The underlying framework of this book is the embarkation of journeys: literal, emotional-mental, metaphysical, and spiritual. This one takes place towards the close of life. But like all of life's journeys, there are the paths of others which run alongside yours. Some intersect, some intertwine, some keep their distance -- and in the end, we all need to find the thread that is ours alone. This is such a story.

This has been likened to Rachel Joyce's 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry', and I agree, somewhat. 'Etta and Otto' is a more solitary and introspective journey, without the crowds and multi-voices found in 'Harold Fry'.

I am not sure how to describe this book at all, although I think it is an 'either you get it - or you don't. But here goes:

 

This is one of the most gentlest of books that tackles ageing, dreams, lost dreams, life and realities that I have read in a long time.

 

With a letter to start the book there is no doubt what 83 year old Etta is about to do.

Otto,

I’ve gone. I’ve never seen the water, so I’ve gone there. Don’t worry, I’ve left you the truck. I can walk. I will try to remember to come back.
Yours (always),
Etta.

When I started reading, I read it like any other novel waiting for it to grab me. But I got confused because the style of writing breaks the rules. But, there is also something very special about the writing, it feels intimate, so I left it a full day I started right back at the beginning again. I totally got this book from then on.

 

How glad I was to have read it again. Like a non-believer who can’t see fairies, there they were; beautiful words that felt like they were written specially for me to read. Emma Hooper made me feel that I had known these people all my life and I was simply being reminded of their story so that I can pass it on.

 

Otto is one of fifteen children born in a time when farming folks reared large families.

 

Every robust pregnancy running smoothly into a ruddy infant and every infant to a barrel-eared child, lined up between siblings in grey and off-grey nightclothes, some holding babies, some holding hands, leaning into the door to their parent room, listening fixedly to the moaning from within.

 

Doesn't that just give you a complete picture of the circle of life? With so many children they each had their own number which they called out at meal times to ensure everyone was gathered. (See, I am already re-telling the story as if I know them all!)

 

The death of Etta’s only sibling is devastating news that results in a grief that is conveyed so tenderly.

A word carried by Etta’s father up the stairs, oh so carefully. like a baby bird, to Etta’s room. He gave it to her more softly that she’d ever heard him speak. Etta took it and held it in her ears at first and then her head and then, suddenly, and horribly, her heart.

 

This is three friends' own stories: their lives and their final journey’s. How much is in their own failing minds we are never quite sure but there is such a tenderness in the telling that I was enthralled by it.

 

When Etta decides to go to the sea she simply walks out of the house and doesn’t stop, along the way a coyote who she names James joins her:

That night James did not eat Etta, just slept a little bit away from her feet. The next morning he ate a gopher while Etta ate mayonnaise on crackers.

 

This strange couple journey onward with Etta’s ageing mental fragility constantly slipping. She holds conversations with James; weird you might say, but he is so important to Etta on her journey.

 

At home, Otto patiently awaits her return and learns how to live on his own, finding his own way to express himself. Then Russell who has also loved Etta sets out to find her.

Throughout the story we learn the history of the three of them, growing up, Otto at war holed up in small towns and Russell learning farming. There is such a beautiful line from one of Otto’s letters to Etta, it is such a simple observation:

The jeeps are parked, so when we’re all inside you’d never know we were here. We wear this town as camouflage.
We are here, they say to hold the town. I like the idea of that. Like a kite.

 

It has one of those endings that leaves an empty space followed by a huge question mark. Of course we know that they are old and died, but are left to surmise details.

 

In my imagined ending all is content and peaceful and I think I am probably right....
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Many thanks for an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Etta lives in the farmlands of Saskatchewan with her husband Otto. Her greatest unfulfilled dream ist to see the sea. At the age of eighty-two, she gets up very early, takes some chocolate, a rifle and her best boots and begins to walk the 2,000 miles to the water.

But she’s starting to forget things, while Otto remembers everything. And even Russell, their neighbour, remembers, but in a different way. And he still loves Etta. As much as he did before she married Otto, fifty years ago.

 

Opinion

 

“I’ve gone. I’ve never seen the water, so I’ve gone there. Don’t worry, I’ve left you the truck. I can walk. I will try to remember to come back.

Yours (always)

Etta

(Page 1)

 

It is very difficult for me to find the right words and review this book. But I can say, that I think it was magical.

 

With only bare necessities in her bag, Etta starts to walkt to the see. Even though she occasionally suffers from memory loss. Otto waits patiently for her and is confident, that Etta will succeed. But Russell, a very good friend and neighbour fears that Etta will get lost.

 

The book is a mixture of Etta and her walk, flashbacks to their childhood, to the beginning of Etta’s and Otto’s and Russell’s love and to the time, Etta had to stay behind, while others went to war. And of letters and recipes, passages about Otto, about Russell and of course Etta, with the coyote James. It is not just a boring walk through canada, but a colorful story and I never knew if what’s just happening is real or imagined.

 

I loved the vulnerability of the characters and the bond between them all, because they known each other for more than fifty years and share their past, dreams and memories. It is not a book about a walk but about desires, unfulfilled wishes, longing, memories, happiness and love.

 

I still cannot decided if I like the end or not. It is very open and left to the reader’s interpretation. And mine is, well, sad, so sad and I wish I could read a better, happy ending. And I still cannot decide, if Etta really went for that walk or if it is only a dream. A dream in the last days of her life, while she lays unconscious in a hospital bed. That’s what I love most about Etta and Otto and Russell and James. That it offers so much room for my own interpretation and speculations. It’s a book you cannot take to seriously. I mean, of course it is ridiculous that an 82 year old woman starts walking 2,000 miles without prober sleep or much to eat and drink, with a coyote on her side. It is a book which gives the reader the possibility to look beyond the bare words into the hearts of the characters.

 

Conclusion

 

I think Emma Hooper wrote a magical book. I really love her writing and that the story is so unreal but so touching. That it gave me the possibility to have my own interpretations and speculations. A book about desires, unfulfilled dreams, love and longing, about the past and memories and live itself. A book which gave me the possibility to look beyond bare words and which entertained me. But I really hate the ending. It so open and my own head really has some bad thoughts about what happened. That’s why I give four out of five stars. It was a quick and easy read but also one that will stay in my heart and memory for a long time.

This is one of those books, I think, that people are either going to either love or hate. It is written in a unique, lyrical prose that sometimes feels more like a poem than a novel. It is also going to be subject to the scrutiny of the ardent fans of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry because it will surely be compared to that book.

 

When I finished reading it, I went online to check out some other reviews, and to see if someone could explain a part I was confused by in a satisfying way. Instead, I found a lot of love and some hate (like I thought). I found that many people were annoyed by the grammar in the book (no quotation marks), which was funny to me, since I did not even notice this while I read. How weird, because I am typically a grammar fiend myself. You are probably guessing this opinion would put me firmly in the “lover” camp for this book.

 

Etta’s story, when it begins, feels very familiar if you took that journey with Harold Fry, and in many ways, they cover a lot of similar emotional ground. As for the setting, we are crossing Canada, though the terrain seems a bit tamer than I’ve been led to believe. In any case, Etta has set off on a journey that becomes surprisingly tense when we realize that perhaps she is not as equipped to make it as we originally thought. I did love this book. I loved the journey, and I loved the flashbacks to the war and the beginnings of their relationship. I loved the connections between Etta and Otto and Russell and James. I enjoyed my trip with Etta across Canada, and I wanted her to find what she was missing. I cared about her and each person she left behind, and I was happy to share in their intimate correspondence. It was a compelling story told with love and humor, and, just like Dorothy, it made me understand once more how sometimes you have to travel very far to appreciate what’s been right in front of you all along.