Writer:

Strout was born in a small town in Maine. She used to play with other relatives at their dirt road. Both Strout’s parents are professor. After Strout graduated from the law college, she spent one year in Oxford university for law degree. Later she moved to New York as a waitress and start to write novels which always hit the hotpot.

Strout wrote and published Olive Kitteridge (2008) won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book was adapted into a multi Emmy Award-winning mini series and became a New York Times bestseller. My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016) was met with international acclaim and topped the New York Times bestseller list. Lucy Barton later became the main character in Strouts 2017 novel, Anything is Possible. A sequel to Olive Kitteridge, titled Olive, Again, was published in 2019. (R.5)

Story:

As the story unfolds, the reader is given glimpses of Lucy’s painful childhood, characterized by poverty, abuse and isolation.

Even without a strong plot to move the story along, the reader is swept up into Lucy’s life by her memories of her childhood and various relationships, including a teacher, a romantic relationship with a professor, an author, her husband, neighbors and her doctor.  What is left unsaid contributes as much to the story as what is said, and leaves the reader to wonder what else might have happened.  Throughout the novel, Strout, in addition to communicating the complexity of family relationships, draws in many other relevant issues, such as poverty, child neglect and abuse, war, prejudice, and homosexuality.

Highlights vs self- reflection:

1.p.71:a small pilot seat for a child headed to outer space.

2.p.108: the clouds made the river seem gray.

3.p.131:We are both old enough to know things now, and that’s good.

4.p.264:it’s your life, it matters.

5.p.262:Olive looked-naturally-at the whole thing with different eyes.

6.p.104: You’re the one who made the decision to have the affair. I think you should be the one who takes responsibility for it. Not your husband.”

7.114: A tentative earnestness spread through Bernie now. He felt as though he had been called upon to give something of himself that was far outside his purview as a lawyer, and it was something he had never given to anyone, except his wife, vaguely, years ago.

8.p.212:Henry had been her first, and then Jack had been her real one.

9.p.116: I think our job-maybe even our duty-is to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.

10.p.256:Maybe you fall in love with people who save your life, even when you think it’s not worth saving.

11. p.195: And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect: This was true for Jim and Helen, and for Margaret and himself, as well.

12.p.232:I always knew I loved to dress up, and I like to tell people what to do, I like people, Dad, and these people have certain needs and I get to fulfill them, and that’s a pretty great thing.”why as dominatrix

13.p.166: It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived him, And it meant that he did not know how to perceive himself.

14.p.264:Olive saw this. All love was to be taken seriously, including her own brief love for her doctor.

15.p.216: It seemed to her she had never before completely understood how far apart human experience was. She had no idea who Anderea was, and Andrea had no idea who Olive was, either. And yet. Andrea had gotten in better than she had, the experience of being another.

16.p.3:He was just an old man with a sloppy belly and not anyone worth noticing.

Golden Sentence:

1.p.232:Lisa was saying,”You know, I just want to say,Mrs.Kitteridge told us, years ago in that math class-I will never forget it-one day she just stopped a math problem she was doing on the board and she turned around and she said to the class, “You all know how you are, If you just look at yourself and listen to yourself, you know exactly who you are. And don’t forget it.” And I never did forget it. It kind of gave me courage over the years because she was right; I did know who I was

2.p.149: Olive would put her leg over both of his, she would put her head on his chest, and during the night they would shift, but always they were holding each other, and Jack thought of their large old bodies, shipwrecked, thrown upon the shore-and how they held on for dear life.

3.p.229:The oaks and maples caused a dappling of the brightness.

4.p.289:I don’t have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.

Conclusion:

1.A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.-The Wizard of Oz.

2. “Strout’s prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity”-The New Yorker(R.4)

3. If Crazy Rich Asians give us a peek to the world of diamond, then, the Olive brings us to see the pearl, from suffering, we can win the purest pearl of our life.

4. Heres the thing about Strout: Her characters endure some awful stuff — spousal abuse, parental neglect, the affronts of aging (including loss of independence and the need for adult diapers), blistering loneliness — but theyre resilient. And if even harshly opinionated Olive can learn that a little compassion can change the picture, so can we. "What is your life like, Betty?" Olive asks a home health aide whose bumper sticker irks her. The question is key; its the first step toward empathy. Olive, Again poignantly reminds us that empathy, a requirement for love, helps make life "not unhappy."

5. Panaroid could be the prophet in the real life.

6.A paranoid math-teacher and midwife with an empathetic heart to the paedophilia, the abandoned patience, hub’s affair and to accept her Pandora window-alone and striving for being not alone.

7.On the end of life journey, we come with nothing, and will be gone with nothing. What we left is to help others and make the sweet memory stay on earth.

8. Strout was born in a small town in Maine, and raised up in Maine and Durhum. She used to play with other relatives at their dirt road. This made her story filled with gratitude and appreciation.

9. In the story of My name is Lucy who is two daughter’s mom(Christina and Becka), stay 9 weeks in hospital suffering from appendix surgery and fever contamination. Her feeling goes through agonizing. It’s chance to open their heart to speak of their wound. Strout render us a cup of Oolung tea of life with warm leaves. After we read it, we can feel the warmth deep in our heart.

10. We can’t find the place of Crosby in the map, cos it is created by Strout via her friend’s name.

12 You might feel worthless to one person, but you are priceless to another, don’t ever forget your value.

13. p.264:All love was to be taken seriously, including her own brief love for her doctor. We need to pay more attention to all the things happened around us and learn the lessons from it.

14. No matter we are professor(dalliance-Jack) or podiatrist(unfilial unrespect mom-Chris), we all make mistakes, To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Olive Again summary:

 Olive, Again is quite simply one of the best books I have ever read. It would be a wonderful text to choose for an animated book discussion group. I defy anyone to not fall in love with the cantankerous, old, troubled, self-contradictory curmudgeon Olive.

In this novel we meet Olive about to embark on her second marriage to Jack after the bereavement of Henry as the local pharmacist. We leave her, somewhat reluctantly, living in a care home in Crosby, Maine, stating that "Truthfully she does not understand a thing."

As a reflection on life we are encouraged to laugh, cry, and share the insight, or at times lack of insight Olive continually displays. Elizabeth Strout is pure genius in getting to the very heart of the human condition. There are no issues she shrinks from and explores topics as diverse as paedophilia to being a dominatrix to infidelity to incontinence. The extreme and the mundane sit side by side to create a normal and weirdly realistic view of small town life.

Although presented as a novel, the book is arguably a series of vignettes in which Olive features either centrally or on the periphery as a neighbour, friend or teacher. Within the book there is something and someone that everyone can relate to in their own neighbourhood. As a reader I havent come across a book more likely to engender an empathetic response.

Other stories have a more tenuous connection to Olive. Two feature her previous students, and she is the catalyst for an epiphany in their lives that they experience after running into her. The epiphany that is experienced after a meeting with former student Andrea LRieux is more of an epiphany for Olive, though, in that Andrea writes a poem about her that shows her to be a very lonely person. Although Olive, with her multitude of friends, is initially offended by this characterization, she comes to realize that Andrea is actually right, and that she has lived most of her life very lonely but at the same time surrounded by many different people.

Three stories about Jack, her fiance, are also in some way written with her at the center; in the first, the couple have separated, Jack heads to Portland in his snazzy red convertible for a drink. He replays his disappointments and feels that perhaps he deserves it all. He rues his reprehensible behavior toward his lesbian daughter, his wifes coldness, (which he sees in a new light after a disturbing email from her old boyfriend), and the surprising harassment lawsuit that forced his early retirement. At 74, Jack wonders, "How does one live an honest life?" Hes jerked out of his miserable memories by a traffic cop who pulls him over for speeding — a situation that quickly escalates into a power play with class overtones.

Although she does not feature in the story in person, she is the reason for its existence. Similarly, in the second story about Jack, his relationship with Olive prompts him to think back sadly about his relationship with his first wife and with a subsequent girlfriend.

Along with loneliness, class divides and snobbery are again at the forefront of Strouts concerns. Shifting over to irritable Olive, we learn that shes in high dudgeon over "that horrible old rich flub-dub of a man." She attends a baby shower she finds unbearably stupid, but ends up a hero for coolly helping with the emergency delivery of a guests baby. Eager to tell someone about it, she calls her estranged son Christopher, who barely registers her achievement. Jack, she knows, will react differently.

Olive is a blunt busybody and a gossip, but shes also capable of kindness, and many of these stories involve the mutual benefits that accrue when people help each other. A dying young woman who feels abandoned by all her friends is grateful for Olives visits.

"Arrested"

Jack Kennison, a seventy-four-year-old widower and retired Harvard professor, drives to Portland to buy whiskey to avoid the possibility of running into Olive, who he has since separated from, at the grocery store in Crosby. He is pulled over by the police and given a ticket for speeding.

"Labor"

Olive attends a "stupid" baby shower. One of the pregnant guests goes into labor and Olive attempts to drive her to the hospital, but finds herself having to delivers the strangers baby in the back of her own car.

"Cleaning"

Kayley Callaghan is a fourteen-year-old girl in Crosby whose father died two years earlier. She begins to find a passion for playing the piano, which her father played. While cleaning the house of Mrs. Ringrose for money, Kayley begins experiencing sexual feelings and touches her breasts. She opens her eyes to find Mr. Ringrose watching her, urging her to continue. She agrees and later finds an envelope filled with money left for her by him when she leaves. She and Mr. Ringrose continue their unspoken arrangement every time she cleans their house. When her mother finds the envelopes of money, Kayley instead hides it in the piano. One day, she comes home to find her mother sold the piano since she stopped playing it. Mrs. Ringrose tells Kayley she is no longer needed for cleaning. In the last days of summer, Kayley learns from Olive Kitteridge that Mr. Ringroses behavior has became abnormal and he is being put in a nursing home. Two days before Kayley begins high school, she rides her bike near the nursing home and feels a longing for Mr. Ringrose.

"Motherless Child"

Olive invites her son Christopher, a podiatrist living in New York, to finally come visit Crosby with his wife, Ann, and their four children. Olive reveals her plans to marry Jack and Christopher expresses disbelief and anger. When Jack comes to meet Christopher and his family the next day, Christopher expresses anger at his mother but is quickly chastised by his wife. Christopher immediately apologizes and appears "pale as paper", but Olive feels pity for her son. Olive recalls yelling at her late husband Henry in public similar to how Ann yelled at Christopher. Olive reflects that she has "failed on a colossal level" with both Henry and their son Christopher and "lived her life as though blind."

"Helped"

Suzanne Larkin returns to Crosby, where her childhood home recently burned down with her father having died in the process. Suzanne finds a platonic consolation through conversations with her fathers lawyer, Bernie. Bernies compassion and empathy makes a grieving Suzanne feel "as though huge windows above her had been smashed—the way the firemen must have smashed the windows of her childhood home— and now, here above her and around her, was the whole wide world right there, available to her once again." Bernie feels a similar connection to Suzanne, and is astonished by her "uncorrupted" nature.

"Light"

Olive encounters a former student of hers, Cindy Coombs, while shopping in the grocery store. Coombs, who previously worked as a librarian, is gravely ill. Olive visits her unannounced one day and continues to see her afterwards. The two discuss mortality, and Olive confesses her "pretty awful" treatment of Henry. She says that she has become "a tiny — tiny — bit better as a person" but feels sick that Henry is not alive to receive her that way. The storys title refers to Cindy and Olives mutual appreciation for the light in February: "how at the end of each day the world seemed cracked open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees."

"The Walk"

Sixty-nine-year-old Denny Pelletier is walking alone one night in December in Crosby. He thinks something is wrong about his children but cant think of the answer. He reminisces about his childhood, his own children, his first love Dorothy Paige, and finally his wife Marie Levesque. Denny stumbles upon a man bent over a bench and calls the police, who arrive and inject him with Naloxone. Denny walks home and realizes it is with himself that something is wrong, that he had been "saddened by the waning of his life, and yet it was not over." He returns home and is greeted by his wife Marie.

"Pedicure"

Olive gets her first pedicure. Jack contemplates his late wife, Betsy, and his affair with Elaine Croft. He thinks of and is frightened by "how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing."

"Exiles"

Jim, Bob and Susan Burgess — the siblings from The Burgess Boys (2013) — reunite in nearby Shirley Falls. The brothers wives, Helen and Margaret, do not like one another. Helen drinks wine and finds herself falling down the stairs and breaking several bones. Following Helens accident, Margaret confesses to her husband that "I couldnt stand her and she knew it, Bob. And I feel terrible." It is also revealed that Bob Burgess and his wife know Olive.

Jim is an exile in New York who missed hometown-Maine, but his wife Helen dislike Maine. Bob is an exile in Maine who missed the life in New York. But he met his second wife in Maine, Bob can’t father children, so his marriage with Pam is over. When two brothers Jim and Bob and Susan sister met together in Maine. Bob clarify his depression for killing his father. Jim’s wife Helen got drunk and fell. Margaret felt sorry for not spending more time with her. From forgiving and understanding. Life seems more easier to face the feeling of exile. Their heart find the hometown again.

"The Poet"

Olive, now eighty-two years old, drives to the coffee shop in Crosby. She runs into a former student of hers, Andrea LRieux, who went on to become the United States Poet Laureate. Olive and Jack take a trip to Oslo, Norway. Later, in autumn, Jack dies in his sleep beside her. The following May, Olive is anonymously sent a poem written by Andrea that is based on their encounter. She is initially offended by Andreas characterization of Olive as lonely. However, Olive eventually admits, "Andrea had gotten it better than she had, the experience of being another."

"The End of the Civil War Days"

Married couple Fegus and Ethel MacPherson lives on the outskirts of Crosby and been married for forty-two years, but have barely spoken to each in the last thirty-five years. They have lived with yellow duct tape separating their house ever since Fergus had an affair. Their separation is somewhat broken when their daughter, Laurie, returns from Portland to tell them she has become a dominatrix and is the star of a new documentary. The story draws parallels between the performance aspect of Fergus Civil War reenactments with their daughters work as a dominatrix.

Matthew7:3

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank of your own eye?

Heart"

Olive, eighty-three years old, suffers a heart attack in her hairdressers driveway. She is assigned round-the-clock care in her home by nurses aides. Olive befriends two of the nurses: Betty, a Trump supporter, and Halima, the daughter of a Somali refugee. Christopher visits her frequently and eventually helps her get into Maple Tree Apartments, an assisted living facility.

Betty was Olive’s seven-grade math student and had a crush on Mr. Skyler teacher, just like Olive had crush on the doctor who cured her heart-attack. All love was to be taken seriously, including her brief love for her doctor. Betty had kept this brief love to her heart for years and years. She had needed it that much to help her survive the two marriage and take care of her son with the strep throat.

Olive listened to her story and thought that her own life had been remarkably easy compared to things Betty had gone through. It’s not just a life, it’s your life, it matters(p.264)

"The Friend"

In Maple Tree Apartments, Olive befriends Isabelle Daignault — the mother from Amy and Isabelle (1999). The two form a close friendship, caring for one another. Isabelle reflects with regret and shame for cutting off her daughters hair, saying to Olive, "The memory haunts me." Olives oldest age mentioned in the novel is eighty-six-year-old.

Isabelle’s early pregnancy made her mom sad and her mom passed away, Isabelle felt so sorry that her mom didn’t get a chance to see her baby. Isabelle likes to murmur to her, it will make her feel better.

Olive fell again, she stuck her cane to the ground and hoisted herself up, it was time to go get Isabelle for supper. Deep in her heart. From helping Isabelle, Olive forgot her own suffering. That’s life!

Olive Again questions:

1.Why is Olive upset when Christophers wife stands up for her?

Olive can’t stand Ann’s rude manner, Ann’s mother passed away, her grandkids are not polite,never say thank you for the xmas gifts that Olive sent them. Except 2-year –old Henry, he shows his gratitude. Olive doesn’t hated people that were late. Her son and daughter-in law are late and even say nothing to apologize. When Olive told them she decided to marry Jack. Chris pissed off and Ann scold him. Although Olive feel uncomfortable for his son’s manner, but she still can accept it, what she can’t stand is her daughter in law scold her son. Mom is always so forgiving to her own kids.

Its not really the fact that Christophers wife stands up for her that upsets or concerns Olive; it is the way in which she does so and what it means in terms of the way that Olive parented her son. Christopher yells at Olive, and is extremely rude to Jack, in a very inappropriate exchange between mother and son. His wife is angry that he has spoken to his mother like this, and because he has raised his voice to her, and she wastes no time in telling him he is wrong to do so, and to firmly putting him in his place. Although Olive appreciates the gesture of respect and support towards her, it also saddens her to see her son being spoken to by his wife in the same way that she spoke to her husband.

Olive begins to realize that she has given Christopher a false impression of marriage, and the roles of each of the players in it. She largely henpecked Henry, and was bossy at best, scathing at worst, all of which was witnessed by Christopher, who appears to have sought out a wife whose personality is very similar to that of his mother. She feels that she has not only failed as a wife, but that she has also failed as a mother, because she has shown him an example of a relationship that does not contain enough love or respect for the other person, and this has fundamentally affected his life in his choice of life partner.

2.All of the stories that make up the novel have some connection to Olive. How does the author manage this?

Strout was born in a small town in Maine, and raised up in Maine and Durhum. She used to play with other relatives at their dirt road. This made her story filled with gratitude and appreciation. Olive is avatar of Strout.

Sometimes, the stories are about Olive, or her immediate family. A story about her son focuses upon his visit to her home with his wife and children. Three stories about Jack, her fiance, are also in some way written with her at the center; in the first, the couple have separated, and Jack is trying to avoid running into Olive by driving too fast to get in and out of town, and earns a speeding ticket for his trouble. Although she does not feature in the story in person, she is the reason for its existence. Similarly, in the second story about Jack, his relationship with Olive prompts him to think back sadly about his relationship with his first wife and with a subsequent girlfriend.

Other stories have a more tenuous connection to Olive. Two feature her previous students, and she is the catalyst for an epiphany in their lives that they experience after running into her. The epiphany that is experienced after a meeting with former student Andrea LRieux is more of an epiphany for Olive, though, in that Andrea writes a poem about her that shows her to be a very lonely person. Although Olive, with her multitude of friends, is initially offended by this characterization, she comes to realize that Andrea is actually right, and that she has lived most of her life very lonely but at the same time surrounded by many different people.

p.232:Lisa was saying,”You know, I just want to say,Mrs.Kitteridge told us, years ago in that math class-I will never forget it-one day she just stopped a math problem she was doing on the board and she turned around and she said to the class, “You all know how you are, If you just look at yourself and listen to yourself, you know exactly who you are. And don’t forget it.” And I never did forget it. It kind of gave me courage over the years because she was right; I did know who I was

3.What five adjectives would you use to describe Olive? What is Olives best and worst quality? Both of Olives husbands die before her. Explore how she felt towards both husbands. Do you think she preferred one to the other? 

Olive is a blunt math teacher who speaks directly what she feels and sees. Some people doesn’t like the way she talked, but some people , like abandoned patient do get help from her. She also be the enthusiastic midwife to help the party attendant to deliver the baby. Olive is so sympathatic to forgive the bereavement of Betty who almost cause the fire for her throwing the cigarette’s butt. Olive also give Lisa a goal to fight against the self awareness, who like to dress up and cheer other via the job of dominatrix. Olive is also a good listener to accept her second hub Jack to face his ex-wife and affair. Olive is good at reflecting on her own error, who accept that she is alone which is confronted by her student. Her personality shows us the mirror of ourselves which we serve different faces to see ourselves again, with this optimistic and enthusiastic traits we will find the better to keep on going on our bland life

Her son thought that Olive is paranoid, her student thought Olive is lonely, Olive’s student Lisa thought Olive is dominatrix, Olive thought herself lucky and loved by two men-Jack and Christopher.

4.In the opening chapter we see Jack Kennison (Olives second husband) taking a drive in his sports car and reflecting on how to live an honest life. Do you think his life with Olive is honest? Why or why not? 

p.18 Jack had even told Olive one day about his affair with Elaine, and Olive had not seemed to judge him. She had spoken of a schoolteacher that she herself had fallen in love with years ago-an almost-affair, she called it-and the man had died in a car accident one night. Olive took care of Jack till he passed away.

What their sharing is honest, they are more than couples, but cozy soulmates to help each other to deal with the old age.

5.In the vignette of Helen and Jim and Bob and Margaret the theme of being an exile at home dominates. What is your view of the choices they make in life?

Jim and Helen live in New York, they take a trip to Crosby while drive their grandson to join the summer camp. Helen like Pam more who is Bob’s ex-wife, more stylish, because Bob can’t father. They get divorced. Bob met Margaret in Crosby , so he moved to Crosby, but deep in his heart, he likes to live in New York. he doesn’t like to live in Crosby, where he feels guilty to kill his father. Margaret is a minister, enjoy simple and humble life. But for Helen, she thought Margaret too old fashioned, filthy, for Jim, Margaret was Lesbo. While Jim fifty, he told Bob the truth that was him kill his father coincidently while playing the clutch. It makes Bob feel better. Actually Jim also gone through depression for the shadow of the guilty for killing his father. He prefer to live in Crosby, but Helen prefers to live in New York. So they stay in New York. Helen enjoys light drinking(I doubt she is alcoholic) and fell down in Bob’s house, and broke her arm. Margaret and Bob takes care of her. Bob said: I’m right here, not going anywhere” we are alone, all exiles on earth. Where love is ,is our everlasting hometown.

p.195: And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect: This was true for Jim and Helen, and for Margaret and himself, as well.

6.Mr Ringrose catches Kayley finding pleasure in her own body and after that pays to watch her again. This is clearly unacceptable, yet Elizabeth Strout leaves us to form our own opinion about Mr Ringrose. What do you think of him?

Strout gave us a kind eye to see the paedophilia who are sick and are not available to have close relationship with others. And turn into obscene manners. How to prevent all the things to happen is a sincere lesson for us to take into consideration.

7.Why does Kayley miss cleaning in the Ringrose household?

p.67: Kayley thought about Mr. Ringrose, who, in a way, she had never stopped thinking about, the loneliness he must have endured, and was enduring still , now just a few feet away.

8.The Macphersons barely speak to each other for thirty-five of the forty-two years they have been married. The reason cited is that Mr. Macpherson had had an affair with a neighbour early in the marriage. They go as far as to divide their house in two with yellow tape. Despite this when Mr. Macpherson becomes very ill Mrs. Macpherson is tender towards him. How would you sum up their marraige? 

p.232:Lisa was saying,”You know, I just want to say,Mrs.Kitteridge told us, years ago in that math class-I will never forget it-one day she just stopped a math problem she was doing on the board and she turned around and she said to the class, “You all know how you are, If you just look at yourself and listen to yourself, you know exactly who you are. And don’t forget it.” And I never did forget it. It kind of gave me courage over the years because she was right; I did know who I was

9.Which character in the vignettes by Elizabeth Strout do you have the most sympathy for and why?

Mrs. Ringrose allow Mr. Ringrose peek Kayley while doing the cleaning. It really feels unbelievable.

Strout works a jaw-droppingly sad saga around to a moving takeaway when she revisits the Larkins, whose son — as we read in Olive Kitteridge — was incarcerated for life after stabbing a woman 29 times. When Suzanne Larkin, the grown daughter, returns to Crosby to meet with the family lawyer after her fathers terrible death, we learn some equally terrible details about her familys history. But were also reassured — as Suzanne and the lawyer are — by the uplift they find in their mutually comforting conversation.

10.Olive and Isabelle both believe that their children live far away from them because they were bad mothers. Do you think this is true? Do you think they were bad mothers? 

Isabelle’s mom want to protect her, so she doesn’t want Isabelle to get married too soon. Olive didn’t think that Chritopher want to get closer to her, but Christopher still come over to visit her rest house. Love has no expectation, all will turn out better.

P.255: Because your son was so often in attendance at the hospital and he’s called me twice to make sure you’re all right.”The doctor cocked his head slightly. “So you must have been a very good mother.”

11.Judging by the poem that Andrea LRieuxs wrote about her exchange with Olive it would seem that Olive completely misread and misinterpreted Andreas emotional state and life situation. Or did she? What do you think? Who do you think left the poem for Olive to read and why?

"The Poet," an outstanding chapter in Olives often painful journey toward self-awareness, involves (like Anything is Possible) a now-famous authors return to her hometown. When Olive runs into former U.S. Poet Laureate Andrea LRieux at the local coffee shop, she remembers her former student, one of eight kids in a French-Canadian Catholic family, as sad, lonely, and not particularly promising. Later, when someone anonymously sends Olive Andreas poem based on their unfettered conversation, shes initially appalled at how the writer has nailed her and her loneliness. But Olive reluctantly realizes that "Andrea had gotten it better than she had, the experience of being another."

I think the book - Olive Again is a thought-provoking book that life surrounds in a small town  - Crosby, Maine, where Olive lives, she is a frank person, she tells us many stories occurs in her neighbors and friends, a small town but full of many characters, they have their secrets, their lifestyle, their behaviors and attitudes to life, we sometimes are helpless to survive our lives, but still, we need to face and fight the unaccountable occurrences.

During the period of epidemic coronavirus , we hope you can protect yourself well.  In fact, I have considered if we need to cancel the meeting instead of having a video conference, but finally, I still choose to hold a meeting in the case we are still safe and healthy.  You still can give me suggestions if you have other different opinions.

How do you think we can have a choice?  How many people can attend the meeting? Which one you select?

1. Use group line connection? But we can find a time to try the connection, maybe at 8 o’clock pm, tomorrow night. 

2. Still attend the meeting, but we will reserve a bigger room and have a seat for 1.5 meter.

Which will you choose? Number 1 or no. 2?

Hi! Everybody will you be online at 9:15 pm, we will try the video conference, so that I will cancel the restaurant Qubit.

April. 6, 2020 activity:

Book: Olive Again

Leader: Emma Tsai

Time: 1 p.m. April. 6, 2020

Place: Qubit Cafe (Hanshin Arena) No.6, Lane 50, Bo-Ai 3 Road,

Zuo Ying District, Kaohsiung. Tel:07-3459477

高雄市左營區博愛三路50巷6號

http://qubit.bais.com.tw/

https://www.google.com.tw/

Parking: in the basement of the Qubit Café

Related Reading:

1.Olive Again Questions: https://www.gradesaver.com/olive-again/study-guide/essay-questions

2.Olive Again Questions: https://www.sallyflint.com/blog/december-15th-2019

3.Olive Again Questions: https://www.bookcompanion.com/discussion_questions_olive_again.html

4.The New Yorker’s qotes: https://www.elizabethstrout.com/

5.Elizabeth strout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Strout

6.Olive again questions and answers: https://www.gradesaver.com/olive-again/study-guide/essay-questions

6.Olive again review: https://www.krwg.org/post/olive-again-elizabeth-strout-revisits-old-friend

7.Olive again main stories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive,_Again

8. golden sentence: https://smileanzo.pixnet.net/blog/post/172069617

9.Civil war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

10.looney tunes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes

11.Zenker’s diverticu: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A3%9F%E7%AE%A1%E6%86%A9%E5%AE%A4

Olive Again Review for April. 6, 2020

p.142: “Life had been a piece of bark on that river, just going along, not thinking at all. Headed toward the waterfall”, from sharing, we take a break and look back and forward on the riverbank of life via reading ”Olive Again”, life still simple, but more meaningful, cos we matter!

1.Faye: all irrelevant persons related to Olive at the end. We influence each other more than we understood.

2.Slyvia: We all strive for some life that we can’t earn, we all the exiles of nostalgia of our dreams. A great projection to our inner self, more honest to track our dark side.

3.Mingli: Life forces us to face problems that we dislike.

4.Torey: Checking egg who comes first. Close relationship is natural gift, who has the right to judge?

5.Florence: All the money, especially dirty money, easy come, easy go.

6.Carol: I find the strength to fight against the difficulty.

7.Emma: You might feel worthless to one person, but you are priceless to another, don’t ever forget your value. No matter professor(dalliant Jack) or podiatrist (unfilial Chris), we all make mistakes, To err is human; to forgive, divine. A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.-The Wizard of Oz. If Crazy Rich Asians give us a peek to the world of diamond, then, the Olive brings us to see the pearl, from suffering, we can win the purest pearl of our life.

 Recorded by Emma

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we have a hard time to decide where we shall hold the meeting, we appreciate Sylvia offers us her facility of "Zoom" which helps us a wonderful discussion, thanks, Sylvia. For the time being, we still set our next meeting online, because our May leader Syliva prefers to show us some pictures, movies, and messages, so our next meeting still uses the online meeting.  We do not reject using "Zoom", so we wish everybody feel free to join the meeting.

May. 4, 2020 activity:

Book: Tenth Of Dec.

Leader: Sylvia Li

Time: 1 p.m.  May. 4, 2020

Place: Qubit Cafe (Hanshin Arena) No.6, Lane 50, Bo-Ai 3 Road,

Zuo Ying District, Kaohsiung.  Tel:07-3459477

高雄市左營區博愛三路50巷6號

http://qubit.bais.com.tw/

https://www.google.com.tw/

Parking: in the basement of the Qubit Café