Do you know the meaning of "ole"(or old) in the following paragraph?and the last sentence?

Question

"Look at her: flushed and shiny with sweat, hunched under her brown ole hair, in her brown ole kitchen. Deep inside, her organs pump double-time, trying to turn bile into strawberry milk. Outside, her brown ole life festers uselessly around the jokey red bow on her dress."
Does that "ole hair" mean that her hair becomes white? and could you tell me the meaning of the last sentence: "Outside, her brown ole life festers uselessly around the jokey red bow on her dress."
(This is part of the novel"Vernon God Little"by DBC Pierre)

I mean, what "festers uselessly" mean?

Answer 1

A couple of thoughts here:

1. The word order is interesting - in standard English, if you have adjectives of colour and age, the age bit comes first, e.g. 'a new red car', 'an old black umbrella' - by reversing the normal order, the author is drawing attention to 'brown', which I think means prosaic, uninteresting, boring.

2. I think the last sentence is drawing attention to the fact that the red bow on her dress clashes with the otherwise drab appearance and demeanour of the woman.

Answer 2

Without any reference to "what the books actually ARE", there's not enough information to "rewrite" the sentence due to the lack of information about "the books". In English "the books" can have a variety of meanings: could mean a number of literary works (as in the "book" 'The Da Vinci Code') "the books" can mean also in English "accounting ledgers"............ They way that the sentence is written now, it sounds to ME (as this is a personal interpretation) "The books got left behind" means to ME: "The books that were meant to be taken [with one] were forgotten [to be taken] by the person in question." Another complete example of the re-worked sentence would be: Due to the fact that we were in a hurry to leave for the airport, the books that we needed for the trip got left behind. I hope this helps............ Christopher K.

Answer 3

In my opinion "brown ole" is used as neglected something that has become brown due to lack of care

Answer 4

Not so much that her hair is grey, but that her looks, her life- everything about her is unchanging, boring, everyday in the negative sense.