Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
HarperCollins
Publishers 2017 386
Pages
Norman Bates of Psycho
infamy had to live with the malign specter of “Mother” that drove him to
murder. The eponymous Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant
Is Completely Fine similarly labors under the ghost of poisonously
murderous “Mummy” – but copes rather better than poor Norman ever did.
At least, Eleanor never kills anyone. An abortive suicide attempt fortuitously interrupted doesn't count. Key to her survival
(and relative sanity) are daily routines rigidly followed, her single-minded
professionalism in an underpaid and thankless job as a finance administration
assistant for a graphic arts agency and vodka-fueled weekends before the TV
set in her Glasgow council flat. The British welfare state has much to commend
it; one gets the feeling that had first-time author Gail Honeyman’s protagonist
the misfortune to be American, she would have become a homeless destitute suffering
aggravated mental illness very soon.
For Eleanor is an essentially damaged soul, both physically and emotionally scarred by an
awful childhood of neglect, violence and emotional abuse inflicted on her by a mentally
ill single mother. Followed later by rape and physical assault as a university
student studying the classics…
This excellent debut novel is essentially about loneliness;
in Eleanor’s own words – “There was, it seemed, no Eleanor-shaped
social hole for me to slot into.” With more to say on the subject - “I took one of my hands in
the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's
hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of
loneliness.”
Thanks to a childhood trauma that left her short of
social skills, the eccentric Eleanor pratfalls through the early chapters, an
acute observer of the petty foibles of the office life she’s not really a part
of. Every office has an Eleanor; the kind of person who shies away from group
activities, doesn’t talk about anything beyond immediate work-related issues
and probably doesn’t have much of a life after hours. Awkward Eleanor has no
social filters and blurts out whatever she’s thinking – to frequent comic
effect.
“I had no idea how to respond, and opted for a
smile, which serves me well on most occasions (not if it's something to do with
death or illness, though - I know that now.)”
If all this sounds unrelentingly grim, it really isn't. Eschewing sentimental melodrama, this narrative of quiet warmth and a
deep, unspoken sadness is still oddly, comfortingly funny in its wry
observation of the small quirks and idiosyncrasies of everyday life. Eleanor
barricades herself from her peers with a comic formally of thought and speech
which results in several unintentionally amusing observations such as this, on a
shop assistant – “She had tried to steer me towards vertiginous heels again -
why are these people so incredibly keen on crippling their female customers? I
began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish
cartel.”
Eleanor’s closed - and empty – life gradually begins to
open out, thanks to two very unlikely benefactors, and the operation of blind
chance. Raymond Gibbons, the new IT guy in her workplace, strikes up an
acquaintance with Eleanor after fixing her malfunctioning desktop. On a stroll outside
after office hours, the mismatched duo witness an elderly pensioner Sammy
McMurray Thom collapsing on the pavement. Awkward but conscientious, Raymond
immediately phones emergency services while Eleanor is deputed to tend to the
unconscious Sammy until an ambulance arrives.
This spur-of-the-moment act of unpremeditated kindness
leads to hospital visits and unplanned friendships spontaneously formed with ebullient,
gregarious Sammy and his adult children. Unshaven, shambling computer nerd
Raymond with his garish T-shirts, worn-out low-slung jeans and Technicolor
training shoes proves an unlikely ally in need, with shared visits to his aged
mother and regular lunch dates in a local café. This ordinary, kindly decent
man is no romantic hero but the just the kind of supportive friend Eleanor really
needs. Despite his shortcomings in personal hygiene, smoking and sub-literate use of
text speak in communication, the growing platonic bonds between him and fastidious, orderly Eleanor are both amusing and touching.
“Whenever I'd been sad or upset before, the
relevant people in my life would simply call my social worker and I'd be moved
somewhere else. Raymond hadn't phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to
intervene. He'd elected to look after me himself. I'd been pondering this, and
concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult behavior wasn't a
reason to end their relationship with you ... This was something of a
revelation.”
45-year old Gail Honeyman’s background as a former civil
servant and university administrator comes through strongly in this novel’s
acute observations about life in the workplace. Her characters aren’t just stock
villains, heroes or plot devices but appear to be real people living ordinary,
normal lives.
If there is a recurrent theme in Eleanor Oliphant Is
Completely Fine, it is the power of small acts of kindness, often denoted by
offerings of food; a kindly waiter who serves complimentary truffles with a cup
of coffee, a tin of gourmet cat food for the black cat Glen that Eleanor adopts.
As Honeyman observed in an interview with the Guardian – “…kindness doesn’t need to be some massive philanthropic
Bill Gates-style donation. Tiny acts for the right person at the right time can
be transformative.”
It is hard to believe that Eleanor Oliphant is a debut novel, so assured is the writing.
Winner of the Costa Book Award, this novel was the subject of a fierce 8-way
auction by UK publishers and caused a sensation at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Sold in 30 countries, the rights have already been optioned by Hollywood. Let’s
hope they don’t make a right mess of the adaptation, like they did with Ann Tyler's similarly excellent The Accidental Tourist. But author Honeyman is already at work
on her next book, set in a different time and place…
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