren had lit the room with joy. He marveled how he had been so lucky to be loved by this woman. They married while he was at seminary. And if she was no stereotype of a pastor's wife, Tyler accepted her for who she was. In fact she was the direct opposite of what people expect a pastor's wife to be: Lauren was fashionable and pretty; she loved to gossip and shop and hated the "grim politeness" of the church women; and she had no interest in prayers or even religion. She said, "my God," and dressed wrong, and could not understand why the country roads had no road signs so people could find their way around. (I felt the same way about the lack of road signs when we were at small town church!)
The church had inherited a shabby farm house and sold the more valuable town parsonage, leaving the isolated and decrepit house for their pastor. I shuddered, how cold a thing to do, and yet how typical. It was 'good enough' for the pastor; after all he got free housing, he should be grateful. I know those 'good enough', hand-me-down, low grade, cheap fulfillment of obligations, always with the excuse that the church has no money, even when the parishioners live far better. A man of God and his wife ought to be humble and unworldly!
When Lauren sees the parsonage she cries. Oh, boy, I got that. I once cried too, seeing a run down, small, badly placed house we were to live in after enjoying nine years in a beautiful, well maintained parsonage in one of the best neighborhoods.
Relegated to the smelly and depressing house, Lauren asks to paint the living room and dining room pink. Then the children came, and she loved them dearly, but she hated the lack of money and ran up big credit bills. She missed television and girl friends and having fun, and became petulant and distant towards Tyler.
Hints are dropped about Lauren's past, how she hated her father who used to bathe her and her friends, and how her mother commented that Lauren was wild and unpredictable and they were happy to see her married. Lauren tells her one confidant that she had many beaus before Tyler.
Lauren did not accept cancer and the inevitable early death, but was angry and lashed out. She never liked the church-funded housekeeper, Connie, and banned her from the house.
Tyler liked Connie's quiet demeanor. After Lauren' death, Connie becomes important to Tyler, who depends on her to keep the house going. He has lost his joy and is just going through the motions. He fails his daughter Katheryn, who stops talking and acts out in school, her hair always knotted and unbrushed. Her teacher actually hates the child. Meanwhile, Tyler's mother is pushing a woman upon him and holds his youngest daughter hostage.
Tyler is humble and determined to be meek and always above personal feelings and bias. Women in the church turn against Tyler, feeling slighted by his lack of attention and safe distance from church politics. Connie turns up missing, accused of theft, and the rumor network starts buzzing that Tyler and Connie were involved. The people turn vicious. And I have experienced what it is like when congregants talk about the pastor behind closed doors, and stare coldly at him in public, feeling righteous, judging and unaware of their own sin in judging.
When Tyler finds Connie, she confesses acts which she has done out of love but which are considered heinous by social and moral law. Tyler has also been struggling with guilt. He forgives Connie. Can he forgive himself?
"They need to go after someone, especially when they sniff weakness under what's supposed to be strong," Tyler is told.
When Tyler reaches the end of his rope and can no longer pretend he is in control, grace comes in unexpected ways.
In the Notes, Strout says she was interested in story, not theology: how does on live life? Does it matter how one lives? "I can only hope that readers will not only be entertained by the stories I tell, but be moved to reckon with their own sense of mystery and awe," Strout ends. "Through the telling of stories and the reading of stories, we have a chance to see something about ourselves and others that maybe we knew, but didn't know we knew. We can wonder for a moment, if, for all our separate histories, we are not more alike than different after all."
And that I what I adore about reading Strout, that connection that she offers with love and sensitivity, the universal human experience of wounded people discovering how to live.