Book: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Author: Gail Honeyman

Genre: Psychological fiction

Pages: 386

Publication: 2017, Harper Collins

Book cost: ₹399 

Blogpost by Dhanu

TW: Depression, Childhood trauma, the broken relationship between mother and daughter, loss of a sibling.

Eleanor is the reminder of the deserved genuinity of self-love and self-consciousness in our lives.

I’d tried to cope alone for far too long, and it hadn’t done me any good at all. Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.

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Eleanor is absolutely fine. She might be if the mother and daughter bond was so comforting instead of traumatizing. A bond between a mother and her daughter should be soul-fixing. Even a hug from the mother makes you cheerful and lightens up. But ours is not the case here.

Eleanor is the protagonist of the story, a 30-year-old brilliant, perfectionist and pure soul woman. She works for herself, never pokes her nose into other’s life and minds her own life in solitude, which she appreciates with grace and enjoys her own company. She loves her Friday night and weekend to get disconnected from the overwhelming world and has her life on her own by blocking away from the presence of the people.

She loves spending time in her tiny apartment with her book and vodka. Her life has its own single path, which runs between her apartment and office. She doesn’t like to spend her weekend partying around like others.

Eleanor lives in her own sane world where she has her way of living her life in solitude, She has hopelessness in her love life or with family, which she doesn’t have. She has been traumatized throughout her life and wishes to come out of her loneliness. She starts to enroute her emotions towards a singer named Johnnie Lrocks and slowly progresses her plans to meet him.

In a meantime, she meets a new companion, Raymond from the IT department in her life while she tries to lift up her life and soul. He showed what life is and what it would be like to live with people who love us unconditionally. Her life begins to change from monochrome to vibrant with the fullness of life. Raymond’s friendship made her realize the colourful world out there from her solitary apartment.

Eleanor has encountered unjustified traumatizing incidents throughout her life. Her life has been completely dismantled by her narcissistic mother and toxic boyfriend. After working hard in her life, she slowly finds her magic and creates a new tone in her life. But every time, she gets exhausted with her failed attempts at rejuvenating her life with her leftover spark of hope. In this novel, the protagonist and her new pet had encountered the fire accident, which irony for both meet at certain crucial part of Eleanor’s life, while she was almost dead due to anxiety and depression.

The novel is set in Glasgow, United  Kingdom, which depicts the vibrance of the outlook and the grandeur of joy and happiness in the lives of people there. The life of Eleanor stands out from the potency of this place. The people around her always have the reason for party and enjoyment whereas Eleanor always has the gloominess and seclusion. Even though the characterization is limited, each character has a unique prominence over the story.

The language used in the novel is lucid and beginner-friendly. The characters are both limiting and essential to the plot’s success. The author made Eleanor feel so real in person, as she is dealing with the heaviness of an unfruitful life. I was also going through a phase of my life while I was reading this book, and I felt that exhaustion of Eleanor aligned with mine. It made me want to drag both of us into a pit and dump them.

But this novel made me realize that there were a lot of Eleanors out there. Even if we don’t have the capability of helping them, that will be fine. But don’t let them down or cause any further emotional damage. They are already going through the untold and concealed traumas of their lives. Don’t be the one on their never-ending list.

x Dhanu