Eleanor Oliphant is not a very likeable person. She has organised her life in a very regimented way to avoid all unnecessary social contact – and it shows. She’s just not that good at it. Her every interaction with others causes offense, though she would have no idea what she’s doing wrong. And she has never really tried to get close to anyone – until now. She has just seen the man of her dreams, and it’s time to figure out how to get him.
I really enjoyed this book. I found it easy to get absorbed in it. At its heart, it’s a story focusing on loneliness and connection, and on the transformative power of kindness and friendship.
A few spoilers follow.
Toward the beginning of the book, you are trying to figure out why Eleanor is the way she is. It seems possible, for instance, that she might be on the spectrum – she’s not sensitive to social cues, has a good vocabulary but doesn’t code-switch well, is bonded to routine. As we progress through the book, though, it becomes clear that she’s developed into this type of person over time. She’s lived in such an unnatural way, and has had so little time with others, that she hasn’t really learned those unspoken rules that other people have picked up. But once she begins, and has the chance to learn and change, she is a quick study.
One of the things I like about this book is that it is a story of slow change and growth, and I think that aspect of things is depicted realistically.
There are four main factors that get Eleanor to a better place over time:
1. She falls for someone – a musician she doesn’t actually know but builds up a fantasy around – and this prompts her toward all kinds of small changes that build up over time.
2. She experiences moments of social connection and the kindness of others. Eleanor has been very isolated. Even small moments with kind people – and the building of the first friendship she has had – teach her a lot about human behaviour, give her support, and help her to feel less lonely. And this makes her more open to further connections.
3. She begins to recognise, more and more, the problems in her own life, and wants to change.
4. Therapy. She needs to work through some past trauma and many difficult experiences.
Point 1 is interesting to me, because it is what we spend a lot of the early story on. Her infatuation with the musician may not be healthy, exactly, but in giving her something new to care about, it actually gets her doing all kinds of new things that gradually push her more into the everyday world of ‘normal’ people. She realises a musician will want to be with someone good-looking, and so she gets a wax, a haircut, some new clothes – and finds that people respond to her better. She wants to learn more about the musician, so she buys a computer with internet – essentially connecting her a little more to the outside world. She feels she’ll need to be able to socialise, go to pubs, etc, so she accepts the spontaneous invitation of a co-worker to grab a drink – and ends up forming a friendship with him and meeting other people, expanding her world.
In short, she does a lot of very small things, but they add up, and over time serve to help her build a new life. And there are seeds planted early that bear fruit later. For instance, at one point she visits Laura’s house and sees the care and attention Laura has put into making her house feel like a home. The idea sinks in. Much later, Eleanor realises that her own home – which until then has been utilitarian and messy – could be made nicer. It hasn’t mattered much to her before, especially as she’s never had anyone over, but now she has some motivation. She has a friend who might visit, for instance. And she is finally ready to begin building some kind of life, not just existence. It’s no coincidence that she doesn’t improve her living space until quite late in the novel, at the point when she’s already actively working on her problems.
I feel like it’s quite a realistic picture of how people do change. You need some genuine motivation, something to work towards. Not just ‘I want to change’, but ‘I want to look more attractive so that guy will like me, so I will get my first haircut in many years’. The actual motivator may or may not be worthwhile. But sometimes, by doing a small new thing, and then another, and then another, we end up in quite a different place.
Also, sometimes an idea will lodge in our brains – something that might improve our lives – but we might not act on it until an external motivator comes along. In Eleanor’s case, there is a practical reason (trying to see her home through Raymond’s eyes; there is now an actual person in her life who might come over and see her home) as well as a deeper, more emotional level (she has felt unloved and uncared for – just like her home – but as she is starting to care for herself more, her external environment should reflect that).
Anyway, that was my main impression of this book – a lot of small, positive movements building up into something genuinely transformative.
Kotoba Café 