Book Review : Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant, a 29 year old woman lives a very mundane life. She lives alone, eats the same lunch every day, spends her weekend over two bottles of Vodka and talks to her "mummy" once every week. Her lack of social skills has made her unacceptable at work and also at other places, where people want to conform to certain norms for being acceptable. It is a situation Eleanor has made peace with and she is happy staying away from people. With an unhappy and traumatic past she indulges in drinking over the weekend to keep those memories away. It is only when she meets a fellow colleague Raymond and they together save an old man from dying, things start changing for her. Her relation with the old man and his family, with Raymond's mother, brings her face to face with family life, which she never got a chance to experience and thus begins her transformation. Her courage to face her past trauma which she had kept hidden for years, her struggle to confront her "mummy" who has been unduly dominating her, is a tale worth mentioning.

The story begins by getting us familiar with Eleanor's day to day life, her mundane work, her colleagues who make fun of her behind her back, her boss who does not think she is capable enough. Her once-in-week call with her mummy talks about a traumatic past. Growing up in foster homes, where no one is willing to understand her, shaped Eleanor to who she is today. Her panic, her trauma, her anxiety and her sadness and helplessness makes our heart go out to her. The suspense build in the first half of the book is really well deserved, it kept me invested in the book and wanting to read further.

However, I felt the book fails to hold the fort towards the end. The suspense built with regards to Eleanor's childhood was not really revealed that well, it was given out suddenly and quite out of the blue. The way the whole story was being built I was expecting a lot more insight about her past. To me it felt like a very abrupt disclosure and too little information about her past. The incidents towards the end of the book did not seem very coherent as well as if the author was in a hurry to finish the book.

Overall it is a good read. A woman's ability to conquer the most traumatic situation of her life and to heal and transform from it is worth mentioning.

Book Review : Levels of Life by Julian Barnes

I was first introduced to Julian Barnes when I read "Sense of an Ending" and I absolutely loved the book. So, I had no doubt that Levels of Life will also be an amazing experience as well. This essay about photography, ballooning, love, life and loss in Barnes unique style, will hook you to it. The book is divided into three chapters and each one looks at a different level of life.

The first chapter :Sin of Heights" talks of three different people : An English Colonel Fred Burnaby, the bohemian French actress Sarah Bernhardt and the balloonist and photographer Nadar. All three of them have a common passion for ballooning. Here Barnes uses the metaphor of ballooning and photography to describe the thrill of flight, of conquering God's territory. As every love story is potentially a grief story, every balloon expedition can potentially be a disaster, but it also can lead to adventure and freedom. And if you can combine ballooning with photography - the world is changed. 

“You put together two things that have not been put together before And the world is changed"

The second chapter "On the Level" is where we see Sarah and Fred together. They have a lot in common, their bohemian way of living and their passion for ballooning, but when Fred falls in love with Sarah and proposes to marry her, she refuses. Engrossed in her own life, Sarah chooses to float in the air like a balloon than come down on earth and have a settled life. This chapter is a midway between the highs of chapter one and lows of chapter three. 

"Why do we constantly aspire to love? Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth as in photography, magic as in ballooning".

The last chapter, "Loss of Depth" is where we come face to face with the searingly painstaking memoir of Barnes. In this chapter he talks of the death of his wife Pat Kavanagh and the grief and mourning that follows. From being angry towards people who carefully avoids talking about her, and also towards people who talks about her, to contemplating suicide, Barnes takes us through his plethora of emotions and his constant attempt to cope with it. How he imagines her all the time and is in constant conversation with her, is something we can all relate to. 

Even thought we have a huge range of literature talking of love and loss of love, we all find ourselves at loss of words while describing grief our struggles to deal with it. In this book, Barnes pens down these emotions with such simplicity and authenticity that you cannot help but find yourself soaking in this heartbreaking experience. 

"It hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think".