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John's Comments
When I first read this early last year, I wasn’t particularly impressed. I didn’t like the main character very much which doesn’t help when she is the storyteller. I didn’t like her superiority and put-downs of other people, and her experiences were so far from mine that I didn’t really engage with the plot. BUT re-reading it and thinking more about it has made me see it as a much better book.
When Eleanor jokes about her name with her counsellor, “Yes, I suppose you would have remembered an Oliphant in the room”, I think the author is flagging up that she chose that name as a deliberate pun, because the book is plotted around the idea of an elephant in the room. An elephant that is fully revealed at the end.
When I first read this early last year, I wasn’t particularly impressed. I didn’t like the main character very much which doesn’t help when she is the storyteller. I didn’t like her superiority and put-downs of other people, and her experiences were so far from mine that I didn’t really engage with the plot. BUT re-reading it and thinking more about it has made me see it as a much better book.
When Eleanor jokes about her name with her counsellor, “Yes, I suppose you would have remembered an Oliphant in the room”, I think the author is flagging up that she chose that name as a deliberate pun, because the book is plotted around the idea of an elephant in the room. An elephant that is fully revealed at the end.