White Oleander

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I imagine her with a daughter, being a very different mother than Ingrid, when it comes to parental care and warmth but also very much alike, talking about secrecy and gracefulness. Her inner contradictions lead her to relationships with two very different men-- one from the past, her older brother’s best friend who scoffs at the revolution and claims allegiance to a country of one – and the second, an openhearted radical poet with whom she lives the life of the revolution. Each man responds to a different side of her nature, and there is no easy solution to a nature at war with itself. Love, friendship, loss, betrayal, possibility, realism and idealism, these are some of the themes of the book. You are too nostalgic, you want memory to secure you, console you. The past is a bore. What matters is only oneself and what one creates from what one has learned. Imagination uses what it needs and discards the rest—where you want to erect a museum. Don’t hoard the past, Astrid. Don’t cherish anything. Burn it. The artist is the phoenix who burns to emerge.” That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out. identity shifts her faith throughout the story. Astrid’s identity evolves during the periods of time and

The themes of identity, family, and motherhood are explored in depth throughout the book, making it a thought-provoking read. The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.” The novel broaches the matters of mother-daughter relationships, self-reflection, survival of the fittest, perfection versus imperfection, and the nature of artistry. Above all, White Oleander is a young girl’s bildungsroman. Adorning her adolescence, middle-aged lovers, hedonistic prostitutes, bloodthirsty hounds, “twenty-seven names for tears” (Fitch, 382), and her mother’s omnipresent poetry, Astrid’s encounters come to define her. In the end, she is left with baggage; heavy, tragic and wonderful. I’ve probably mentioned it here before, but I didn’t much care about movies in the early 2000s. I was too stunned trying to figure out how I went from being a fairly independent, somewhat financially secure young woman doing what I wanted with my free time to pulling my hair out over a baby that wouldn’t sleep more than an hour or two at a time for twenty-four hours straight. The baby eventually slept after a year but then grew into a very active toddler with a vivid imagination that needed constant entertainment. I said I’d never go through it again… until I did three years later. The second time around was much easier. Was it because I had things figured out? Or was it because each child is a different human being? Perhaps a combination of both is the most appropriate answer. In any case, movies and literature were not on my agenda at the time. Besides, this book, which I took to be a family drama of sorts, wasn’t my sort of thing anyway. Why did I want to read about other people’s trauma and dysfunction? What if it rubbed off on me?! These days, however, I’ll take all I can get of this stuff, please!Claire Richards: Astrid's fourth foster mother, who notices Astrid's artistic talent and encourages her to pursue school. Claire has a weak relationship with her husband, poor self-esteem, and commits suicide after encouragement from Ingrid. English is not my first language, so I hope you understand the bottom line of what I want to tell you. THanks David! Look forward to following you, loved comparing the books and seeing that long skein of overlap--and then fun to see the rest. I just stopped by Petersburg to see if anyone had read it. It was like wrestling an active, slender, brightly colored snake...

Mostly though, I think I just loved Ingrid. And Claire. Oddly enough, I related to both of them so much. Like two sides of the same coin. And as ruthless and seemingly heartless as Ingrid is, there is beauty in her brutal honesty, in her unwillingness to compromise. I think we can all remember a time where we thought some of the things she was willing to say out loud. I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain.” Down below us in the streets of Hollywood, sirens whined and sawed along my nerves. In the Santa Anas, eucalyptus trees burst into flames like giant candles, oilfat chaparral hillsides went up in a rush, flushing starved coyotes and deer down onto Franklin Avenue.Principal photography for White Oleander began on April 23, 2001. Filming took place in Santa Clarita, California. Barbra Streisand turned down offers to direct the film and play Ingrid Magnussen. Alison Lohman wore a wig throughout filming because she had just finished playing a cancer patient in deleted scenes from the film Dragonfly (2002). The film clip Claire ( Renée Zellweger) shows Astrid as an example of her acting career is of Zellweger's own early performance in The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994).

That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out.” Everything changes, when Astrid suddenly finds out that Claire and her mother send letters to each other. Moreover, they even agree on a meeting, which greatly worries the girl. It becomes clear that Astrid’s mother does not feel any sympathy with this woman during the meeting in prison and Ingrid makes a few negative comments about Claire. And if you've read one of my earlier books, you know that the inner lives and moral development of women is my greatest obsession. How the decisions a young girl makes, the actions she takes based upon the conclusions she draws, create the woman she becomes. I fiercely admire the strength that young women bring to their search for self. The Revolution of Marina M. is the story of a girl's coming of age during one of the most turbulent historical upheavals in the modern epoch.Marshall Berman uses Karl Marx’s idea that “all that is solid melts into air” as a definition of modernity. Rapid destruction of the past to create the new is a prominent idea in modernity. How comfortably do you think, following this definition, White Oleander fits into the category of Modern literature? thanks for the add, janet! i love white oleander! the references in and around los angeles really amused me since i grew up in the area. my friend and i were really excited about the thrifty in alhambra, haha. :) Stephen Holden, writing for The New York Times, called it a "rich, turbulent adaptation," and described the performances as "superbly acted from top to bottom." Comparing it to other films on the same theme – Anywhere but Here (1999), Tumbleweeds (1999), and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) – Holden found White Oleander to be the only one to show "how children instinctively absorb their parents' attitudes and personalities." [5] Andrew Sarris, writing for The Observer, named it as a runner-up on his list of the ten best English-language films of 2002. [6] Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, was critical of the film, writing, "The performances are often touching and deserve a better screenplay." [7]

To what extent do you think capitalism is a key aspect of White Oleander? Was Rena being from Russia a deliberate choice to highlight the difference between capitalism and communism?

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In the spring this wound had been unimaginable, this madness, but it had lain before us, undetectable as a land mine. We didn't even know the name Barry Kolker then. Absolutely. I think whenever a person can survive extreme hardship with his ability to love intact, with his compassion and some kind of faith in the future and an ability to act in the world, that's a happy ending. Whenever a person can transmute the lead of bitter experience into the gold of creative work, that's a happy ending. experiences. A new obstacle awaits her throughout the time she spends at each foster home. Her loss of Yes. Yes, I am about to pull a basic reader b move by starting off a book review with self-centered commentary on the movie version, but what can I say?