The novel is sent in contemporary Glasgow, yet the author seems to have no interest in getting very basic facts right. Neither, is seems, does Gail Honeyman, who has nonetheless written a novel about a care-experienced character who at the outset has no friends, no social skills and a ludicrously limited understanding of the world she has inhabited for 30 years. The average person doesn’t know a great deal about the care system. She is a young woman who has experienced childhood trauma, and moved around foster placements, and struggled to form relationships. Nothing so very unusual there, and no harm done.īut the reason it matters is that this is a book about a character who is part of one of the most marginalised and misunderstood populations in society – care-experienced young people. So far, so what? It’s a bad debut novel that’s found an audience and entertained them. And as such, the book has nothing whatsoever of value to say. No-one like her exists in the real world. Does she have autistic spectrum disorder? Post-traumatic stress disorder? Some kind of dissociative disorder? It’s barely worth speculating, as she is nothing but a figment of the author’s imagination. As a character, Eleanor is utterly implausible, a crude caricature.
The biggest problem with the book as a work of literature is that there is barely a scene in it that rings true. Clues about the grim events of past are peppered throughout the many short chapters in a manner that reminded me of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (more on which later).
Not just for the majority of the novel’s other characters but also for the reader, who is invited to chuckle at her many eccentricities even as it is quickly revealed that they are the product of childhood trauma.Įleanor spent half of her children in care, following an “incident” that she never talks about, or even – as we learn from the first-person narrative – allows herself to think about. Honeyman’s central character, Eleanor, is an object of ridicule. SPOILER ALERT: The paragraphs below reveal details about the novel’s plot and central character that are gradually revealed in early chapters, but none of the “big reveals” that would constitute significant spoilers. And that was before I learned it was a global bestseller, with the film rights secured by Reese Witherspoon’s production company.Įleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is not just a bad novel – it’s a harmful one. After the first few dozen pages I was confused – was I missing something?īy the end I was horrified. WHEN I began reading Gail Honeyman’s debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, I knew little about it except that the author was Scottish.
0 kommentar(er)
