Title: The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
1st snippet-- Opening sentences:
It was the middle of June and the sun all day had kept right on shining with sweet mightiness. "Stay jovial, please, Artie! Just promise me that. Please stay your old jovial self."
2nd snippet, page 52
As Artie lay there in the not quite darkness of the hospital room he thought about this, Reginald rolling his eyes at him, and Artie felt a real sense of sorrow for the man, to have such a poverty of spirit.
Summary: Artie, a popular high school teacher, seems to be having an existential crisis. Shouldn't he feel happier and more content than he does? What if there is no such thing as free will? Why is he so lonely when he is surrounded by people all day? To make matters worse his best friend is moving, his wife seems more remote than usual, and he and his son are out of touch, unable to talk about what is really going on in their lives. Just when a near-death experience shocks him out of depression, a piece of news from his son shakes Artie to the core.
My thoughts: Today our pastor started his sermon by confessing of all the services he leads he appreciates doing funerals the most. Why? Because, he said, it is at funerals where we often hear many stories about the person, giving us a fuller picture of how they lived their life. No one story can sum up a life, yet often people only think of us one way, using only one story as a reference. But at a funeral people share many stories about the departed person and their many stories coalesce.
Artie is a wonderful teacher -- so wonderful he won the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Award -- yet he feels lonely, even suicidal. People know one story of Artie, that he is a good teacher, but he is full of conflicting thoughts and feeling that don't match that story. Once when he and his wife, Evie, attended a neighborhood party, where Artie felt isolated, he asked her why people never talk about anything important when they gather with friends. "I wonder why people never say anything real," he mused. I've wondered that very thought myself. Even among friends of many years, we often only talk about surface topics. All those superficial relationships led Artie to feel very lonely and depressed.
Carl Jung: "Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible." --the epigraph in The Things We Never SayBefore today's sermon, I had very mixed feeling about this book. I was so exasperated by Evie. She never listened to her husband. I was frustrated for Artie, who seemed unable to actually express his feelings. There was no happy ending to the the story, though I would argue it had a strong moral message. It is hard to like a book which contains so little happiness. But as I sat in church and pondered the idea that we all have many stories which make up our lives, this book kept coming to mind. The book addressed many topics we usually don't discuss with others -- loneliness, shame, guilt, suicide ideation, insecurity, and feelings of inadequacy -- and suddenly my whole estimation of the book shifted. Artie may have been living a life of quiet desperation but he helps point the way to another path. One we can choose or help others choose.
The Booker Prize committee chose The Things We Never Say as a finalist for 2026. Here is what they said about the book: "With exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets." -Booker Prize I would add, that we are often not aware of the influence we can have on the lives of children. Artie, the wonderful teacher, had a profound impact on the lives of his students. That's not nothing.
Upgrading my estimation of the book to 5 stars.
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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.
Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please.
Click on the "OH-NO" message and it will take you to the linkup this week. I'll find you there.
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