I read my second August Anne Tyler 2021 project books the weekend before this review was due, after almost catching myself out with “Back when we were Grownups“. This was the one I always thought I hadn’t liked so much and which saw the beginning of a perceived decline in her work, but I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. It’s the second of my QPD volumes, bought (or arrived) on 11 February 2004. I haven’t yet digitised my reading journal for that year, so I can’t tell when I read it, but it would have been a few months after that.
If you’re reading along with the project or just this one or whatever, please do share your thoughts in the comments at the bottom or add a link to your review on your blog or Goodreads, etc.. I’m adding links to these reviews plus all the reviews I am alerted to to the project page, so do pop there to see what other people have thought, too.
Anne Tyler – “The Amateur Marriage”
(11 February 2004, Quality Paperbacks Direct)
By nature, Pauline tumbled through life helter-skelter while Michael proceeded deliberately. By nature, Pauline felt entitled to spill anything that came into her head while Michael measured out every word. (p. 45)
I think this book is quite unusual in Tyler’s oeuvre in that there’s a sort of chorus of the Polish-American community in which Michael Anton and his mother run a general store – and this set of friends and neighbours is poignantly there right through this family saga, which takes us from Michael meeting Pauline as youngsters to old age. As was so common in the Second World War, a brief flare of attraction and the emotion of someone going off to war get mistaken for something that can be turned into a lasting love, and we have the usual Tyler pairing of one light and one heavy character, mismatched and rowing, never knowing if this is going to be the marriage-ending row or whether other couples have the same tribulations.
We see it from both sides, stodgy Michael, but he will always know how to keep the furnace going / passionate and headstrong Pauline who feels trapped by her family but has such a wonderful way with people. And then their daughter gets darker and darker and walks out and there’s all sorts of other Tyler stuff like a woebegone child and the good children vs the bad children, everyone ageing in the stops and starts we’d lost for a little bit, and always that chorus circling.
The scene is set from the very beginning – Pauline is nothing, not even Ukrainian and Michael gets somehow tricked into signing up, they have a rocky courtship when Michael is more careful of his mother than his girlfriend, and Pauline almost misses seeing him go away. Then we find out later she starts to lose interest then can’t bring herself to dump a wounded man. Perhaps not the best start, but Tyler is so good at laying out those tiny clues. We go through their life, their children, their aspirations for a new house, following the path of so many American couples, but with Michael always feeling that everyone else has got the hang of things and they’re the only amateurs left.
In an echo of the last book, someone reappears from the past, will there be some kind of circling back, some kind of resolution? If the last book was about surviving the death of your spouse, though, this one is about surviving a marriage that never really gets going properly.
Have you read this one? What did you think?
Aug 20, 2021 @ 08:46:41
I really enjoyed this book in the end. I found the first chapter a struggle, I’m not sure why? She is so good at complex characters, and I particularly liked the section with the forlorn child as it resonated with
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:00:16
Oh that’s interesting, I wonder why. Was it the large range of characters we suddenly met and the very specific community with its ways that they’re a part of? I didn’t remember that bit at all, I have to say!
LikeLike
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:23:17
I think it’s because it’s written from a community perspective rather than from a particular character. I think it was obviously an introduction to themes and characters, but I personally found it hard work. I felt that this style of writing was alienating for me. I much preferred it when chapter two began and it was clear that we were back to a familiar style that I was comfortable with. I’ve discovered I think that I like it best when a book is written in the first person.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 20:24:30
I don’t remember any of her others being like that, so you’re probably still safe from now on. Glad it got better for you anyway.
LikeLike
Aug 20, 2021 @ 10:42:11
This is one I’m keen on reading Liz, I like the use of a chorus in literature.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:00:36
Yes, I know what you mean. I hope you get to read it!
LikeLike
Aug 20, 2021 @ 11:56:09
I’ve always thought of Anne Tyler as an author who gets characters with small lives…and isn’t that most of us?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:00:51
Yes! And yes, indeed.
LikeLike
Aug 20, 2021 @ 14:52:20
You explain the title to me–when I read it, I assumed that everyone was an amateur at marriage (who gets paid for it?) but you’re right, these two especially feel like amateurs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:01:43
Yes, and there’s a quote I didn’t include where all the other couples appear to be getting to grips with things but they’re all slightly missing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 20, 2021 @ 15:19:55
This was the first AT I read and I still think my favourite!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:02:07
Oh lovely! I did enjoy it a lot more this time, I have to say!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 20, 2021 @ 19:56:32
This is one that I remember reasonably well. I think it is probably my favourite of those I have read. Glad you liked it more this time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:02:29
Oh, that’s interesting. It’s certainly better than I remembered thinking it was.
LikeLike
Aug 21, 2021 @ 10:15:52
Now you’ve got me thinking – how amateur was I at marriage? Amateur enough that I wasn’t able to keep any of them going. (it’s interesting that amateur sometimes has this meaning of not trying/not doing it well)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 21, 2021 @ 18:03:26
Yes, that is an interesting distinction, isn’t it. But aren’t we all somehow amateur? I know I’m a pretty poor wife at times, putting work, reading and running above my house and my poor beleaguered husband …!
LikeLike
Aug 23, 2021 @ 22:08:38
I haven’t been here in a while, but wanted to say what a good idea this Anne Tyler readalong is. Cheers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 24, 2021 @ 05:56:06
Lovely to see you back, and thank you! It’s been really interesting to do so far.
LikeLike
The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler (2004) | Bookish Beck
Aug 21, 2021 @ 14:06:19
Aug 23, 2021 @ 14:14:31
It’s interesting that you like this book more on a second reading. Is that a function of age or life experience, do you think? Or just one of those random things that made you less receptive to it the first time around?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aug 23, 2021 @ 14:19:42
It might be time, age and life experience, to be honest. I read it first three and a bit years into what is now a 20-year relationship including seven years of marriage and that might make a difference. I also loved the community aspect but I’d have surely enjoyed that last time. I don’t have time to find my original review as I haven’t indexed it yet so would have to search a couple of notebooks …
LikeLike
Sep 06, 2021 @ 14:33:27
I wasn’t expecting to love this book as much as I did, so it was a nice surprise for me! I think I was too young when I read my first Anne Tyler, and didn’t really “get” what she was writing about. I love the community feel at the beginning with the grocery store and the neighbours. And I love how complicated the characters are – there’s no good or bad, just good fit / bad fit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 07, 2021 @ 07:37:29
Yes, I think I’m getting different things out of them now than when I read them in my late 20s/early 30s. And I think the relationships are getting more subtle now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 06, 2021 @ 16:12:35
Sep 06, 2021 @ 16:52:45
I’ve mentioned a couple of times that this book is a lot like Breathing Lessons, although I liked the European neighborhood very much, like you did, and that’s not in Breathing Lessons. I didn’t realize this was a thing Tyler had with couples, but I did wonder if it echoed the marriage of her own parents. I have just started reading more Tyler recently, so I haven’t run into this couple as much as you have.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 07, 2021 @ 07:38:22
Yes, it is quite like Breathing Lessons in the incompatible couple, but also, yes, these are tropes she has which you gather if you’ve read 16 of them in a row!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 07, 2021 @ 15:16:06
I guess I’ve been more haphazard about reading her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 07, 2021 @ 15:19:21
Yeah, I hadn’t really grasped this whole oppositional characters thing she had going on until this year – I had previously read all that were out by the early 2000s in the early 2000s then bought them as they came out from then, so by no means read them close together or originally in the order they were written. it is interesting doing this, though, as you do find themes popping out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 10, 2021 @ 23:29:43
I had so wanted to reread this one. When I read it first I was not married or in a relationship. At the time I wondered if it would read differently if I wasn’t so adamantly single!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sep 12, 2021 @ 09:03:51
Given my experience (new relationship / old relationship) I think it will! Don’t worry if you reread it later this year, next year, whatever, you know my challenges last forever!
LikeLiked by 1 person