Smakbit: Olive Kitteridge

Bild lånad från adlibris,
finns också på svenska

En härlig söndagsförmiddag i Göteborg. Solen lyser in genom (smutsiga) fönster och eftersom jag hade familjen på middag igår så är det ovanligt prydligt här hemma :) Smakbiten kommer från Olive Kitteridge som är en novellsamling av Elizabeth Strout. Alla novellerna har på ett eller annat sätt med en ganska sträv Olive i berättelsen - ibland är hon huvudperson, ibland går hon bara förbi den det handlar om. I den första novellen handlar det om hennes man Henry och jag har valt ett utdrag som visar att Olive inte gör saker bara för att det förväntas av henne:

Olive had refused to go to church the day before, and Henry, uncharacteristically, had spoken to her sharply. “Is it too much to ask,” he had found himself saying, as he stood in the kitchen in his undershorts, ironing his trousers. “A man’s wife accompanying him to church?” Going without her seemed a public exposure of familial failure.
     “Yes, it most certainly is too goddamn much to ask!” Olive had almost spit, her fury’s door flung open. “You have no idea how tired I am, teaching all day, going to foolish meetings where the goddamn principal is a moron! Shopping. Cooking. Ironing. Laundry. Doing Christopher’s homework with him! And you—” She had grabbed on to the back of a dining room chair, and her dark hair, still uncombed from its night’s disarrangement, had fallen across her eyes. “You, Mr. Head Deacon Claptrap Nice Guy, expect me to give up my Sunday mornings and go sit among a bunch of snot-wots!” Very suddenly she had sat down in the chair. “Well, I’m sick and tired of it,” she’d said, calmly. “Sick to death.”

Fler smakbitar kan du hitta, och lägga upp, på Flukten fra virkeligheten. Ha en trevlig söndag!