Writer:

Alizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. Born and raised in Portland, Maine, her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels.

Strout was born in Portland, Maine, and was raised in small towns in Maine and Durham, New Hampshire. Her father was a science professor, and her mother was an English professor and also taught writing in a nearby high school.

After graduating from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, she spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year. In 1982, she graduated with honors, and received a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law. That year her first story was published in New Letters magazine.

In an interview with Terry Gross in January 2015 she said of the experience, "law school was more of an operation, I think." She stated in a 2016 interview with The Morning News.

I wanted to be a writer so much that the idea of failing at it was almost unbearable to me. I really didn’t tell people as I grew older that I wanted to be a writer—you know, because they look at you with such looks of pity. I just couldn’t stand that(R.1)

Story:

It is a beautifully written collection of 9 short stories set in Amgash, Illinois. We encounter Lucy Barton stands at the center of Anything Is Possible as well through the perspectives of others, where she comes across as a wonderful woman, she has survived difficult circumstances, to become a renowned writer of a well received memoir. We get to finally meet her in Sister, where she finally returns to Amgash only to find it is more than she can bear. Strouts talent in creating and developing diverse characters with such complexity, depth and ordinariness is extraordinary. You meet and learn more about the history and fate of the characters as they criss cross across the stories. 

The kind and humble Tommy Guptill lost his farm and livelihood when it burned down. His family had to relocate to a poorer part of town and he becomes a janitor at Lucys school. He received a sign which he has never told anyone else about until he has an uncomfortable encounter with Pete, Lucys brother. Patty comes to understand that we love imperfectly. Lindas marriage into wealth is of scarce recompense when it comes to the price paid for having Jay as a husband. Charlies need and relationship with Tracy leads to his marriage crumbling. A mother and daughter relationship gains perspective and depth in Italy. Dottie handles with aplomb the atrocious behavior of a couple who come to stay at her bed and breakfast. Annie comes to understand why her father forbids her to go into the woods and just how judgmental the local community can be. Abel Blaine, a good man, carries the guilt of being well off, having grown up with extreme poverty. Upon trying to retrieve Sophias pony, he meets and is forced to converse with Scrooge. His thankfulness in receiving a precious gift leads him to the perfect knowledge that anything is possible for anyone. This almost has me weeping.

I am finding it hard to put into words just how much I loved these short stories. The characters have so much grace, humor and love amidst the loss, hardships and travails that life brings. Of course, there are troubled, unkind, difficult, and judgmental characters, but this is what people comprise of. Strout finds the emotional heart and humanity of the Amgash community, and leaves the reader wanting more. Simply brilliant.(R.2)

1.      The Sign(boss love): Hyacinths are often associated with spring and rebirth. Tommy goes through the fire and find the sing of God of rebirth, like hyacinth. His whole family becomes more compassionate than before. Ken’s son Pete thought Ken setting fire. Tommy still believes that Ken is a decent person and understood that Ken had a hard time getting through the murder during the war. Tommy comfort Pete and take his responsibility to forget to turn the machines off.

2.      Windmills(friend love): While Patty were a freshman in high school, she came home earlier with terrible cramps. Patty bumped into her mom’s affair with her Spanish teacher Mr. Delaney. Later Patty’s mom and her father got divorced. After Patty’s hub Sibby died, Patty had gone to a therapist. Deep in her heart, Patty felt so alone. Till Patty met Charlie. They start a new friendship to help each other survive from the isolation via the book of Lucy Barton who used to be looked down upon my Patty. Like the windmills that came to her mind. How their skinny long arms all turned, but never together, except for just once in a while two of them would be turning in unison, their arms poised at the same place in the sky.

and their long white arms twirling the air all at the same speed but otherwise without synchronicity. Sometimes we don’t get together so close but we can help each other go through down and out.

3.      Cracked(wife love): Linda’s hub is a Tom-peeper. She gave Yvonne the responsibility to press charges. It’s a best exemption for her hub for no more women to rent their room.

4.      The Hit-Thumb Theory(stranger love): “after that moment of false, bewildered and grateful relief came the crash and crush of real pain.” Charlie went on the therapy of veteran syndrome. He met a prostitute in the motel who ask him some money for helping her son in drug trouble. He refuses it until she mentioned about he is a person with great character. He decides to steal his wife’s money to help her.

5.      Mississipp(daughter love): Mary is a love-pioneer. Divorced 78-year-old America Mary got married with 62-year-old Paolo from Italy. In her daughter’s eye, Paolo is boring, their house is awful, the village is dumb. But from her mom, Mary’s eye, her second hub is so considerate. Her daughter Angelia wish Mary to go back to her ex-hub who is richer with the sickness of brain cancer. Mary believes that not one thing lasts forever. Like her mom helping the man across the street, Angelina finally could accept her mom’s quick and gracious loveliness behind the material world.

6.      Sister(sibling love): Tommy’s farm was burned, they moved to another city. Tommy’s new job is janitor. Tommy’s worker Ken got three children Pete, Vicky and Lucy. Lucy left from the poverty and becomes a famous writer, she visits Pete and Vicky. All the bad memory of childhood all of sudden comes back to them and give the sibling a chance to understand one another more. Poverty could be the advantage from the disadvantage, just depends on how you see it.

7.      Dottie’s Bed & Breakfast(agape karma love): Dottie serves the guest with bed and breakfast. She takes it not as a job, but a way to understand people. She understands that Shelly’s suffering from the humiliations, was not large when she considered what was happening in the world. Shelly had taken life’s disappointments and turned them into building a cottage. She had won against her husband the War of the House. She reported the assault upon her vanity and her daughter’s obesity. Till Shelly and her hub David left the motel. Dottie found out that Mr. Small is Charlie who suffered from veteran syndrome by soothing Shelly, it’s a way to cheer Charlie up. Dottie kissed two fingers and pressed them to Charlie’s signature. Blessing is so soft , like wind touching our heart.

8.          Snowblind: As a kid, Annie goes alone into the woods to tell herself stories. She leaves home in her teens and makes a happy career as an actor. When she returns to deal with a family crisis, her grandmother, who has never lived anywhere but the farm, tells her, "Dont come back. Dont get married. Dont have children. All those things will bring you heartache." Annie’s father is a homo pervert. His character makes Annie so alone. She told her experience to her good friend Cherlene. Later she became a writer about incest people. They had grown up on shame; it was the nutrient of their soil. Annie’s sister and brother are good , responsible, decent, fair-minded, had never known the passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger-simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the earth behind.

9.    Gift: focuses on Abel Blaine, the brother of Dottie in "Dotties Bed and Breakfast" and the second cousin of Lucy Barton. At Christmastime, in an upscale Chicago suburb, where Abel as a boss of air conditioning company now lives with his rich wife. He has a daughter, Zoe, whom he adores, and a granddaughter named Sophia. And Zoe’s hub is a lawyer. Abel late home for an overtime presentation by a woman, we could see Abels own self-doubt despite his success. Abel missed the dinner to catch with his family’s theater gathering to see a production of A Christmas Carol. Sophia’s pony dropped in the theater. It makes her hard to go to sleep. Abel drave back and try to find it. A heart attack drew him back to her memory with the talk with the actor Linck who accepted Abel fully and Abel felt better for his past shameful childhood. From his backtrack, we understand that Abel’s life philosophy: Anything was possible for anyone. Even we not so qualified to play any role that God gave us. But it’s a gift for us to play and no matter what role we played, will turn out to be a gift if we accept our past by someon we concern.

Highlights vs self- reflection:

1.p.14: the more he understood that he could not understand this confusing contest between good and evil, and that maybe people were not meant to understand things here on earth.

2.p.204: to listen to a person is not passive. To really listen is active, and Dottie had really listened.

3.p.182: a complaining woman was like pushing dirt beneath the fingernails of God

Golden Sentence:

1.p.6: He thought of the fire as a sign from God to keep this gift tightly to him.

2.p.94: Panic, like a large minnow darting upstream, moved back and forth inside him.

3.p.102: Childhood wasn’t all roses

4.p.103:This knowledge entered the room like a large dark bird, its wingspan wide and frightening.

5.p.251: She seemed as lovely as a Christmas tree to me. I don’t mean she looked like a tree, just that she represented all” . Anything is possible for anyone only if you are filled with love and hope

6.passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger-simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the earth behind.

Conclusion:

1.Every flower has its beautiful color. No matter what flower you got, you could find its own beauty if you open your soul.

2.Anything is possible, nothing is impossible cos” I “am possible.

3.Ordinary people undergo extraordinary suffering and manage to survive

4. Life is a beautiful ripple, each of us will be connected together and be pushed to the other side of shore near heaven.

5. Anything was possible for anyone. Even we not so qualified to play any role that God gave us. But it’s a gift for us to play and all we played, will turn out to be a gift.

Anything is Possible Questions by Helen:

uestions and Topics for Discussion

1.      Why do you think Elizabeth Strout chose to structure Anything Is Possible as a novel in the form of linked stories

(1)She guides us to see the possibility from the impossibility, Anything is possible, nothing is impossible cos” I “am possible.

2. How does the town of Amgash feature in the text? How does it shape the lives of its residents?

(1) Names always take prominence in Strout’s works, and “Anything is possible” is no exception. Lucy Barton literally means “light from the barley farm.”, This intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others reminds me of the deep bond of home cohesion, and as we see fragments of Lucy’s life, we see her thanksgiving for the love shown her, troubled and imperfect as it is, and her wish to escape circumstances. After Lucy becomes a famous writer, she decides to come back to her hometown and visit her siblings in Illinois City, the slow and quiet tone evokes a different kind of urban place still hard for Vicky to get out of the car and embrace the past.

3. The past plays a strong role in these stories, and many of the characters find themselves struggling to reconcile with it. 

- In Mississippi Mary .p115 Why Mary left a marriage after 51 years? Page 128

Mary waited until all five girls were grown, she waited until she recovered from the heart attack. She’d had when she found out about the secretary her husband had been having an affair with for thirteen years-thirteen years with that woman who was so fat.

- In Cracked (p63) Linda trades self-respect for a wealthy husband ..why she tolerates his husband to have addiction to peek women? Page 88

4. Strout deals with many different types of family relationships in the book, parents and children, among siblings and between spouses-                                   -In Mississippi Mary Does Angelia will accept her mom’s new marriage with Paolo.                                            - In Sister p 150. How’s the impact of Lucy’s absence on her siblings? Vicky /Pete

5. Patty and Linda are two sisters in “the pretty nicely girls” .  What’s different character they have ?  (P 38 and 58 )and does it influence their life

p.56:Patty was a counselor and work with adolescents. Linda respect her.

p.38: Linda sees Lucy Barton’s niece Lina is such a trash like Lucy. Her language is so mean and unkind.

6.Strout portrays wealth and/or poverty through the changing circumstances of several of her characters: Linda Peterson-Cornell; Abel Blaine; Abel’s sister, Dottie; Tommy Barton and his sister Vicky. How do these characters react to their economic circumstances? How do these circumstances shape their relationships to those around them, and how they are perceived?

(1) Linda:p.85. She was growing up in northern Illinois, her father is a successful feed corn farm. Her mother, a homemaker. Linda graduated from high school and married a local by named Bill, then she divorced him. In college, she met Jay, who with his intelligence and vast money seemed to offer a life that might catapult her away from the terrifying and abiding image of her mother alone and ostracized.

(2)Abel:p.38 Able was something. He’d stand in the dumpster and go through the garbage, looking for stuff to eat. He’d do it with no embarrassment at all

p.191 Abel had secured a job in the local theater as an usher.

(3)Dottie: Dottie serves the guest with bed and breakfast. She takes it not as a job, but a way to understand people and help people.

(4)Tommy: Tommy’s farm was burned, they moved to another city. Tommy’s new job is janitor.

(5)Pete: Ken’s son Pete thought Ken setting fire. Tommy still believes that Ken is a decent person and understood that Ken had a hard time getting through the murder during the war. Tommy comfort Pete and take his responsibility to forget to turn the machines off. Pete lives in terrified isolation and is addicted to children’s books. “Vicky,” says Pete, “we didn’t turn out so bad, you know.”

(6)Vicky: The reunion detonates when her sister Vicky shows up, spewing rancor, but Lucy still helped her sister financially. Young Vicky who was overweight and full of rage was forced by their mother to eat out of the toilet if she wasted food. "It was exactly that bad, Lucy," Vicky says. Once again, only one child escapes.

(7)Lucy:p.150 Pete felt a sense of awe that Lucy was who she was. She had left this tiny house, this small town, the poverty they had endured-she’d left it all, and moved to New York City, and she was, in Pete’s eyes, famous

p.33:Lucy’s mother had made dressed, and Patty’s mother had made dressed and Patty’s mother had used her as a seamstress.

6.Many of the characters in these stories overcome adverse circumstances to

experience moments of grace—Abel Blaine, Patty Nicely, and Angelina Mumford, for example. How do these moments of grace present themselves? Why do you think Strout decided to give her characters these opportunities for grace? How did this shape your understanding of these stories and characters?

(1) Abel: p.38 Able was something. He’d stand in the dumpster and go through the garbage, looking for stuff to eat. He’d do it with no embarrassment at all. Abel may or may not survive that night, but he has become a man who understands that sometimes what people are most ashamed of is something that made them stronger, better, more able to love.

(2)Patty: While Patty were a freshman in high school, she came home earlier with terrible cramps. Patty bumped into her mom’s affair with her Spanish teacher Mr. Delaney. Later Patty’s mom and her father got divorced. After Patty’s hub Sibby died, Patty had gone to a therapist. Deep in her heart, Patty felt so alone. Till Patty met Charlie. They start a new friendship to help each other survive from the isolation via the book of Lucy Barton who used to be looked down upon my Patty. Like the windmills that came to her mind. How their skinny long arms all turned, but never together, except for just once in a while two of them would be turning in unison, their arms poised at the same place in the sky.

(3) Angelina: Mary is a love-pioneer. Divorced 78-year-old America Mary got married with 62-year-old Paolo from Italy. In her daughter’s eye, Paolo is boring, their house is awful, the village is dumb. But from her mom, Mary’s eye, her second hub is so considerate. Her daughter Angelia wish Mary to go back to her ex-hub who is richer with the sickness of brain cancer. Mary believes that not one thing lasts forever. Like her mom helping the man across the street, Angelina finally could accept her mom’s quick and gracious loveliness behind the material world.

8. Was there a character or story that affected you more than the others? Which, and why?

(1)The Sign(boss love): Hyacinths are often associated with spring and rebirth. Tommy goes through the fire and find the sing of God of rebirth, like hyacinth. His whole family becomes more compassionate than before. Ken’s son Pete thought Ken setting fire. Tommy still believes that Ken is a decent person and understood that Ken had a hard time getting through the murder during the war. Tommy comfort Pete and take his responsibility to forget to turn the machines off.

10.  How did you interpret Strout’s choice of Anything Is Possible as a title, and how do you think this concept resonated with Abel Blaine in the last chapter of the book?

(1)Every flower has its beautiful color. No matter what flower you got, you could find its own beauty if you open your soul.

(2)Anything is possible, nothing is impossible cos” I “am possible.

(3)Ordinary people undergo extraordinary suffering and manage to survive

(4)Abel: focuses on Abel Blaine, the brother of Dottie in "Dotties Bed and Breakfast" and the second cousin of Lucy Barton. At Christmastime, in an upscale Chicago suburb, where Abel as a boss of air conditioning company now lives with his rich wife. He has a daughter, Zoe, whom he adores, and a granddaughter named Sophia. And Zoe’s hub is a lawyer. Abel late home for not refusing an overtime presentation by a woman, we could see Abels own self-doubt despite his success. Abel missed the dinner to catch with his family’s theater gathering to see a production of A Christmas Carol. Sophia’s pony dropped in the theater. It makes her hard to go to sleep. Abel drave back and try to find it. A heart attack drew him back to her memory with the talk with

 the actor Linck. From his backtrack, we understand that Abel’s life philosophy: Anything was possible for anyone. Even we not so qualified to play any role that God gave us. But it’s a gift for us to play and all we played, will turn out to be a gift.

※

Dear all: we miss all the people who can’t come and thank you for all the people who come. Furthermore, we wanna give our special thanks to our guest Torey of Teresa’s friend. Helen’s great lead gives us a great enlightenment. We learn that the love of forgiveness and understanding make everything become possible. Tommy’s understanding makes Ken forgive his father’s arson. Charlie’s acceptance cheer divorced Patty up and forgive her parents and hub. Linck’s understanding makes Abel feel so acceptance from his shameful childhood. Every flower has its beautiful color. No matter what flower you got, you could find its own beauty if you open our soul.

Anything is possible, nothing is impossible cos” I “am possible. Ordinary people undergo extraordinary suffering and manage to survive as hero . Life is a beautiful ripple, each of us will be connected together and be pushed to the other side of shore near heaven. Anything was possible for anyone. Even we are not so qualified to play any role that God gave us. But it’s a gift for us to play with understanding and forgiveness . And it will turn out to be a gift for our ordinary life.

Related Reading:

1.       Elizabeth Strout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Strout

2.       Anything is possible review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32080126-anything-is-possible

3.       Hyacinths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_(plant)

4.       Alexander Galder: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%9A%E5%8E%86%E5%B1%B1%E5%A4%A7%C2%B7%E8%80%83%E5%B0%94%E5%BE%B7

5.       Deward Hopper: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%9A%E5%8E%86%E5%B1%B1%E5%A4%A7%C2%B7%E8%80%83%E5%B0%94%E5%BE%B7

6.       Philp Guston: https://read01.com/zh-tw/aAnx7Em.html#.W_ZFtTgzbX4

7.       Peoria: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9A%AE%E5%A5%A5%E9%87%8C%E4%BA%9A_(%E4%BC%8A%E5%88%A9%E8%AF%BA%E4%BC%8A%E5%B7%9E)

8.       Anything is possible: https://www.elizabethstrout.com/books/anything-is-possible/anything-is-possible-excerpt/

9.       Veteran syndrome: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Veteran%27s%20Syndrome

10.    Bogliasco: https://www.google.com.tw/search?safe=strict&tbm=isch&q=bogliasco&chips=q:bogliasco,online_chips:bogliasco+italy&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX6IiqkereAhXHXbwKHcR2COUQ4lYIKSgF&biw=1163&bih=528&dpr=1.65

11.    Lucy Barton: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mystery-behind-name/#!

12.    Review: https://www.npr.org/2017/04/25/523586746/anything-is-possible-is-unafraid-to-be-gentle

13.    Review: http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/anything-is-possible-a-novel

14.    Nuthatch: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B3%BE%E5%B1%AC

15.    Book Review: https://www.tampabay.com/features/books/review-elizabeth-strouts-anything-is-possible-an-insightful-return-to-lucy/2321690

16.    Book Review: https://www.elizabethstrout.com/books/anything-is-possible/anything-is-possible-excerpt/