Anger

by May Sarton

The marriage of Bostonian banker Ned Fraser and singer Anna Lindstrom results in a painful clash between his crippling reserve and her tempestuous, emotional nature

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Marriage

Hardcover

First published December 31, 1982

About the author

May Sarton was born on May 3, 1912, in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. An accomplished memoirist, Sarton boldly came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her later memoir, Journal of a Solitude, was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton died in York, Maine, on July 16, 1995.

Reviews

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

. . . it had occurred to Anna that Ned had developed his own talent for withdrawal out of self-defense. He had become a turtle to survive. But then why had he chosen to marry someone who was as open and violent as she was?

Oh, don't even get me started.

Don't even get me started on the topic of anger, or of turtles and tigers.

Turtles: people who refuse to be vulnerable, love openly or communicate with their romantic partners.
Tigers: people who become “angry,” almost savage, in their fight to remain visible in their relationships with their shut-down partners.

Boy howdy, I could write a book on this topic, but it turns out that May Sarton already wrote one.

This isn't a self-help book; it's a novel. A novel that is quite brilliant in its examination of anger. Personally, I think it's superior to most non-fiction books on the topic.

Yes, the story has some dated-sounding dialogue between some white, affluent Bostonians, but if you can manage to overlook that particular quirk, you will be rewarded by an in-depth look at how easily passionate people are gaslighted into thinking they are raving lunatics.

I bit off most of my fingernails during this read. I imagined they were the shells of all the turtles I've ever known. . .

Cold, angry people can never understand hot, angry people.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selected, I admit, by the title, but turned out to be unexpectedly interesting, this is a story of a marriage. Or more precisely, this is a story of a role anger plays in life and marriage. When Ned meets Anna, it’s (to paraphrase Eminem) like when a glacier meets a volcano. Ned is a quiet reserved banker, Anna is a volatile dramatic singer. Ned wants peace, Anna wants…well, her own version of peace which is very much like Ned’s version of war. Only two years in and their inability to communicate has turned their marriage into a bed of eggshells and the only way out of it is through a good angry exhausting conversation or two. Because as it turns out Ned has some anger too, only it is politely buried and it takes someone of Anna’s explosive temperament to unleash it. The act that manages to calm Anna’s own inner rage enough so that some balance might be achieved after all. It’s quite a clever meditation on what anger means to different people and different genders and your personal mileage with this book might vary by where you are on the angermeter. Personally, while I found Ned’s reserve exasperating at times, it is Anna’s raging moods that disturbed me the most. In fact, it came as a surprise when they were able to work out their differences in the end, because the two of them seemed so profoundly incompatible in such fundamental ways. But alas, the mysteries of love…and temper. Read all about them here. The style is somewhat old fashioned, but the subject matter is timeless. Recommended for anyone interested in a compelling look at the challenges of communication in a relationship.

[Maryjoamani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love May Sarton--simple novels around one central theme but so direct. She seems to get at the heart of a matter through good dialogue and an observant eye. In this book, as in her journals written around this time, she explores the need for taking emotional risks in relationships in order to share essential integrity of a person--"Why stay knowing there would always be violence, tears, pain, and--yes--outrage to be dealt with? Why stay knowing that Ned would not and could not accept her as she was and would always be? Why stay, unwilling to compromise and unwilling to yield? Because the very thing that tears us apart binds us together, she told herself. We are locked into an unremitting struggle each to defend and preserve authentic being....but whoever thought love was easy? Or that people change? No, the tapestry gets torn again and again and then rewoven in the same pattern and perhaps as time goes on our skill at reweaving becomes a little wiser and more compassionate: pride and fidelity and love.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love most everything May Sarton has written, but this one falls a bit short. I had trouble understanding either of the protagonists for the first half of the book. The way Sarton laid out their issues seemed kind of clumsy. I'm glad I stuck with it though it all kind of came together.

Might be interesting for those who like liberal doses of classical music mixed in with their fiction, but unless you are a Sarton fan, I would would suggest reading one of her other novels before picking up this one.

[Wisewebwoman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe I've lived my voracious reading life without reading Sarton. I am correcting this state of affairs immediately.

Opening Line: "Ned Fraser was forty and thought of himself as a confirmed bachelor when an unexpected event catapulted him into marriage."

A powerful read about the marriage between Anna, a singer and Ned, a banker. Tempestuous and hateful at times, always clinging desperately to their own individuality.

It's a book that resonated with me and at times made me cry.

[Maxine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting. I like books that deal with the human emotions. There are many marriages that have alot of anger. Some people give in and other try to work it out. This book showed how hard it is for people with different temperment to live together. This was definite extremes but nevertheless both were very angry. It was good to see how they expressed themselves or didn't in the husbands case. Rage and anger are both destructive if not expressed in contructive ways. I thought it was very insightful. I'm glad I stuck with it.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like most of Sarton's novels I've read, this one is intelligent and "relatable", since its topic is marital discord, something we've all witnessed if not experienced at first hand. Anna Lindstrom, a dedicated and disciplined singer, is much more emotional off stage than on. After only a few months of marriage with the tempestuous diva, Ned Fraser, a banker from a Brahmin Boston family, has had more than enough of her outbursts, and their marriage is in trouble already. Sarton is good at walking us through the repetitive arguments in which such mis-matched couples get tangled up, but such material hardly suffices to propel the plot forward in an exciting way. Although the novel doesn't quite end with a happy-ever-after resolution, I was only moderately satisfied with the ending, in which Anna virtually becomes Ned's shrink, and makes him admit to himself that he's always thought his father committed suicide, and has refused ever since to confront the fact, and therefore analyze his feelings about the people he loves most. This outcome makes it sound like Sarton is taking sides in the debate about whether it is better to express your anger or to control it. I'm afraid that as far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on that one. On the other hand, I always like how direct Sarton is about some issues. For instance, on Anna's first improvised date with Ned, she immediately sees a relationship with him as "an end of anxiety about money". Sarton doesn't mean to signal that Anna is a venal woman, just somebody who is acutely aware of how precarious the life of a classical singer is without a steady bread-winner at her side.

[vika]

"One of Anna's fantasies had always been to give it all up, live as ordinary people did- but then, did they? Was there such a thing as an 'ordinary life'? When Anna looked around her it seemed that everyone she knew was engaged in some impossible battle... Clara with her alcoholic husband, Mary with apparently no way to get published after all these years of sending poems out...and she had genius, Anna was convinced. No, Anna, she admonished herself. You simply cannot complain" (75).

"It was clear to her in the brilliant sunlight of that morning that neither of them was going to change. What then? And why do people in love want to change each other? What is the war really all about? If we could only go deeper, only get to that, to talking about that!" (162).

"'Perhaps everything terrible in us is at its deepest something helpless that wants help from us.' Or was it, 'deepest level'? [...] 'What is the terrible thing in me that needs help?" (162).

"After a half-hour, Anna stretched and lay flat on her back for a moment, looking up through the leaves of the maple. 'Look at the light... it's so beautiful,' and then 'Why is autumn, when everything is dying, so beautiful?' 'Not dying, going to sleep,' Ned answered" (169).

"'Isn't memory a strange thing? A little thing makes an indelible impression. And then there are whole areas in the past that just disappear'" (177).

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale of the passionate/cold marriage of an opera singer and a banker. As always, Sarton's prose is exquisite. I liked the counterpoint between the personalities of the characters and the resolution at the end. Sarton was writing this during the year she wrote her journal At Seventy. It was interesting to see some of that content in this novel, especially the snippets about the garden and the couple's pleasure in gardening.

[Mary Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gobbled this down quickly. What is it about anger that is so compelling? Certainly could understand why the main character becomes so frustrated with her husband. His point of view too foreign for me to identify with, but at least he reaches some understanding. Would have loved it if she had written a thirty years later version. Anyway, really interesting.

[Mikey Behr · Rating 3 out of 5]

no singer would ever have alcohol and milk on the day of a performance.

[Trudy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved that the book is set in Boston, with allusions to the Boston Brahmins and their way of life. I also loved the classical music references, from Faure to Frijsh, Britten to Berlioz and a mention of Boston's own, Sarah Caldwell! When we first meet Anna, she's ANGRY, and seems rather like a spoiled child, indulged and pampered by her mother. When Ned grabs Anna's hand on the swan boat in the Public Garden, the first thought she has is "here is an end to anxieties about money." I wrote her off as a narcissistic opportunist, and decided I didn't like her very much. The Somerset Club at 42 Beacon St., where Ned and Anna ate is a real social club of the snootiest order. It was founded in 1852, and the membership was divided over the Civil War. When a fire broke out in the kitchen in the 1940s, firemen had to enter through the servants’ entrance to avoid ­disrupting the ladies and gents lunching in the dining room. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Theodore Roosevelt have been there. I want to check out the building next time I'm on Bacon Hill. Their second date was at an Italian restaurant where Ned proposes in ANGER over dessert. I wish there had been more detail about that, although the restaurant is probably long gone. After a while I began to wonder why these two stay together. But I did enjoy the writing and the Boston atmosphere.

[Ms. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anger is about a marriage between two very angry people. Many of Ned and Anna's emotional flinches during conversations/arguments were raw and real in a way I can't remember reading anywhere else. Some of fights were (realistically) repetitive. This added to the realism, but didn't move the story forward quite as quickly as I would have liked. This small book packed a wallop: themes of parental emotional destruction, for the parent and for the child, suicide, control, intimacy....

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess the title should have given it away, but there were some angry people in this book. They set each other off relentlessly. From the tone I thought the book took place in the 1800's or something, but it was supposed to be modern times (whenever it was written). Ugh. Not recommended.

[Sheila Pritchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read anything by Sarton for years but she is one of my favourite authors. This is a fascinating and psychologically astute look at how one's background affects one's expression of anger. As a novel it was interesting enough in its own right but given the topic it wasn't restful reading!

[Lauri-Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was hard to read, as initially I found Anna's character, and her storms of emotion, frustrating. I realize that is partly because I relate to Ned. The book was engrossing, and I finished it in a few hours. I rated it 3, but I would like to give it 3.5.

[Claudia Douris · Rating 5 out of 5]

BRAVO!!!

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

A study of two very different temperaments, of their struggle in connecting with each other verses protecting themselves from each other.

[Deborah Schuff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have been a wonderful movie for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I was pulling for both characters.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relationship between two emotional opposites.

[Mary Narkiewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

a brave novel