Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

I was blown away by this book - it was a gift and I was expecting something more vacuous. It is brilliantly written. The central character has trouble fitting into the world and Honeyman makes us see why people can't bond with her, but shows the reader someone completely relatable. Oliphant makes hilarious, cutting observations which make the book a joy, even though the central themes are heavy. 

Primarily the novel is about loneliness - how a functioning young woman with a job can go home on a Friday evening and not speak to anyone until she goes back to work on Monday. She is disdainful of her colleagues who openly make fun of her and through the descriptions of her clothes and flat she doesn't seem to have any outward personality.

Oliphant's story is dramatic and in some ways this is annoying. I can see why Honeyman made that decision, though I feel it was a pragmatic one - for publishers and bookshops. She makes the point she wanted to and it is brilliant to read something so affecting and empathy-inducing, though it doesn't take dramatic circumstances to make someone disconnected from the world and unable to find a place and their people. Also, I think on some level everyone both struggles with loneliness and somehow contributes to another's sense of it. Having said that, Honeyman has begun conversations and opened thinking paths with a novel that has a weight and joy to it. 

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton explores upper class society in late 19th Century America. She is powerfully critical of almost all who are, or aspire to be in and around, that social circle. Through Lily Bart she shows a woman born into a high society family who ended up with very little money. Her upbringing left her with social skills and a sense of entitlement, as well as a fear of living without luxury.  

Wharton presents Edith as a figure we should feel empathy for. She is charming and through her tightrope existence she exposes the hypocrisies and unnecessary, arbitrary rules of the class. Bart is both relatable and exasperating, she is in a constant state of ambivalence; seeing the society for what it is and priding herself on being able to manipulate it's members, though completely unable to commit to being one of 'them' - though that is what she desperately wants.

It is a good read, though the ending is a little dramatic and not as interesting as it could have been - a product of it's time perhaps.