Review of White Oleander (Book)

Review of White Oleander (Book)

Since "White Oleander" was the last book I had finished reading, and since it held a little more promise than the other two books, I thought I would comment on that first. I know the book has been made into a film, was recommended by Oprah, was a best seller and all, but for some reason, to me it just seemed like a good premise with convoluted and very self-important execution. The gist of the book is really how Astrid, a 12-year-old girl whose mother Ingrid is sent to prison for murdering her ex, survives numerous foster homes and foster moms and finally grows up to be an independent young woman.

What was disturbing to me was the gratuitous destruction of Astrid's innocence throughout the book, starting from the very first foster home. Astrid is like a white oleander herself, in a way - she is born of a poisonous woman, and is poisonous herself, while looking pretty, innocent and fragile like the flower. She is then thrust unceremoniously into the care of very demanding and neurotic women - the combination is explosive. Astrid sleeps with the boyfriend of Starr, a bible-thumping ex-stripper foster mom, causing Starr to try to kill Astrid by shooting at her. For some reason, this whole episode did not ring true to me - I guess there are people like that, but it all seemed so extreme - from Astrid's sleeping with much-older Ray to her sleeping with Sergei, another foster mom Rena's boyfriend. In our regional slang, there is word that loosely translates to "movie troubles" - this was coined to describe typical problems faced movie heroes in old Indian movies - poor hero has to support his mom suffering from cancer, blind brother, widow elder sister and raped younger sister.

The thing is, that is what Astrid's troubles evolve into, because there are so many of them that the poor girl can't seem to catch a break. Then Claire enters into her life and makes her happy and treats her right, but then commits suicide out of "weakness of mind". So, the girl goes through a LOT of problems for around 400 pages - problems that would either kill some one, or drive them mad. But she is the "white oleander", see? so after all these problems, in the last chapter Astrid finds a boyfriend, moves to Berlin and lives happily ever after because her mom apologized to her for putting her through all these troubles. That ending really rang shallow to me. I could empathize with Astrid to a great deal - how she had no one to look after her, how she was unlucky in everything and how she screwed up the few good things that happened in her life. One of the things I guess I could not digest was the way the book seemed to be saying drink and smoke and do drugs and sleep around (use condoms, of course) without having to face any consequences, because int he end, everything will work out. It might be that I am out of touch with reality - maybe the world is a lot tougher now than when I was a teenager....Still, "White Oleander" could have been a very nice book, but left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth and really depressed me.

Another thing that rankles me about the book is the role of men in it. They are either looked upon as sex fiends, cheats, adulterers, thieves - all broken people. No one is strong enough to take charge of the situation, courageous enough to help Astrid or the other women in her life, loving/affectionate/understanding enough to see how they are hurting the women they love. The men are like reeds that bend to the will of the women, fly around in the breeze and are only held together by the women. Now, I am not against strong female characters - but would "Gone with the Wind" have packed the same punch if there were no Rhett Butler to lock horns with Scarlett? There has to be an anchor to any story, someone who keeps the whole narrative from falling apart and running off in tangents - I think even though Astrid and Ingrid come close to being the anchors, they don't exactly let the reader close enough to empathize with them, and that is where the story fails.