Ms. Hen reviews Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Gail Honeyman

Viking

2017

Ms. Hen first became aware of this novel a few years ago while she was working in a doctor's office. A patient left this book in the waiting room, and Ms. Hen picked it up, read the back, and thought it sounded like something she would like to read. She wanted to take it home, but the patient called asking if the book was there. She said she would come back for it. Ms. Hen didn't know how long this person had to travel back for this book, but Ms. Hen thinks it's a book worth a trip back to the doctor's office.

She wanted to read the book, but she never got around to it until now. She found it at a Little Free Library near her house. When she learned about this novel, she thought it fell into the category of "sad woman books," and that's true, but that's not all it is.

This novel is about Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old woman who is alone in the world. She has a full-time job, but does not have any family or friends. Throughout the course of the novel, she makes friends, and tries to have a better life. She is a little bit touched, in a way that she is not exposed to a lot of society, and the way that people interact with each other. She becomes obsessed with a local musician, and drinks vodka by herself, and makes friends with one of her co-workers when they rescue a man who passed out on the sidewalk.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a typical woman's novel without the Cinderella ending, which she does not enjoy. It reminds her of novels by Elinor Lipman and Suzanne Strempek Shea that she has read and liked years ago. Ms. Hen has gotten away from reading women's fiction, because she thinks some of it is trite and tedious. But this novel is different.

This novel is a great example of first person narrative by an unreliable narrator. Eleanor is quirky to the extreme; since she is so isolated, she doesn't know how to handle herself in most situations. She thinks she is the butt of jokes at work, and she doesn't care about the ordinary aspects of life that most people do, such as Christmas parties or clothes. Ms. Hen was expecting that Eleanor imagines a part of her life, and she does. Ms. Hen feels sorry for Eleanor, but she knows that she will be okay.

This novel takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, and it took a few pages for Ms. Hen to figure that out. The characters call Eleanor "hen" sometimes, and Ms. Hen wasn't sure why. She did some research, and discovered that in Glasgow "hen" is slang for honey or sweetheart that people say in other places. Ms. Hen had never heard this before, but she likes it! She doesn't like when people call her honey, especially strangers, but she would like to go to Glasgow so people would call her hen.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a wonderful book to end her year. Eleanor Oliphant surprised her, because she didn't think she would like this book as much as she did. She laughed, and almost cried, but it was like reading about someone's tragic life that she would be acquainted with. She is glad she spend time getting to know Eleanor, because Ms. Hen likes quirky characters, since she considers herself one as well.

 

Ms. Hen reviews Noor

 

Noor

Nnedi Okofafor

Daw Books, Inc

2021

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she read about it in an article about science fiction for the holidays, so she decided to get it from her library. When she went to pick up the book, the library was closed for an election, but she went back on a day she did not have to go to the city to retrieve this book. She thinks it was worth the extra trip.

This novel is Africanfuturist, or science fiction about Africans or African Americans. Ms. Hen does not remember reading another book like this before. 

This is about a woman who calls herself AO, or Artificial Organism, who is mostly robotic. She was deformed when she was born, but her parents decided to have her augmented. When she was fourteen, she was in a car accident, and was injured further. She has two artificial legs, an artificial arm, lung, and neural implants.

The novel starts when AO is in the market in her town in Nigeria, buying items to make soup because she's depressed her boyfriend broke up with her. A man comes up to her and says, "What kind of woman are you?" And she goes berserk and kills the men around her. She leaves the city because she is afraid.

She meets a herdsman in the north named DNA who tells her a story of how part of his tribe was killed. They travel together to find out what happened. A company named Ultimate Corp, which Ms. Hen thinks is similar to another company that's around that starts with an "A", controls all of the commerce in Africa and beyond. AO finds out the secret of her origins and is angry. She finds she has power that she doesn't know she has.

This novel is many faceted. It's a female power novel, about a woman who has been wronged, but finds she has the strength to take control of her life. It's also about the prejudice against a woman who is mostly machine. AO can't help what she is, but people are afraid of her. It's also a love story, and about dysfunctional families. Mostly, it's an adventure tale.

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of THE ODYSSEY by Homer in the way that it's about a quest to find a place in the world. It's also similar to THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ because it's about traveling on a journey, and finding friends, and discovering a peaceful place in the middle of a maelstrom.

There are some chickens in this novel, which doesn't surprise Ms. Hen, because chickens spice everything up. There's a part when AO mentions hens, "Something similar happened again with hens last year. I'd been walking home with two friends, and we'd cut through someone's yard. There were five chickens there and they'd blocked my way to the point that my friends both started laughing." The hens knew that AO was special.

Ms. Hen thinks this is an important novel, and one that everyone should read, but she doesn't think that it is everyone's cup of tea. It's about a company that dominates commerce, and ruling people's lives, and one woman who suffers the consequences. It's also about taking power over your own life, and finding personal strength which is what AO does. 

Ms. Hen reviews The Fifth Child

 

The Fifth Child

Doris Lessing

Grafton Books

1989

Ms. Hen picked up this book at a Little Free Library near where she lives, because she had read another book that the author had written, THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK. She read the back of the book, and it seemed familiar to her, but she wasn't sure if she had read it. She decided to take it because she is running low on books to read.

This novel is about a couple who initially want to have a big family. They are old-fashioned for the Sixties, and they purchase a large house to fill it with children. They have four children, and every Christmas, Easter, and during summer, their family and friends come to visit, and have fun. Then their fifth child is born.

There's something wrong with Ben from the time he is in his mother's womb. He is born, and he's not like the other children. He's violent, and kills a cat and a dog, and the other children are afraid of him. The couple sends Ben away to an institution, but the mother goes to rescue him because she feels guilty. She thinks that Ben is like a goblin or a troll, but there is no explanation why he is this way.

Ms. Hen found it difficult to figure out the point of this book, even though she liked it. It's about a couple that wants to be happy, but their happiness is sidetracked by their unusual child. There might be a moral to the story, that you shouldn't want to be too happy because it's selfish, or that family life isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Ms. Hen thinks Ben might have been autistic, but that is not explained in the book.

Ms. Hen thought she had read this book before, but it reminded her of a book called THE TIME IS NOON by Pearl S. Buck, which she read many years ago. Even though Ms. Hen liked THE FIFTH CHILD, she thinks it's strange, and difficult to figure out. This book teaches that you can't always have what you want, and if you get what you want, you might realize that you didn't want it in the first place.

Ms. Hen reviews Waiting for the Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians

J. M. Coetzee

Penguin Books 

1980

Ms. Hen decided to read this book, because she had read it when she was an undergrad hen, and the last book she read reminded her of this. She had to read it twice when she was in college, and she did not remember loving the book, and even though it's brief, it's heavy. When she read it this time, she discovered she didn't remember it well.

This novel is about a Magistrate who lives in a village that is an outpost of a kingdom. He lives a comfortable life, until a barbarian girl comes into his acquaintance, and he invites her to his room. She has been beaten, and is mostly blind; her father was killed in front of her, and she has suffered. The Magistrate takes pity on her, and washes her feet, and pampers her in his room, but at first does not take her for his lover. There is much gossip about her staying in his room, but he ignores it, which ends up being to his detriment.

He decides the girl should be back with her people, so he travels with her and a group of men to take her home. They travel through the mountains in the springtime. The men who accompany them don't understand the purpose of their journey at first, but they find out. When they return to the village after returning the girl to her people, the Magistrate gets in trouble, and is sent to jail. He suffers because he wanted to do the right thing.

When Ms. Hen was in school, a lot of the students and the professor spent time trying to figure out where this novel takes place, because that is not stated in the text. They decided it could have been Asia, or Africa or North America, but Ms. Hen thought it was Afghanistan. She realizes after reading it again, that the setting is irrelevant, what is important is that it's a story about power, and men with power doing what they want to enjoy it, flaunt it, and keep it at all costs. Other men with power want to take power away from men with more power, and it is a vicious cycle.

This novel is also about love. It's about a man who loves a woman, and who would do anything to make her life better, and he pays the price for it. The Magistrate was a philanderer, but he loved the girl, and even though she most likely never knew, he sacrificed his career and his livelihood for his love.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is a slow read, but it's worth it. The world can be dysfunctional, and it can seem to get worse as life goes on, but people have to learn how to do the right thing at any cost. This novel is like a brick in the throat, but that's the way life can be sometimes. 

Ms. Hen reviews A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns 

Khaled Hoseini

Riverhead Books

2007

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she found it at a Little Free Library near where she lives, and she had heard of the author. It took her a long time to get around to reading this; she's not sure why, but when she read it, she was glad she finally did. It's worth waiting for.

This novel is about two women in Afghanistan, and thirty years that pass in that country. Mariam is a young girl who lives with her mother, and is an illegitimate child of a rich man. Her father comes to visit her every week, and gives them a little money. She abandons her mother one day to see her father, and her mother ends up committing suicide. Her father gives her away to a man who is in his forties who lives far away in Kabul. She is happy for a brief time, that ends when she does not have children.

Laila is a young girl who lives in the same neighborhood as Miriam, but initially they do not communicate. She has a friend, Tariq, with one leg, who she falls in love with. Her father used to be a teacher, and he teaches her to appreciate beauty and literature. Her family dies in a bombing, and she ends up homeless. Rasheed, Mariam's husband, finds her and takes her in, and asks her to marry him. She does not want to, but she is pregnant with Tariq's child, and she knows she won't be safe on her own. Mariam hates her at first, but they become friends.

Ms. Hen was horrified at the conditions in which these women live. They have no rights, and no education, and have no choices at all. Mariam makes the ultimate sacrifice with her life, which should not have happened. Ms. Hen doesn't remember the last time she burst out crying when she read a novel. This novel made her cry.

Ms. Hen could say, "I'm glad I don't live in Afghanistan," but that's not enough because there are people who live there, and they suffer. She doesn't understand how men can be such animals, but she knows that it's true. A little power can go to someone's head, and make them do crazy things.

Lots of chickens appear in this novel, which always pleases Ms. Hen. Laila and Mariam are at an orphanage to find someone to take care of Aziza, Laila's daughter, because they don't have enough money for food, when the man who runs the center says, " 'Ah, there, I've made you laugh little hamshira. That's usually the hard part. I was worried there for a while. I thought I'd have to cluck like a chicken or bray like a donkey. But, there you are. And so lovely you are.' " Laila is troubled that she has to put Aziza in an orphanage, but she finds a way to laugh.

Ms. Hen thinks this is an important novel because it portrays the friendship of two women in an unlikely situation. It comes to Mariam when she is about to die that her life has not been wasted because she loved Laila and Aziza, and that is where Ms. Hen got emotional. The world can be messed up, but if people find love, their lives are worthwhile. It can be any type of love. Ms. Hen loves this book, among other things, and she appreciates what she has.