Anne Tyler

[StillILearn]

Anne Tyler has a new book out:

Anne Tyler's Baltimore has changed significantly since her first book appeared more than 40 years ago. Until now, though, her voice has remained remarkably consistent. Her prose is at once unpretentious and elegiac, like a photograph by Dorothea Lange, and her imagery has staying power. Taken together, the distinct but overlapping worlds of her novels have formed a Sensurround literary record of the 20th-century American family — or, at least, of the proud but troubled archetypal families that once interested her most.

A writer like Tyler can hardly have been immune to family influence herself. But her inner circle has narrowed. Her husband, the Iranian-born psychiatrist Taghi Modarressi, died nearly 10 years ago, and in January her mother, Phyllis Tyler, an ardent social activist, died at the age of 88. Her obituary in the Raleigh News & Observer reads eerily like a précis of one of her daughter's novels. In the 1930's, she picketed in support of coal miners; in the 1940's, she married and moved with her husband to a commune, where they raised goats and organic vegetables; in the 1960's, she protested against the Vietnam War; in the 1970's, she and her husband took up residence in the Middle East, helping refugees in Gaza; in the 1980's, she fought the death penalty, advocated for battered women and wrote newspaper articles about everyday heroes, like a singing trash man. How could a writer's character not be imprinted by such a presence? In its absence, who do you turn to? One senses that, like Dave Donaldson, the bereaved grandfather of "Digging to America," Tyler has begun to shift her focus as she wrestles with the question of how an individual moves forward. With the map she's sketching, she's no longer in search of buried treasure; she's in search of the road ahead.

Digging to America

 

[Shade]

I just bought my first Anne Tyler today, The Accidental Tourist. I keep coming up against her name with people saying how good she is, so I thought it was about time I found out. Obviously this has intensified lately with the release of Digging to America, so critical mass was reached for me today and I finally shelled out. I was dizzied by the choices - a dozen or more novels out there already - and ended just by going for the one I'd heard of most. When I got home I realised the reason I had heard of this one most was because of the film (starring William Hurt?). Which doesn't necessarily mean it's her best. Any recommendations or guidances from any seasoned Tyler readers?

 

[Poppy1]

I've read 'The Clock Winder' and 'Back When We Were Grown-ups', both of which I enjoyed. She has an unusual, slightly off-beat style and I enjoyed her humour.

 

[Tamsine]

Any recommendations or guidances from any seasoned Tyler readers?

she is one of my favourite writers. I enjoyed nearly all her novels equally, but my favourite are " dinner at the homesick restaurant" and " a patchwork planet".

 

[StillILearn]

I just bought Digging to America. Will report back.

 

[Shade]

Thanks tamsine. I've just begun The Accidental Tourist. I'm only a few pages in but it's fluent and amusing. So far so good.

 

[StillILearn]

I just finished Digging to America.

Anne Tyler an amazing writer. This woman really knows how to reach right in there and wring my heart. Reading one of her books is, for me, like living an entire parallel life.

This is one of my favorites, and oddly enough, I found myself completely identifying with a character about whose culture I know very little.

Tyler affects me in very much the same way that Kingsolver does; she strenghtens my love for the human race, and she does it without a lot of sentimental fanfare.

 

[Shade]

I got through The Accidental Tourist after my post above, but haven't commented on it yet. I enjoyed it, and found much of Macon's habits and practices amusingly developed (and worryingly familiar...). I can't say I loved the book to pieces though. There was an air of formula to it, as though Tyler had plotted it all out precisely beforehand and knew when she was going to push the heart button and tickle the funny bone. Perhaps that's no bad thing (or just makes her rather like Macon) or indeed perhaps it's an entirely inaccurate supposition on my part, but whatever the reason, I felt the book didn't have an awful lot of liveliness to it. Muriel's very existence and pushy 'seduction' of Macon seemed ridiculously contrived and engineered, even within the context of a slightly larger-than-life set of characters.

Is this regarded as one of her best, anyone? Or should I look elsewhere?

 

[StillILearn]

I know that I read it, but I can't say that I remember it all that well. If you are up for another one of hers, I'd say try DTA. If you don't like that one, then you just don't like Anne Tyler's writing

Do you like Kingsolver, Shade?

 

[Shade]

I haven't read any Kingsolver, though I've heard good things about The Poisonwood Bible.

Digging to America is only available in hardback in the UK so if do try another it will probably be one of her backlist.