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knitbat's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
knitbat's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
istar_woman's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoy Strout's books. She can make the mundane seem interesting!
csdbrink's review against another edition
5.0
6 Sterren! Boek vol essentiële, veelzeggende observaties en dialogen vanuit ik-persoon Lucy Barton. Fragmentarisch, maar met een sterke richting. Barmhartig en meedogenloos tegelijkertijd over voorbij gegane huwelijken. Hoe goed ken je een ander? Wat bezielde Lucy destijds met William te trouwen? Wat gaf hij haar en waarom voelde ze zich soms zo beroerd?
msmoodyreader's review against another edition
emotional
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
hirize's review against another edition
3.0
Ok. About a woman's relationship (very close) with her ex husband and the effect of her childhood privations on her life
blairewithane's review against another edition
5.0
4.5. I love the Lucy Barton books and pretty much everything Elizabeth Strout writes. She is able to capture the reality of the small moments that make up life is in this way I find really moving. Lucy reflects on her life with William and their continued friendship decades after their marriage has ended.
brigray's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ms_marple's review against another edition
4.0
"Grief is such a—oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you."
--
This is my second book of Strout. And, once again, she has abandoned me on a quiet road in the pouring rain. I'm standing in the middle of water-logged alleys, looking blankly at the blinding streetlight, drenched in every imaginable feeling.
In plain sight, this is the story of William, Lucy's ex-husband. It is a narrative depicting Lucy's attempt to comprehend her previous marriage to William. But there is more to it. It's also an attempt to understand our relationships with others - those we know well, or used to know well, or possibly ones we've never seen before.
"Oh William!" follows up decades after "Lucy Barton," with Lucy recently widowed following the death of her second husband and both of her adult daughters married. The narrative begins with a succession of catastrophes in William's life: His third wife abruptly leaves him, taking their teenage daughter with her; his career begins to dwindle; and an ancestry website reveals that he has a half-sister living in Maine, a discovery that strongly suggests that his long-dead mother, Catherine — to whom Lucy was very close — abandoned a young daughter to marry William's father, a German prisoner of war, in the decade after World War II. William comes to Lucy in despair, and in her grief and alone, she puts herself into assisting, offering to accompany him (platonically) to Maine to find his recently discovered half-sister.
One aspect of Elizabeth Strout's brilliance is the deception with which she injects subterranean strength into ostensibly plain sentences. Strout works in the world of everyday speech, generating repetitions, gaps, and difficulty with simple language and direct diction, while simultaneously releasing a tidal urgency that appears to emerge from nowhere even as it acts in plain sight.
Strout's theme in "Oh William!" is marriage, and she portrays it brilliantly, whether it's the refuge and deliverance William and his mother gave Lucy from her destitute upbringing or the minor offences that can accrue toxic symbolism in the course of a relationship.
The novel exemplifies how marriage and motherhood create a new structure of myth and meaning atop the primordial one. Strout presents this reality about Lucy's marriage to William in the same way she depicted its flaws: with vivid, piercing details.
"William is the only person I ever felt safe with. He is the only home I ever had."
Ultimately, it implies that building a new, more vigorous, happier life, however unusual and impressive, isn't enough. To completely inhabit that new life, one must overcome one's broken childhood self and accept one's successes. Anything less carries the risks of solipsism and self-absorption. Or, as Lucy Barton puts it, "I am not invisible no matter how deeply I feel that I am."
--
This is my second book of Strout. And, once again, she has abandoned me on a quiet road in the pouring rain. I'm standing in the middle of water-logged alleys, looking blankly at the blinding streetlight, drenched in every imaginable feeling.
In plain sight, this is the story of William, Lucy's ex-husband. It is a narrative depicting Lucy's attempt to comprehend her previous marriage to William. But there is more to it. It's also an attempt to understand our relationships with others - those we know well, or used to know well, or possibly ones we've never seen before.
"Oh William!" follows up decades after "Lucy Barton," with Lucy recently widowed following the death of her second husband and both of her adult daughters married. The narrative begins with a succession of catastrophes in William's life: His third wife abruptly leaves him, taking their teenage daughter with her; his career begins to dwindle; and an ancestry website reveals that he has a half-sister living in Maine, a discovery that strongly suggests that his long-dead mother, Catherine — to whom Lucy was very close — abandoned a young daughter to marry William's father, a German prisoner of war, in the decade after World War II. William comes to Lucy in despair, and in her grief and alone, she puts herself into assisting, offering to accompany him (platonically) to Maine to find his recently discovered half-sister.
One aspect of Elizabeth Strout's brilliance is the deception with which she injects subterranean strength into ostensibly plain sentences. Strout works in the world of everyday speech, generating repetitions, gaps, and difficulty with simple language and direct diction, while simultaneously releasing a tidal urgency that appears to emerge from nowhere even as it acts in plain sight.
Strout's theme in "Oh William!" is marriage, and she portrays it brilliantly, whether it's the refuge and deliverance William and his mother gave Lucy from her destitute upbringing or the minor offences that can accrue toxic symbolism in the course of a relationship.
The novel exemplifies how marriage and motherhood create a new structure of myth and meaning atop the primordial one. Strout presents this reality about Lucy's marriage to William in the same way she depicted its flaws: with vivid, piercing details.
"William is the only person I ever felt safe with. He is the only home I ever had."
Ultimately, it implies that building a new, more vigorous, happier life, however unusual and impressive, isn't enough. To completely inhabit that new life, one must overcome one's broken childhood self and accept one's successes. Anything less carries the risks of solipsism and self-absorption. Or, as Lucy Barton puts it, "I am not invisible no matter how deeply I feel that I am."
elloe9's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25