So Much for Happy Endings

Finished. The last line of my summer reading complete. Relief. And extreme discontent. Why Strout? Why! Elizabeth Strout, author of a disappointing and fairly depressing book, Olive Kitteridge, writes thirteen short stories majorly surrounding concepts of loveless marriage, cheating, and desire to return to the "golden ages" of youth. Surprisingly enough, not the adventurous and thrilling reading book I typically imagine completing during the summer season. If I ever meet Strout, I plan to slam her with riveting questions. But first and foremost I will ask Strout, "Why does love exist in such a dark place in your mind?" Throughout the novel, Strout expressed the great disappointment of love as couples age, grow far apart and lose touch with the person they once thought of so fondly. For example, as Olive confronts Henry of not protecting her, Henry fervently claims, "'all the years... you've [never] once apologized'" (123). As Henry's emotions finally boil over the top, his claim creates an external conflict between a confused Olive and his own fed-up self. The conflict only adds to the growing gap between the once young lovers, desperately passionate and kind toward each other. As they age, however, Strout seems insistent on making their lives more miserable as they fight and struggle to find words to speak to each other without adding a tone of patronization. Similarly, after discovering that her husband, Roger, cheats on her, Louise speaks with extreme hatred claiming, "his heart beats twice an hour" (153). Through her livid tone, Louise indirectly characterizes herself as hurt and betrayed by the love of her life. I simply do not understand why Strout feels the need to destroy every relationship in this novel by one fowl swoop of her pen. An innocent Louise crushed by Roger's heartlessness, Nina left in the dark as Tom sleeps with another women, and even poor, old, Olive feels such betrayal as Henry moves even further away from their marriage. To top off my disappointment with the novel, Olive declares, "'I don't care if I die'" to a man she meets on a bench in her old age (254). Left alone by Henry and separated from her son, Christopher, Olive's life of continuous hardships finally catches up to her. While Strout creates sorrowful pathos from other elderly people who remain alone in the world, she writes Olive as sadly accepting of her own death due to the loneliness that drowns her. With no one left to love, her desperation breaks my heart, knowing that even after her father's suicide, her life never turned back around to present her with a slice of happiness. Does Strout assert that happy endings simply do not exist in real life? That only in fairy tales with longing princesses and handsome princes can a life full of love truly work out? Thanks to Strout's dominant tone of sorrow throughout the entire work, the future frightens me as I acknowledge the hurt that anyone can cause me. Overall, I feel that I will never understand the level of resistance the Strout so heavily enforces against love in the world. Why, Strout? Why?