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The Amateur Marriage
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage and its consequences, spanning three generations They seemed like the perfect couple—young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother’s grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married. Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 6, 2004
792 people are currently reading
15423 people want to read
About the author
Anne Tyler
113 books9,000 followersAnne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. She has published 20 novels, her debut novel being
If Morning Ever Comes
in (1964). Her eleventh novel,
Breathing Lessons
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,771 reviews
August 23, 2008
Anne Tyler would laugh, I'm sure, if she read these different reactions to this book. For isn't this her point in so many of her novels? How different we all are and how easily we misunderstand each other? How one person can hate what another loves so passionately? How easy it is to miss the point, get the wrong end of the stick, fail to see what's under your very nose?
The genius of Tyler is in her understated approach to the great themes of life. Behind the seemingly trivial details of the everyday lives of her ordinary characters, we are shown the pathos and suffering that inevitably faces us all. The passing of time. The wasted opportunities. The clarity of hindsight. Death. Loss. Regret. Disappointment. And behind all those, the persistent tug of the present and the pull of everyday concerns, and the solace that they ultimately provide.
Tyler is one of the few novelists who can break your heart in a line. The closing paragraph of The Amateur Marriage had me in tears, and probably will again whenever I think of it.
The genius of Tyler is in her understated approach to the great themes of life. Behind the seemingly trivial details of the everyday lives of her ordinary characters, we are shown the pathos and suffering that inevitably faces us all. The passing of time. The wasted opportunities. The clarity of hindsight. Death. Loss. Regret. Disappointment. And behind all those, the persistent tug of the present and the pull of everyday concerns, and the solace that they ultimately provide.
Tyler is one of the few novelists who can break your heart in a line. The closing paragraph of The Amateur Marriage had me in tears, and probably will again whenever I think of it.
March 15, 2016
4 stars
"They were such a perfect couple. They were taking their very first steps on the amazing journey of marriage, and wonderful adventures were about to unfold in front of them."
Wow, don't most marriages start out with this assumption!! I had to laugh to myself when I stumbled across this quote in my notes after having finished my journey with this book. And what a wild ride that was! I am honestly quite drained after reading this. I can't recall another book compelling me to scrutinize my own behaviors and my relationships so intensely as Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage.
Michael and Pauline have a brief courtship followed by a wedding during the turbulent wartime of the 1940's. They are perhaps a classic example of "opposites attract". Pauline, recognizable in her "dangerous and dramatic" red coat, is lively, spontaneous, dramatic and unpredictable. Michael is very conventional, anti-social, rigid, and judgmental. Both appear to be passive aggressive. But, even if it's true that opposites attract, can they really survive and stay afloat for the long haul? Marriage is a lot of work and every new couple could be called "amateurs". But as with any relationship, marriage is one that grows over time and requires both partners to learn from one another and to compromise. Pauline and Michael seem unable to do so, and this book illustrates the damaging effects of a deficient marriage not just on the couple themselves, but their children as well. The novel spans several decades and is really a fascinating character study. Almost every person in this book will seem familiar to you – could this one or that one actually be someone you know disguised as a character within these pages? Or, worse yet, could this person be YOU? I kept asking myself these questions. Every time I sat down with this book I thought about my own actions, the actions of my spouse, my parents, my sibling, and my friends. Are my children getting the right messages from quietly observing my own behaviors and listening to each word I say? Am I doing this all wrong? I'm doing my best and I hope that's enough for now!
This was my first Anne Tyler novel and I am happy to see that there are many others waiting for me. I may need to take a short break before opening another, but not because I found the story lacking. Rather, I need a bit of a rest from my own self-examination! I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading about relationships and family dynamics. There is not a lot of action here, but instead a thought-provoking and in-depth look at everyday people.
"He believed that all of them, all those young marrieds of the war years, had started out in equal ignorance. He pictured them marching down a city street, as people had on the day he enlisted. Then two by two they fell away, having grown wise and seasoned and comfortable in their roles, until only he and Pauline remained, as inexperienced as ever – the last couple left in the amateurs' parade."
"They were such a perfect couple. They were taking their very first steps on the amazing journey of marriage, and wonderful adventures were about to unfold in front of them."
Wow, don't most marriages start out with this assumption!! I had to laugh to myself when I stumbled across this quote in my notes after having finished my journey with this book. And what a wild ride that was! I am honestly quite drained after reading this. I can't recall another book compelling me to scrutinize my own behaviors and my relationships so intensely as Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage.
Michael and Pauline have a brief courtship followed by a wedding during the turbulent wartime of the 1940's. They are perhaps a classic example of "opposites attract". Pauline, recognizable in her "dangerous and dramatic" red coat, is lively, spontaneous, dramatic and unpredictable. Michael is very conventional, anti-social, rigid, and judgmental. Both appear to be passive aggressive. But, even if it's true that opposites attract, can they really survive and stay afloat for the long haul? Marriage is a lot of work and every new couple could be called "amateurs". But as with any relationship, marriage is one that grows over time and requires both partners to learn from one another and to compromise. Pauline and Michael seem unable to do so, and this book illustrates the damaging effects of a deficient marriage not just on the couple themselves, but their children as well. The novel spans several decades and is really a fascinating character study. Almost every person in this book will seem familiar to you – could this one or that one actually be someone you know disguised as a character within these pages? Or, worse yet, could this person be YOU? I kept asking myself these questions. Every time I sat down with this book I thought about my own actions, the actions of my spouse, my parents, my sibling, and my friends. Are my children getting the right messages from quietly observing my own behaviors and listening to each word I say? Am I doing this all wrong? I'm doing my best and I hope that's enough for now!
This was my first Anne Tyler novel and I am happy to see that there are many others waiting for me. I may need to take a short break before opening another, but not because I found the story lacking. Rather, I need a bit of a rest from my own self-examination! I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading about relationships and family dynamics. There is not a lot of action here, but instead a thought-provoking and in-depth look at everyday people.
"He believed that all of them, all those young marrieds of the war years, had started out in equal ignorance. He pictured them marching down a city street, as people had on the day he enlisted. Then two by two they fell away, having grown wise and seasoned and comfortable in their roles, until only he and Pauline remained, as inexperienced as ever – the last couple left in the amateurs' parade."
March 21, 2022
“I am fascinated by how families work, endurance, how do we get through life?”
- Anne Tyler, from an interview in The Guardian
Two mismatched people – impulsive, gregarious, Wasp Pauline and methodical, quiet Polish Catholic Michael – get married, continually fight, move from one Baltimore neighbourhood to another, raise three children, experience loss and then… well, I don't want to spoil the plot, such as it is.
You don’t read Anne Tyler for big drama; you go to her for her vivid characters and the way she shows you people – to borrow from the quote above – “getting through life.”
The Amateur Marriage spans more than half a century, with several years elapsing between each chapter. (Each chapter, shaped beautifully like a short story, is centred around a significant event: a big anniversary dinner, a lie, a reunion.) As I got further into the book and I got more invested in the characters, I found myself wondering: “What’s become of X?” “Why hasn’t Y been mentioned in a while?”
Beginning a chapter, I had to brace myself in case I learned someone had died in the interim. I was eager to know how Pauline and Michael’s children turned out. Were they like their mom? Their dad? After a while it felt like I knew everybody, complete with their faults – a bad temper here, a bit of coldness there – and I wanted things to turn out well for them. There’s a scene with two middle-aged people on a date that had me quietly cheering them on; it’s contrasted later with a date scene that had me laughing at its awkwardness.
I’m not sure how Tyler does this. She’s great at getting us deep inside someone’s point of view, but she’s also a master at showing them doing things, even ordinary things. How a person drives a car says a lot about them. Following them walk up and down the aisles of a hardware store fixes them in your mind. Even the way someone sits at a table – Tyler’s a cultural anthropologist in the way she depicts body language – tells you what their dialogue doesn’t.
Not that her dialogue is bad. Each one of her characters speaks a certain way. I adore Tyler’s prose. There’s nothing fashionable or faddish about it. No tricks. Just simple, old-fashioned, good writing.
People complain that Tyler keeps writing the same novel. This is only the third* book of hers I’ve read, and yes, all three have been set in Baltimore and concern families. But in each case, she’s dealing with people I know, people I’ve been, people I will likely become. (Perhaps we read realistic fiction to see how other people live, to prepare us, if only subconsciously, for the future.)
If Tyler writes the same novel all the time, then so did Jane Austen.
* UPDATE (2022): I’ve since read 8 more of her books, and have enjoyed each one
- Anne Tyler, from an interview in The Guardian
Two mismatched people – impulsive, gregarious, Wasp Pauline and methodical, quiet Polish Catholic Michael – get married, continually fight, move from one Baltimore neighbourhood to another, raise three children, experience loss and then… well, I don't want to spoil the plot, such as it is.
You don’t read Anne Tyler for big drama; you go to her for her vivid characters and the way she shows you people – to borrow from the quote above – “getting through life.”
The Amateur Marriage spans more than half a century, with several years elapsing between each chapter. (Each chapter, shaped beautifully like a short story, is centred around a significant event: a big anniversary dinner, a lie, a reunion.) As I got further into the book and I got more invested in the characters, I found myself wondering: “What’s become of X?” “Why hasn’t Y been mentioned in a while?”
Beginning a chapter, I had to brace myself in case I learned someone had died in the interim. I was eager to know how Pauline and Michael’s children turned out. Were they like their mom? Their dad? After a while it felt like I knew everybody, complete with their faults – a bad temper here, a bit of coldness there – and I wanted things to turn out well for them. There’s a scene with two middle-aged people on a date that had me quietly cheering them on; it’s contrasted later with a date scene that had me laughing at its awkwardness.
I’m not sure how Tyler does this. She’s great at getting us deep inside someone’s point of view, but she’s also a master at showing them doing things, even ordinary things. How a person drives a car says a lot about them. Following them walk up and down the aisles of a hardware store fixes them in your mind. Even the way someone sits at a table – Tyler’s a cultural anthropologist in the way she depicts body language – tells you what their dialogue doesn’t.
Not that her dialogue is bad. Each one of her characters speaks a certain way. I adore Tyler’s prose. There’s nothing fashionable or faddish about it. No tricks. Just simple, old-fashioned, good writing.
People complain that Tyler keeps writing the same novel. This is only the third* book of hers I’ve read, and yes, all three have been set in Baltimore and concern families. But in each case, she’s dealing with people I know, people I’ve been, people I will likely become. (Perhaps we read realistic fiction to see how other people live, to prepare us, if only subconsciously, for the future.)
If Tyler writes the same novel all the time, then so did Jane Austen.
* UPDATE (2022): I’ve since read 8 more of her books, and have enjoyed each one
February 28, 2016
I read this book very carefully. It's a great fit for the cerebral part of my brain...
having anything to do with complex relationships and family dymamics.
I literally can pick this book apart - piece by piece to analyze.....a perfect group-discussion-choice.
Several Goodreads members, and I, picked this book for a group discussion.
For those interested to join in - (if you've read the book) -
Here is how to find the discussion group:
...go to groups
...join the 'public' group "The Reading For Pleasure Book Club" ---( do not worry about
obligations -- many members have joined just to link into the designed book discussion for 'this book')
... Scroll down through threads until you find "The Amateur Marriage"
...clink 'link'..... ( you will find other members - many you know - discussion corner)
My Quick Review...( saving more to say for the discussion group)
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
...This book can be read - re-read & picked apart - ( Basic generalizations to deeper introspections) ---not everyone would have the patience for it. I did...but towards the end, I began to feel a little weary. ...( only the last 10-15 pages did I finally feel...
I exhausted my energy, and needed a breather).
....BOTH Michael and Pauline, were in a quandary doubting each other's intelligence decisions- financial choices - parenting-social appropriateness-anniversary celebrations- dealings with grief -loss-sex-and love.
....Pauline was often erratic, having explosive outbursts, and volatile. At the same time, she took action. Looking 'put-together' and beautiful, were of some importance to her, pride in her cooking, and home-decorating skills.
She could also squash Michael being too righteous.
....Michael could be a cold-hearted iceberg...callous- insensitive-borderline cruel-and often just wimpy. He also could squash Pauline being too righteous.
....The children bruised - each in different ways - and as they grow...we see some suffering in their relationships.
....I might conclude that each of us have our bruises. We are all amateurs in love -
living- and connecting together.
....Anne Tyler>>>>loving this author!
having anything to do with complex relationships and family dymamics.
I literally can pick this book apart - piece by piece to analyze.....a perfect group-discussion-choice.
Several Goodreads members, and I, picked this book for a group discussion.
For those interested to join in - (if you've read the book) -
Here is how to find the discussion group:
...go to groups
...join the 'public' group "The Reading For Pleasure Book Club" ---( do not worry about
obligations -- many members have joined just to link into the designed book discussion for 'this book')
... Scroll down through threads until you find "The Amateur Marriage"
...clink 'link'..... ( you will find other members - many you know - discussion corner)
My Quick Review...( saving more to say for the discussion group)
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
...This book can be read - re-read & picked apart - ( Basic generalizations to deeper introspections) ---not everyone would have the patience for it. I did...but towards the end, I began to feel a little weary. ...( only the last 10-15 pages did I finally feel...
I exhausted my energy, and needed a breather).
....BOTH Michael and Pauline, were in a quandary doubting each other's intelligence decisions- financial choices - parenting-social appropriateness-anniversary celebrations- dealings with grief -loss-sex-and love.
....Pauline was often erratic, having explosive outbursts, and volatile. At the same time, she took action. Looking 'put-together' and beautiful, were of some importance to her, pride in her cooking, and home-decorating skills.
She could also squash Michael being too righteous.
....Michael could be a cold-hearted iceberg...callous- insensitive-borderline cruel-and often just wimpy. He also could squash Pauline being too righteous.
....The children bruised - each in different ways - and as they grow...we see some suffering in their relationships.
....I might conclude that each of us have our bruises. We are all amateurs in love -
living- and connecting together.
....Anne Tyler>>>>loving this author!
August 11, 2015
A lot of people who reviewed this book thought that it was about a marriage in which the partners were incompatible. They were too different. He was ethnic inner city, she was of WASP heritage. Their personalities were too different. They were both stuck in adolescence, hence the amateur quality of their marriage. But for me it was Every-marriage. Of course they were of different backgrounds, with World War II acting like a giant cultural mixer. Of course they were different--opposites attract. As to adolescence, that represented where they were mired, not a personality type. (Look at our society these days, look at Congress!)
Both their personalities were problematical. She was totally temperamental, he was the cold fish. The more she pursued, the more he walled himself off. She became the trouble maker of the family, the proximal flashpoint. In comparison he looked good, wore the mantle of the victim. Yet his personality was such that as a young man in basic training he was a victim of "accidental" friendly fire by another man whom he more than annoyed.
We know what Greek tragedy is. This is American tragedy. Neither partner could decide this wasn't an amateur marriage but the real thing. Neither could take a leap of faith. For neither did a door open and reveal the way where before there seemed to be only wall. Neither could give up that the other was maliciously withholding what he/she needed.
He thought the answer was a woman with a cool personality. But at the end, when she was long gone, who was it he yearned to see when he rounded the bend?
This book packed a punch. Of the Anne Tyler books I've read, it was the most powerful. I read it six years ago and have never forgotten it (although some of the details have faded in the meantime). You could get PTSD from reading this book.
Why read it if it is so "traumatic?" So it can function like Greek tragedy and exorcise the demons. Cry it out via literature and perhaps not have to suffer it in real life.
Both their personalities were problematical. She was totally temperamental, he was the cold fish. The more she pursued, the more he walled himself off. She became the trouble maker of the family, the proximal flashpoint. In comparison he looked good, wore the mantle of the victim. Yet his personality was such that as a young man in basic training he was a victim of "accidental" friendly fire by another man whom he more than annoyed.
We know what Greek tragedy is. This is American tragedy. Neither partner could decide this wasn't an amateur marriage but the real thing. Neither could take a leap of faith. For neither did a door open and reveal the way where before there seemed to be only wall. Neither could give up that the other was maliciously withholding what he/she needed.
He thought the answer was a woman with a cool personality. But at the end, when she was long gone, who was it he yearned to see when he rounded the bend?
This book packed a punch. Of the Anne Tyler books I've read, it was the most powerful. I read it six years ago and have never forgotten it (although some of the details have faded in the meantime). You could get PTSD from reading this book.
Why read it if it is so "traumatic?" So it can function like Greek tragedy and exorcise the demons. Cry it out via literature and perhaps not have to suffer it in real life.
January 20, 2018
Another wonderful story from Anne Tyler about a perfectly normal family, told in an anything but average way. She has this remarkable ability to craft stories that are incredibly engaging and heartfelt about a subject that's so often written of. She certainly has her niche, but it's not cliche or dull or overwrought—it's just perfectly right. I loved Michael and Pauline and hated them at the same time. I loved how each chapter jumped a bit in time so we were really able to live out this marriage with them, through it's few highs and many lows. A great family saga and again confirms my love for Tyler's work. 4 stars
April 22, 2022
Pauline and Michael meet just as America is gathering troops to help fight the Second World War. It’s Baltimore in the 40’s, and we are about to observe this seemingly mismatched couple (Michael quiet and ‘straight’, Pauline vivacious and wild) act out the rest of their lives.
I read this book as part of a group read, so I’ll not delve too deeply into what happens. But I will record a few thoughts on the experience of spending a week in the company of this duo. And let’s modify that statement for a start, as we meet friends and neighbours and, of course, the wider family too along the way – it’s not totally focused on Michael and Pauline.
It’s a gentle tale. A story of a normal marriage really. I didn’t find any major twists within the pages but there were the typical ups and downs and changes we all experience in our lives. And that might just be a strength of the book: we can all find something to identify with here. But in truth I found it slow going to start with, though I did learn a few things about America in the 40’s – for instance, I hadn’t computed that rationing wasn’t only a British thing during the war. That came as a bit of a shock! In fact, it was beyond half way before I started to build up any real empathy for the characters. I think that’s because the story is told in a very matter-of-fact way; the visual picture I had developed was more documentary than dramatisation.
As the characters aged I did become more engaged in their lives. I can’t quite put my finger on why that was the case, but maybe it was because I suddenly had more in common with them: we were meeting the same challenges and sharing some similar views. But still the narrative seemed to be locked on this path where nothing going on in the outside world had anything but a minor role. The inverted telescope was focused on the people we’d been introduced to and everything else seemed like an irrelevance that wasn’t allowed to intrude.
In the end I was sad to finish, as I usually am when I’ve tracked peoples progress through the generations. And I’ll need to take some time to really understand how I feel about this book. No doubt this will become clearer as I share more detailed thoughts with my fellow readers, but my initial reaction is one of mild disappointment that the book didn’t grab me by the scruff of the neck and drag me, breathless, to the end. I’m also conscious that maybe I missed something, that the essence of this book has passed me by. Time will tell – and maybe I’ll come back and add some more thoughts once I’ve had time to cogitate a while and to discuss my experience with others.
I read this book as part of a group read, so I’ll not delve too deeply into what happens. But I will record a few thoughts on the experience of spending a week in the company of this duo. And let’s modify that statement for a start, as we meet friends and neighbours and, of course, the wider family too along the way – it’s not totally focused on Michael and Pauline.
It’s a gentle tale. A story of a normal marriage really. I didn’t find any major twists within the pages but there were the typical ups and downs and changes we all experience in our lives. And that might just be a strength of the book: we can all find something to identify with here. But in truth I found it slow going to start with, though I did learn a few things about America in the 40’s – for instance, I hadn’t computed that rationing wasn’t only a British thing during the war. That came as a bit of a shock! In fact, it was beyond half way before I started to build up any real empathy for the characters. I think that’s because the story is told in a very matter-of-fact way; the visual picture I had developed was more documentary than dramatisation.
As the characters aged I did become more engaged in their lives. I can’t quite put my finger on why that was the case, but maybe it was because I suddenly had more in common with them: we were meeting the same challenges and sharing some similar views. But still the narrative seemed to be locked on this path where nothing going on in the outside world had anything but a minor role. The inverted telescope was focused on the people we’d been introduced to and everything else seemed like an irrelevance that wasn’t allowed to intrude.
In the end I was sad to finish, as I usually am when I’ve tracked peoples progress through the generations. And I’ll need to take some time to really understand how I feel about this book. No doubt this will become clearer as I share more detailed thoughts with my fellow readers, but my initial reaction is one of mild disappointment that the book didn’t grab me by the scruff of the neck and drag me, breathless, to the end. I’m also conscious that maybe I missed something, that the essence of this book has passed me by. Time will tell – and maybe I’ll come back and add some more thoughts once I’ve had time to cogitate a while and to discuss my experience with others.
October 1, 2025
⭐⭐⭐1/2
En la misma línea de su fantástica novela «Ejercicios respiratorios», pero sin llegar ni mucho menos a su nivel.
El estilo de Tyler, sencillo, directo, te va ganando a medida que te adentras en las vidas de sus personajes. Sin embargo, en este relato tan común de un matrimonio que nunca debió ser tal y que aguanta pese a la muchas desavenencias de la pareja no estaba encontrando en la prosa la suficiente compensación.
Pero, porque le tengo mucho apego y confianza a la autora y porque, a pesar de ser una relectura, mi memoria de pez me permitía mantener la curiosidad por el devenir de este matrimonio, aguanté y, aunque la historia tuvo marcados altibajos, le tomé tal cariño a sus dos protagonistas que en el tramo final a punto estuvo de caer esa lagrimita que pugnaba por salir.
“Se había equivocado tanto en la vida; lo había estropeado todo"
Nunca llegamos a ser profesionales en este difícil oficio que es vivir.
March 3, 2016
Anne Tyler is one of a hand-full of writers who can write about the same location and the same kind of characters and never feel cliched or irrelevant. All her characters are so whole and authentic that as I read I keep thinking, "I know this person" or "OMG, that is me".
That is Tyler, in general, now for this novel specifically. Pauline and Michael (the members of the aforesaid amateur marriage) are two very flawed opposites, entangled in a death-grip and unable to communicate on any meaningful level. They cannot be happy together, but they are afraid that they will not be able to be happy apart. At some point I decided that what binds them to one another is the convenience of having someone to blame for their own shortcomings.
Underneath some rank hostility, unbelievable indifference to the other's feelings, and insurmountable differences, there is a current of honest affection that persists to the last page of the book. They have had an amateur marriage because they enter into it without any idea of what they are really committing to and they never crack the secret code that might have made it a happy one. Still, I couldn't help asking myself, aren't all marriages amateur. Who knows what they will encounter, how they will deal with each other's quirks and needs, if they can juggle the responsibilities of aging parents and children and living in a house with intimates who sometimes feel like strangers. If you haven't experienced any of that, you can count yourself lucky indeed.
That is Tyler, in general, now for this novel specifically. Pauline and Michael (the members of the aforesaid amateur marriage) are two very flawed opposites, entangled in a death-grip and unable to communicate on any meaningful level. They cannot be happy together, but they are afraid that they will not be able to be happy apart. At some point I decided that what binds them to one another is the convenience of having someone to blame for their own shortcomings.
Underneath some rank hostility, unbelievable indifference to the other's feelings, and insurmountable differences, there is a current of honest affection that persists to the last page of the book. They have had an amateur marriage because they enter into it without any idea of what they are really committing to and they never crack the secret code that might have made it a happy one. Still, I couldn't help asking myself, aren't all marriages amateur. Who knows what they will encounter, how they will deal with each other's quirks and needs, if they can juggle the responsibilities of aging parents and children and living in a house with intimates who sometimes feel like strangers. If you haven't experienced any of that, you can count yourself lucky indeed.
November 24, 2017
“
He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.”
As the title suggests this was an exploration of how not everyone is an expert at companionship/marriage. Simply put it this was a magnified look at an unhappy marriage or watching a train-wreck happen over three generations and how it affects everyone around the couple.
This was my third Anne Tyler this year after loving A Spool of Blue Thread, I was dead set on revisiting her family-oriented books. She has this ability to showcase complex characters in very complex relationships especially in this book. She paired two very different individuals An extroverted over the top Woman with a reserved Introverted man and spending each chapter in both their minds, we get to see how the lack of communication destroys their union.
I enjoyed this one I found myself caring for them and constantly shouting at them to treat each other well and the whole generational transition was fascinating plus I genuinely enjoy Anne Tyler's writing she really knows how to structure dialogue, I can always hear the characters voices.
I just wish this featured a more diverse range of characters because it felt to "suburban" for my taste & that lessened the emotional impact. Another thing about Anne Tyler is that all her books are set in Baltimore so I tend to separate my time between each of her books or they become too similar.
Regardless, She still makes the reading experience feel like you are sitting at a dinner table with a f*cked up family (pardon my french) I recommend her books if you are remotely interested.
As the title suggests this was an exploration of how not everyone is an expert at companionship/marriage. Simply put it this was a magnified look at an unhappy marriage or watching a train-wreck happen over three generations and how it affects everyone around the couple.
This was my third Anne Tyler this year after loving A Spool of Blue Thread, I was dead set on revisiting her family-oriented books. She has this ability to showcase complex characters in very complex relationships especially in this book. She paired two very different individuals An extroverted over the top Woman with a reserved Introverted man and spending each chapter in both their minds, we get to see how the lack of communication destroys their union.
I enjoyed this one I found myself caring for them and constantly shouting at them to treat each other well and the whole generational transition was fascinating plus I genuinely enjoy Anne Tyler's writing she really knows how to structure dialogue, I can always hear the characters voices.
I just wish this featured a more diverse range of characters because it felt to "suburban" for my taste & that lessened the emotional impact. Another thing about Anne Tyler is that all her books are set in Baltimore so I tend to separate my time between each of her books or they become too similar.
Regardless, She still makes the reading experience feel like you are sitting at a dinner table with a f*cked up family (pardon my french) I recommend her books if you are remotely interested.
September 10, 2007
I read this book a few years ago - but it has stuck with me. The book is a portrait of a marriage between two incredibly different people. The woman is very emotional, with a flair for the dramatic. The man is very non-emotional. It paints a picture of so many marriages I have seen.
I think there comes a point in marriage where a woman realizes that she married a GUY. Sounds weird to say - but there was a part of me that imagined my husband would enjoy shopping and fashion and cry at the opera, and love Jane Austin.
OK, not exactly Jane Austin but ...
He points at helicopters in the sky and talks about fuel pods and rotors and anti-torque propellers and ... that's just MEN. You know? And it's quite adorable, and we love them for it.
I loved the characters in this book. I identified with a lot of it. It's interesting to read about how these two people and their very volatile marriage affected their children as well. It's so very plausible. It's a book I'd like to read again!
Also, one of the characters has a Polish background and I'm all about that! So that was fun to read about as well.
I think there comes a point in marriage where a woman realizes that she married a GUY. Sounds weird to say - but there was a part of me that imagined my husband would enjoy shopping and fashion and cry at the opera, and love Jane Austin.
OK, not exactly Jane Austin but ...
He points at helicopters in the sky and talks about fuel pods and rotors and anti-torque propellers and ... that's just MEN. You know? And it's quite adorable, and we love them for it.
I loved the characters in this book. I identified with a lot of it. It's interesting to read about how these two people and their very volatile marriage affected their children as well. It's so very plausible. It's a book I'd like to read again!
Also, one of the characters has a Polish background and I'm all about that! So that was fun to read about as well.
September 25, 2009
I can't believe this book is getting such high ratings.
I listened to it in audiobook format on a road trip to the Oregon Coast in 2005. It disgusted me.
Pauline is a selfish, mean spirited, horrible human being who treats everyone like dirt. Michael is a spineless whiner who rather be lazy and play the victim than take control of his life. The book consists of watching their unhealthy, selfish, pathetic relationship from beginning to end. Neither of them is likable. I don't think there is a single redeeming aspect of this book.
Well, I take that back. It wasn't as maddening or disturbing as Twilight. At least that's something.
I listened to it in audiobook format on a road trip to the Oregon Coast in 2005. It disgusted me.
Pauline is a selfish, mean spirited, horrible human being who treats everyone like dirt. Michael is a spineless whiner who rather be lazy and play the victim than take control of his life. The book consists of watching their unhealthy, selfish, pathetic relationship from beginning to end. Neither of them is likable. I don't think there is a single redeeming aspect of this book.
Well, I take that back. It wasn't as maddening or disturbing as Twilight. At least that's something.
February 18, 2016
Mom and dad are fighting, again - and again - and again - and again - and again...
Pauline is a high-maintenance disorganized impulsive extrovert drama queen and Michael is an highly organized, methodical slow-witted judgmental introvert who enjoys lists of groceries and looking at construction tools. They did not know this when they decided to get married. All Michael knew about Pauline was that he had never seen such a beautiful girl in his life, and she liked the color red. All Pauline knew about Michael was he was a grocery clerk who is also war hero (not, actually). It was WWII and time was short, or so they thought. They were young, the neighborhood was an inborn ethnic place of Polish immigrants, and it was 1941.
The character Pauline Anton is the type of person who drives me crazy - a silly twittering uneducated well-meaning stupidly-conventional woman who doesn't have a strong grasp of Big Pictures or Big Ideas, or of many of the little ones. Her personality is shallow, fluttery, and fussy, completely and forever blinkered and guided by a self-centered anxious-to-conform unthinking traditionalism. Combine all of the that with a small-town provincialism and an outgoing vivacious, if anxious, noisy and nosy friendliness - and that is the sum of Pauline. She gossips about the neighbors almost without drawing a breath, or is visiting them to discover exciting new gossip about the neighbors. Three children barely slow her down; but they confuse her and she confuses them since she unknowingly to herself has trouble being consistent. (Her oldest child, the daughter Lindy, who seems to choose angry disobedience at every turn, even before puberty, seemingly despises Pauline.) If Pauline had had a stronger sexual manner as well, she might have been a classic bimbo, but as it is, she has more substance and caring than an airhead or bimbo. She is basically a nice person, very kind, and the right husband probably could have toned down her natural drama-teen aspects by simply liking her more and paying attention.
(Many working women I met at my peer secretary meetings or luncheons were like Pauline. They always seem to have an energetic idea for unnecessary 'brightening up' a space or a party or a life through low-quality tasteless or assembly-line kitsch. Conversation is overdone girl-talk and sometimes excessive inappropriate forced cheeriness or commiseration. Originality and nuances are beyond their perceptions except as jarring disturbances to their habitual and narrow conservative pursuits. Often makeup, clothes, and where to shop for nesting kitsch serve as the only important subjects of interest, with gossip about reality-show stars and celebrities filling in any conversational gaps. Critical assessment to them only means checking out waistlines, hairstyles, latest fads and recent new face wrinkles, determining value and morals by adherence to respectable public mores of small-town mainstreet motherhood. One might think this on-the-surface expert housewife, social butterfly and mother routine is simply one layer of personality, with other more thoughtful layers hidden, and often that is true. But sometimes it isn't.)
Michael Anton, who married Pauline shortly after World War II started, is not the right man for exuberant, emotionally dramatic, flighty teenage Pauline. He runs first his parent's grocery store in an old ethnic neighborhood, and then later owns and manages a slightly larger and more modern grocery in a suburban neighborhood. His head is full of practical matters and he thinks in literal-minded one-dimensional patterns of thought. For him, fripperies and gossip are not useful, so why waste time and energy on them? He is the type pf person who gives his wife a vacuum cleaner for their anniversary, completely oblivious to the charms of perfume or jewelry. He is stodgy, unimaginative, slow and an introvert. Like Pauline, he is a traditional small-town conservative, but being much more shy and practical-minded, more needful of quiet and simplicity, he is never able to actually tolerate being around Pauline for any length of time. He married her because at first sight she had a vivaciousness which was attractive and mesmerizing when he believed he would soon be a soldier and die. However, during their honeymoon, the fact they were incompatible was soon obvious to both of them, but both kept hoping they would mesh eventually in time. Family and social expectations of duty surround them, and they love their children.
The fights between them become first a family, and then a neighborhood, legend. They never do mesh, both of them feeling as if they had remained at the "amateur state of newlyweds" for 30 years, but they endure somehow, if more gloomily and depressed, through the difficulties of their maturing children and the changes brought by the baby boomer years of the 1960's and 1970's. They never become smoothed or soothed with each other. Pauline develops a more shrill anxious pushy version of herself, and Michael is sullen, angry and more withdrawn, and both often storm about threatening divorce and breaking things; but their marriage continues on and on...
So, what happens when the kids grow up and move out? Gentle reader, I'm not going to tell.
This is one of the most realistic reads about a kind of bad marriage that many of my generation's lower-class WWII grandparents had. There is no alcoholism, no beatings, no financial abandonment. It is a successful match on some levels, but at the same time the qualities of each marriage partner have abraded and irritated the other, and did not ultimately bring much joy, personal growth or a sense of a complementary partnership. Partnering each other seems to be an eternal series of adversarial arguments/decisions, uneasy silences and exhausted temporary truces. They do not add to each other's happiness, but instead each seems a darker version of who they are when they are together.
It is a good book, and I wish I could give it to every young person who believes they have met 'the one'. As if my advice were actually wanted. You know.
Love comes easy at the start of being a couple, but being a linked couple for years is NOT easy. People, opportunities and society change, yet we expect couples to enter a stasis of sorts upon falling in love, to be trapped until death in an earlier period of their emotional history which may have lasted a year. We expect each partner to stay in position, frozen in amber, joined at the hip, for up to 50 more years. Society has been made to support this artificial state of matrimony, and we all pretend marriage continues for decades as if the newlywed condition never ends.
I intend to nag and pontificate and lecture now, so quit here if you don't want to hear it all again.
'Marry in haste, repent at leisure' is an absolute Truth, gentle reader, so take your time when in love. Meet the relatives and LOOK AT THEM, closely, over many months of time, examine all of the facts of their lives coldly and realistically, even if you have to tolerate the dramas of being in an unmarried, childless engagement for a few years (long engagements are GOOD). These people of your significant other will be your confidants - or not, and certainly your worse enemies and critics in bad patches or if there is a divorce. Do not EXCUSE the other spouse when lies, deceptions or mistreatment occur, BEFORE you marry - ACCUSE and demand reparations, or leave. Politeness without affection in marriage means trouble, just like it does while dating. Do NOT hope for the best, but instead deal with and THINK about the actual truths of another person's and your own life. For example, if they are getting drunk or using drugs, do NOT think it's a passing phase, just PASS.
Review a person's natural everyday habits and activities, and think about how well those habits and interests would work if you were forced to do it with them for YEARS. Do NOT even hope that you will somehow change those habits and interests. For example, If they are always late for appointments before marriage, they will always be late after marriage. If they go without changing the sheets for months now, they will do that years later. If they squeeze the toothpaste in the middle now, or feel easy using your toothbrush or never clean the tub or toilet without a fight now, they will do that 25 years later in marriage, even if they 'reform' for a year or two. If he buy tools, computers and cars a lot, those items will probably be all over your living room and front yard, respectively, for the rest of your marriage. If she buys tons of makeup and 'cute' knick knacks, you will be navigating delicate breakables all over the house and spend hours waiting for her to get her eyes right before going out. And so on. (At least some of this is temporarily put aside when the kids come, but sometimes not.)
Personality matters, especially quirks. Think about how a person's habitual mistakes and errors in judgment, if cute now, will play out with a mortgage, yard-work and house-proud decisions. Extreme battles of resentment occur a lot, people, eating away at your soul if you are not in agreement; divorces occur over bitter feelings created by years of who takes out the garbage or if no one carries their dirty dishes to the dishwasher. With the arrival of young vigorous messy dirty toddlers, and playdates, your required work assignments or work ambitions, car payments, vacations (yes! vacations! do you like museums and bus tours, but he likes scuba diving and hiking, swimming in Hawaii or baking in 100F temperatures while sun gives you rashes and headaches?), tension can be extreme.
Everything MATTERS over years of 'togetherness'. Normal marriages or partnerships include more of the drip-drip-drip of minor annoyances and disagreements than any other type of sharing. If either of you are pathologically dysfunctional on top of all the normal stresses, watch out.
Pauline is a high-maintenance disorganized impulsive extrovert drama queen and Michael is an highly organized, methodical slow-witted judgmental introvert who enjoys lists of groceries and looking at construction tools. They did not know this when they decided to get married. All Michael knew about Pauline was that he had never seen such a beautiful girl in his life, and she liked the color red. All Pauline knew about Michael was he was a grocery clerk who is also war hero (not, actually). It was WWII and time was short, or so they thought. They were young, the neighborhood was an inborn ethnic place of Polish immigrants, and it was 1941.
The character Pauline Anton is the type of person who drives me crazy - a silly twittering uneducated well-meaning stupidly-conventional woman who doesn't have a strong grasp of Big Pictures or Big Ideas, or of many of the little ones. Her personality is shallow, fluttery, and fussy, completely and forever blinkered and guided by a self-centered anxious-to-conform unthinking traditionalism. Combine all of the that with a small-town provincialism and an outgoing vivacious, if anxious, noisy and nosy friendliness - and that is the sum of Pauline. She gossips about the neighbors almost without drawing a breath, or is visiting them to discover exciting new gossip about the neighbors. Three children barely slow her down; but they confuse her and she confuses them since she unknowingly to herself has trouble being consistent. (Her oldest child, the daughter Lindy, who seems to choose angry disobedience at every turn, even before puberty, seemingly despises Pauline.) If Pauline had had a stronger sexual manner as well, she might have been a classic bimbo, but as it is, she has more substance and caring than an airhead or bimbo. She is basically a nice person, very kind, and the right husband probably could have toned down her natural drama-teen aspects by simply liking her more and paying attention.
(Many working women I met at my peer secretary meetings or luncheons were like Pauline. They always seem to have an energetic idea for unnecessary 'brightening up' a space or a party or a life through low-quality tasteless or assembly-line kitsch. Conversation is overdone girl-talk and sometimes excessive inappropriate forced cheeriness or commiseration. Originality and nuances are beyond their perceptions except as jarring disturbances to their habitual and narrow conservative pursuits. Often makeup, clothes, and where to shop for nesting kitsch serve as the only important subjects of interest, with gossip about reality-show stars and celebrities filling in any conversational gaps. Critical assessment to them only means checking out waistlines, hairstyles, latest fads and recent new face wrinkles, determining value and morals by adherence to respectable public mores of small-town mainstreet motherhood. One might think this on-the-surface expert housewife, social butterfly and mother routine is simply one layer of personality, with other more thoughtful layers hidden, and often that is true. But sometimes it isn't.)
Michael Anton, who married Pauline shortly after World War II started, is not the right man for exuberant, emotionally dramatic, flighty teenage Pauline. He runs first his parent's grocery store in an old ethnic neighborhood, and then later owns and manages a slightly larger and more modern grocery in a suburban neighborhood. His head is full of practical matters and he thinks in literal-minded one-dimensional patterns of thought. For him, fripperies and gossip are not useful, so why waste time and energy on them? He is the type pf person who gives his wife a vacuum cleaner for their anniversary, completely oblivious to the charms of perfume or jewelry. He is stodgy, unimaginative, slow and an introvert. Like Pauline, he is a traditional small-town conservative, but being much more shy and practical-minded, more needful of quiet and simplicity, he is never able to actually tolerate being around Pauline for any length of time. He married her because at first sight she had a vivaciousness which was attractive and mesmerizing when he believed he would soon be a soldier and die. However, during their honeymoon, the fact they were incompatible was soon obvious to both of them, but both kept hoping they would mesh eventually in time. Family and social expectations of duty surround them, and they love their children.
The fights between them become first a family, and then a neighborhood, legend. They never do mesh, both of them feeling as if they had remained at the "amateur state of newlyweds" for 30 years, but they endure somehow, if more gloomily and depressed, through the difficulties of their maturing children and the changes brought by the baby boomer years of the 1960's and 1970's. They never become smoothed or soothed with each other. Pauline develops a more shrill anxious pushy version of herself, and Michael is sullen, angry and more withdrawn, and both often storm about threatening divorce and breaking things; but their marriage continues on and on...
So, what happens when the kids grow up and move out? Gentle reader, I'm not going to tell.
This is one of the most realistic reads about a kind of bad marriage that many of my generation's lower-class WWII grandparents had. There is no alcoholism, no beatings, no financial abandonment. It is a successful match on some levels, but at the same time the qualities of each marriage partner have abraded and irritated the other, and did not ultimately bring much joy, personal growth or a sense of a complementary partnership. Partnering each other seems to be an eternal series of adversarial arguments/decisions, uneasy silences and exhausted temporary truces. They do not add to each other's happiness, but instead each seems a darker version of who they are when they are together.
It is a good book, and I wish I could give it to every young person who believes they have met 'the one'. As if my advice were actually wanted. You know.
Love comes easy at the start of being a couple, but being a linked couple for years is NOT easy. People, opportunities and society change, yet we expect couples to enter a stasis of sorts upon falling in love, to be trapped until death in an earlier period of their emotional history which may have lasted a year. We expect each partner to stay in position, frozen in amber, joined at the hip, for up to 50 more years. Society has been made to support this artificial state of matrimony, and we all pretend marriage continues for decades as if the newlywed condition never ends.
I intend to nag and pontificate and lecture now, so quit here if you don't want to hear it all again.
'Marry in haste, repent at leisure' is an absolute Truth, gentle reader, so take your time when in love. Meet the relatives and LOOK AT THEM, closely, over many months of time, examine all of the facts of their lives coldly and realistically, even if you have to tolerate the dramas of being in an unmarried, childless engagement for a few years (long engagements are GOOD). These people of your significant other will be your confidants - or not, and certainly your worse enemies and critics in bad patches or if there is a divorce. Do not EXCUSE the other spouse when lies, deceptions or mistreatment occur, BEFORE you marry - ACCUSE and demand reparations, or leave. Politeness without affection in marriage means trouble, just like it does while dating. Do NOT hope for the best, but instead deal with and THINK about the actual truths of another person's and your own life. For example, if they are getting drunk or using drugs, do NOT think it's a passing phase, just PASS.
Review a person's natural everyday habits and activities, and think about how well those habits and interests would work if you were forced to do it with them for YEARS. Do NOT even hope that you will somehow change those habits and interests. For example, If they are always late for appointments before marriage, they will always be late after marriage. If they go without changing the sheets for months now, they will do that years later. If they squeeze the toothpaste in the middle now, or feel easy using your toothbrush or never clean the tub or toilet without a fight now, they will do that 25 years later in marriage, even if they 'reform' for a year or two. If he buy tools, computers and cars a lot, those items will probably be all over your living room and front yard, respectively, for the rest of your marriage. If she buys tons of makeup and 'cute' knick knacks, you will be navigating delicate breakables all over the house and spend hours waiting for her to get her eyes right before going out. And so on. (At least some of this is temporarily put aside when the kids come, but sometimes not.)
Personality matters, especially quirks. Think about how a person's habitual mistakes and errors in judgment, if cute now, will play out with a mortgage, yard-work and house-proud decisions. Extreme battles of resentment occur a lot, people, eating away at your soul if you are not in agreement; divorces occur over bitter feelings created by years of who takes out the garbage or if no one carries their dirty dishes to the dishwasher. With the arrival of young vigorous messy dirty toddlers, and playdates, your required work assignments or work ambitions, car payments, vacations (yes! vacations! do you like museums and bus tours, but he likes scuba diving and hiking, swimming in Hawaii or baking in 100F temperatures while sun gives you rashes and headaches?), tension can be extreme.
Everything MATTERS over years of 'togetherness'. Normal marriages or partnerships include more of the drip-drip-drip of minor annoyances and disagreements than any other type of sharing. If either of you are pathologically dysfunctional on top of all the normal stresses, watch out.
August 10, 2023
I was super pregnant during the winter, not even reaching my knees, let alone put boots. My friend was at our house. She was going home, and my husband and I were going out. He was helping me to put on boots and jacket. We were discussing if we took everything - car key, bags for shopping... My friend looked at us for several minutes, then said. "-You are like an old couple, you're like my mom and dad". It was one of the best compliments she could give about our marriage. Because her parents are the ones you want to be when you grow up. To give you a visual, they are like the characters from the movie "UP!" or from the book A Man Called Ove.
Reading this book, I was going back to that compliment and thinking over about the marriage in general.
What fascinated me was that Anne Tyler was so neutral while describing the characters and writing their thoughts. She would tell what each of the characters were thinking, but when she was describing something out of their thoughts, she was unbiased by their merits and flaws.
The title of the book is so perfect for the story!
Karen felt that her parents were so innocent, it was scary. How could they be relied on, even? How could they be trusted to raise three children to adulthood?
The couple from "The Amateur Marriage" is quite different, but Pauline is a character whom I could completely relate to and understand. Pauline was a coil of emotions․
...she’d been—at different times—scared and scary, angry, bitter, remorseful, unhappy, jealous, hurt, bewildered, at a loss.
...
She never overreacted the way Pauline used to do. She didn’t take things personally; she didn’t say, for instance, “But I was also there!” although she certainly could have. And she never stored up his confessions to use against him later
Pauline and Michael were so different.
Another time she asked why he and Pauline hadn’t gone to a marriage counselor. Michael said, “What for? What would we have said was wrong?”
“Just that you were unhappy, I guess.”
“I think you have to give them a better reason,” Michael said. “Like ‘She did this’ and ‘He did that.’ It doesn’t work if you’re simply not the right type for each other.”
“But you were the right types when you first met.”
Although their opposing natures brought them together, in order for it to succeed, they had to create a solid foundation for their marriage.
“Mom used to say that marriages were like fruit trees,” her middle sister told her. “Remember how she would say that? Those trees with different kinds of branches grafted onto the trunks. After a time they meld, they grow together, and it doesn’t matter how crazy the mix is—peaches on an apple tree or cherries on a plum tree; still, if you tried to separate them you would cause a fatal wound.
...
Now she thought she’d been wrong to picture their marriage as a tree. What it felt like, instead, was something spilled—something torn and bleeding and spilling out of its borders, like a sloppily fried egg.
...
He knew that he and she had been unhappy together, but now he couldn’t remember why. What were the issues they’d quarreled about? He hadn’t been able to name even one. He’d remembered
the cold, hateful fury she could call up in him, the nights on the couch, the sharp silences, the ripped feeling in his chest, but what had it all been about!
I put post-its all over the book. It became a habit with Anne Tyler.
4.5 stars rounded up, but a perfect 5-star book is still Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. This is my 3rd favorite Tyler book.
Reading this book, I was going back to that compliment and thinking over about the marriage in general.
What fascinated me was that Anne Tyler was so neutral while describing the characters and writing their thoughts. She would tell what each of the characters were thinking, but when she was describing something out of their thoughts, she was unbiased by their merits and flaws.
The title of the book is so perfect for the story!
Karen felt that her parents were so innocent, it was scary. How could they be relied on, even? How could they be trusted to raise three children to adulthood?
The couple from "The Amateur Marriage" is quite different, but Pauline is a character whom I could completely relate to and understand. Pauline was a coil of emotions․
...she’d been—at different times—scared and scary, angry, bitter, remorseful, unhappy, jealous, hurt, bewildered, at a loss.
...
She never overreacted the way Pauline used to do. She didn’t take things personally; she didn’t say, for instance, “But I was also there!” although she certainly could have. And she never stored up his confessions to use against him later
Pauline and Michael were so different.
Another time she asked why he and Pauline hadn’t gone to a marriage counselor. Michael said, “What for? What would we have said was wrong?”
“Just that you were unhappy, I guess.”
“I think you have to give them a better reason,” Michael said. “Like ‘She did this’ and ‘He did that.’ It doesn’t work if you’re simply not the right type for each other.”
“But you were the right types when you first met.”
Although their opposing natures brought them together, in order for it to succeed, they had to create a solid foundation for their marriage.
“Mom used to say that marriages were like fruit trees,” her middle sister told her. “Remember how she would say that? Those trees with different kinds of branches grafted onto the trunks. After a time they meld, they grow together, and it doesn’t matter how crazy the mix is—peaches on an apple tree or cherries on a plum tree; still, if you tried to separate them you would cause a fatal wound.
...
Now she thought she’d been wrong to picture their marriage as a tree. What it felt like, instead, was something spilled—something torn and bleeding and spilling out of its borders, like a sloppily fried egg.
...
He knew that he and she had been unhappy together, but now he couldn’t remember why. What were the issues they’d quarreled about? He hadn’t been able to name even one. He’d remembered
the cold, hateful fury she could call up in him, the nights on the couch, the sharp silences, the ripped feeling in his chest, but what had it all been about!
I put post-its all over the book. It became a habit with Anne Tyler.
4.5 stars rounded up, but a perfect 5-star book is still Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. This is my 3rd favorite Tyler book.
December 15, 2016
Once again, Anne Tyler has written a warm and beautiful story about life, destinies and everyday worries. This particular one deals with Michael and Pauline who got married way too quickly. They realize through their marriage that they're incompatible, which makes this book an exploration of their life together. Each chapter skips ahead a bunch of years, and in that way we get a fast-forward, intriguing story.
What I liked the most about this novel is that it challenges the romantic idea of a happy marriage. These two people can't seem to make it work simply because it went wrong from the beginning, and naturally you can't help imagining what their lives would have been like if they had chosen a different destiny.
In many ways, this novel reminded me of "Fates & Furies" by Lauren Groff which I read last year and equally loved. It's an honest, however brutal love story, and it's one of those books that make you think about life in general and the choices we make.
What I liked the most about this novel is that it challenges the romantic idea of a happy marriage. These two people can't seem to make it work simply because it went wrong from the beginning, and naturally you can't help imagining what their lives would have been like if they had chosen a different destiny.
In many ways, this novel reminded me of "Fates & Furies" by Lauren Groff which I read last year and equally loved. It's an honest, however brutal love story, and it's one of those books that make you think about life in general and the choices we make.
October 6, 2008
Lives In Time
For me, The Amateur Marriage represents the sixth time I have read one of Anne Tyler’s novels. On the surface it’s the story of Michael and Pauline. They meet by chance in 1941 in Anton’s, the grocery store run by Michael’s family. 1941, perhaps incidentally, is the year Anne Tyler was born.
There was a war to be fought, of course, a war that affected both of their lives. But there’s a marriage, and a child, a daughter named Lindy. Others follow, a boy and another girl. For Michael and Pauline, life progresses, as does their marriage. But twists and turns take them to places they have never visited.
As with other novels by Anne Tyler, there is an obvious and consistent linearity about its time. A reviewer has to be careful with detail, because what happens to this novel’s characters is a large part of how it happens, and thus an integral part of the book’s rationale. To some extent, a listing of the plot, event by event, would render a reading unnecessary. But after a handful of Anne Tyler’s books, I am now convinced there is much more going on in them than mere story-telling.
In the past I have found her characters shallow, rather self-obsessed, selfish, perhaps. They are people who have lives outside the family, but people who seem pre-occupied with the familiar and seem rarely to confront ideas or experience outside its apparently defining, but only sometimes
reassuring confines.
And perhaps that’s the point. It is an American dream, a libertarian ideal under a microscope. It is analysed, picked apart, sometimes reconstructed. The characters are affected by political, social, economic and cultural change. Their lives are materially transformed by the same forces that lay waste and occasionally reinvent their home town, Baltimore. But they, themselves, are mere recipients of these effects, appearing to play no part in their instigation or, it seems, their analysis. They live their lives. They are pushed around by experience, jostled by life, reflect little, internalise everything, only occasionally recognising life’s potential to reform. Time thus moves on. Inevitability looms unexpectedly.
It is not a criticism of Anne Tyler, her novel or its characters to proffer the opinion that everything seems to happen in an intellectual wasteland. People go to college, do law degrees, become involved with good causes, procreate, but moments of reflection seem to be confined to what breed of dog might not provoke allergy. Perhaps that’s the point. Such things are the stuff of life. Time goes on.
For me, The Amateur Marriage represents the sixth time I have read one of Anne Tyler’s novels. On the surface it’s the story of Michael and Pauline. They meet by chance in 1941 in Anton’s, the grocery store run by Michael’s family. 1941, perhaps incidentally, is the year Anne Tyler was born.
There was a war to be fought, of course, a war that affected both of their lives. But there’s a marriage, and a child, a daughter named Lindy. Others follow, a boy and another girl. For Michael and Pauline, life progresses, as does their marriage. But twists and turns take them to places they have never visited.
As with other novels by Anne Tyler, there is an obvious and consistent linearity about its time. A reviewer has to be careful with detail, because what happens to this novel’s characters is a large part of how it happens, and thus an integral part of the book’s rationale. To some extent, a listing of the plot, event by event, would render a reading unnecessary. But after a handful of Anne Tyler’s books, I am now convinced there is much more going on in them than mere story-telling.
In the past I have found her characters shallow, rather self-obsessed, selfish, perhaps. They are people who have lives outside the family, but people who seem pre-occupied with the familiar and seem rarely to confront ideas or experience outside its apparently defining, but only sometimes
reassuring confines.
And perhaps that’s the point. It is an American dream, a libertarian ideal under a microscope. It is analysed, picked apart, sometimes reconstructed. The characters are affected by political, social, economic and cultural change. Their lives are materially transformed by the same forces that lay waste and occasionally reinvent their home town, Baltimore. But they, themselves, are mere recipients of these effects, appearing to play no part in their instigation or, it seems, their analysis. They live their lives. They are pushed around by experience, jostled by life, reflect little, internalise everything, only occasionally recognising life’s potential to reform. Time thus moves on. Inevitability looms unexpectedly.
It is not a criticism of Anne Tyler, her novel or its characters to proffer the opinion that everything seems to happen in an intellectual wasteland. People go to college, do law degrees, become involved with good causes, procreate, but moments of reflection seem to be confined to what breed of dog might not provoke allergy. Perhaps that’s the point. Such things are the stuff of life. Time goes on.
July 22, 2021
این دومین کتابی بود که از ان تایلر میخوندم، کتاب قبلی ، نقب زدن به آمریکا رو هم دوست داشتم.
این کتاب زندگی یک زوج از آشناییشون در ۱۹۴۲ تا ۲۰۰۲ رو دنبال میکنه. از ازدواجشون، سالهای جنگ تا ورود به هزارهی سوم.
آن تایلر توی به تصویر کشیدن روابط پیچیدهی خونوادگی، احساسات آدمها و تناقضات احساسی رفتاری هر رابطه واقعا تبحر داره.
جالبه بدونید که آن تایلر نویسندهی آمریکایی همسر تقی مدرسی پزشک و نویسندهی ایرانیه.
این کتاب زندگی یک زوج از آشناییشون در ۱۹۴۲ تا ۲۰۰۲ رو دنبال میکنه. از ازدواجشون، سالهای جنگ تا ورود به هزارهی سوم.
آن تایلر توی به تصویر کشیدن روابط پیچیدهی خونوادگی، احساسات آدمها و تناقضات احساسی رفتاری هر رابطه واقعا تبحر داره.
جالبه بدونید که آن تایلر نویسندهی آمریکایی همسر تقی مدرسی پزشک و نویسندهی ایرانیه.
October 3, 2008
This book was phenomenal. It broke my heart and at the same time, evoked warm and familial feelings toward the characters.
The book takes you through the years of a marriage/failed marriage starting in 1941 and ending in 2001. Each chapter jumps forward to a new point in time for the family. That alone makes it intriguing--following the family and seeing how they change through the years.
The characters are absolutely believable. Maybe it's because I came from a dysfunctional family or perhaps I'm crazy and see some of Pauline and Michael's marriage in my own, but there were so many moments when Tyler created the perfect image of what would happen in real life. It's as though she picked out a random family from suburbia and played the fly on the wall for sixty years. Fascinating.
I absolutely loved it.
The book takes you through the years of a marriage/failed marriage starting in 1941 and ending in 2001. Each chapter jumps forward to a new point in time for the family. That alone makes it intriguing--following the family and seeing how they change through the years.
The characters are absolutely believable. Maybe it's because I came from a dysfunctional family or perhaps I'm crazy and see some of Pauline and Michael's marriage in my own, but there were so many moments when Tyler created the perfect image of what would happen in real life. It's as though she picked out a random family from suburbia and played the fly on the wall for sixty years. Fascinating.
I absolutely loved it.
January 14, 2017
Another classic read from Anne Tyler 4.5 stars. A marriage that should never have happened but lasts for 30 years. This is an exploration of complex relationships that fascinate from start to finish. Tyler is so good at these sweeping novels that span generations and are as fresh today as the day they were written. Her characters are so fully rounded and we can recognise them immediately in our own lives. This is a story not only of a marriage but of a time in history (from before WW2 onwards) and of a family that grows up before us, with such detail that you feel you really know them. Her novels are never big bang crash wallop reads but they are great epic stories about interesting people beautifully written.
March 30, 2016
This was sad. And not in the way Aristotle means when he talks about how sad (okay, tragic) drama can be a cleansing experience for its audience, leaving them refreshed and ready to move on with a spring in their stride. Well, no catharsis to be had in this book, from which I emerged feeling depressed and grubby. The Amateur Marriage is sad in the, “Wait a minute! That's it? I just wasted hours of my life with a bunch of boring, miserable people, and there was never any payoff of revelation or redemption or... anything interesting at all?” sense of the word.
Wow. The story of the miserable marriage of a dull but profoundly unpleasant couple. We follow them from their first meeting to their ill-considered marriage soon after, and then through various life stages. While we never get much in the way of insights into what their (disappointed) hopes might have been, we do see, over and over and over again that each blames the other for the tawdry mess their lives turned out to be.
Thanks to chapters in which the point of view alternates between these wretched, dysfunctional people, readers can come to regard them with equal loathing. Pauline is the lively, spontaneous one, but her “spontaneity” is more along the lines of mindless spasms than, say, a joyful openness to taking opportunities that arise. For instance, the story of the subway token...
Can you imagine living with an adult who did stuff like that? I have a young golden retriever who would eat a subway token in a heartbeat, but he's eight months old and I have high hopes he'll eventually realize that eating subway token-like objects is irrational. Pauline was Not eight months old in this story, but she throws temper tantrums that would impress the most immature of toddlers. Her pettiness and shrillness are far more prominent than her liveliness. (Another of her charming high jinks is hitting a pedestrian with her car. Twice. We are not told whether the pedestrian survived this encounter with her whimsical driving, nor are we told whether she kills anyone else when she finally dies, driving, in her adorably free-spirited way, the wrong direction on an exit ramp.) And Michael, supposedly thoughtful and steady, is relentlessly dull, narrow, and sullen, with occasionally bouts of vicious candor to liven things up. Their children are equally attractive.
In Tyler's defense, I didn't find the story completely implausible. Of course people do get into destructive patterns in relationships, marriages do become hopelessly damaged, children do disconnect from their families. And Pauline and Michael each have moments when they recognize that they deserve some of the blame for the failure of their marriage. But too little, too late, and those moments never come to anything. Anyway, after page after page of irritation, disappointment, resentment, etc., I only wished that they had The problem is not that I found the story unbelievable, but there turned out to be no upside to spending 300 pages with these people. Given Tyler's popularity, I kept wondering if I might be failing to see the point of the story.
If there was some uplifting or interesting or entertaining point that Tyler was trying to convey through the story of this relentlessly angry, bitter, self-righteous crew, I missed it. Heck, I didn't even “get” the ending. Fine. To each his own. At any rate, I did not enjoy the journey to this insight.
This is the first Anne Tyler I've read since The Accidental Tourist, which I read back when it came out (30 or so years ago), and I'm planning to give her one more try before I give up on her. Next time, though, I'll look for one with a more promising title – “The Pretty-Good Marriage” or “The Let's-Give-This-a-Serious-Effort Marriage.” Or maybe Vinegar Girl.
*Okay. Twelve hours after writing my review, I have to admit that the book has had an effect on me. If Tyler's intent was to write an instructive tale, in which the moral is "don't be horrible to your spouse," she's done okay. I am actually quite a nice wife, but I have been particularly so today, after watching the ugliness of this couple's behavior.
Wow. The story of the miserable marriage of a dull but profoundly unpleasant couple. We follow them from their first meeting to their ill-considered marriage soon after, and then through various life stages. While we never get much in the way of insights into what their (disappointed) hopes might have been, we do see, over and over and over again that each blames the other for the tawdry mess their lives turned out to be.
Thanks to chapters in which the point of view alternates between these wretched, dysfunctional people, readers can come to regard them with equal loathing. Pauline is the lively, spontaneous one, but her “spontaneity” is more along the lines of mindless spasms than, say, a joyful openness to taking opportunities that arise. For instance, the story of the subway token...
”They started down the stairs to the subway platform and she asked him for a token. “I already gave you a token,” he told her.
“Yes, but I need another,” she said.
“What happened to the first one?”
“Well, I ate it,” she said.
“You what?”
“I put it into my mouth for some reason and just accidentally... I ate it, all right? I went ahead and ate it. Why make such a big deal about it?””
Can you imagine living with an adult who did stuff like that? I have a young golden retriever who would eat a subway token in a heartbeat, but he's eight months old and I have high hopes he'll eventually realize that eating subway token-like objects is irrational. Pauline was Not eight months old in this story, but she throws temper tantrums that would impress the most immature of toddlers. Her pettiness and shrillness are far more prominent than her liveliness. (Another of her charming high jinks is hitting a pedestrian with her car. Twice. We are not told whether the pedestrian survived this encounter with her whimsical driving, nor are we told whether she kills anyone else when she finally dies, driving, in her adorably free-spirited way, the wrong direction on an exit ramp.) And Michael, supposedly thoughtful and steady, is relentlessly dull, narrow, and sullen, with occasionally bouts of vicious candor to liven things up. Their children are equally attractive.
In Tyler's defense, I didn't find the story completely implausible. Of course people do get into destructive patterns in relationships, marriages do become hopelessly damaged, children do disconnect from their families. And Pauline and Michael each have moments when they recognize that they deserve some of the blame for the failure of their marriage. But too little, too late, and those moments never come to anything. Anyway, after page after page of irritation, disappointment, resentment, etc., I only wished that they had The problem is not that I found the story unbelievable, but there turned out to be no upside to spending 300 pages with these people. Given Tyler's popularity, I kept wondering if I might be failing to see the point of the story.
If there was some uplifting or interesting or entertaining point that Tyler was trying to convey through the story of this relentlessly angry, bitter, self-righteous crew, I missed it. Heck, I didn't even “get” the ending. Fine. To each his own. At any rate, I did not enjoy the journey to this insight.
This is the first Anne Tyler I've read since The Accidental Tourist, which I read back when it came out (30 or so years ago), and I'm planning to give her one more try before I give up on her. Next time, though, I'll look for one with a more promising title – “The Pretty-Good Marriage” or “The Let's-Give-This-a-Serious-Effort Marriage.” Or maybe Vinegar Girl.
*Okay. Twelve hours after writing my review, I have to admit that the book has had an effect on me. If Tyler's intent was to write an instructive tale, in which the moral is "don't be horrible to your spouse," she's done okay. I am actually quite a nice wife, but I have been particularly so today, after watching the ugliness of this couple's behavior.
January 15, 2008
First of all, I simply loved this book for telling a great story without using bad language or gratuitous sex scenes. I knew it could be done! Second, Anne Tyler is a great writer. She's economic in her language, but paints vivid scenes and really makes her characters feel real. Speaking of characters, this book was a fascinating look at how two otherwise good people can really bring out the worst in each other. The POV changed with each chapter, and I LOVED getting to see different sides of the conflict, even the children's. Despite the sound of it, this book wasn't a downer, as I'd feared. It was true to life, with hapiness and disappointment. Plus, it helped me see that even if you aren't a perfect match, kindness, understanding, and forgiveness go a long way in making a marriage happy.
June 15, 2020
In the inside flap of my copy of this book there is praise from both Nick Hornby, who calls Tyler his favourite author, and from John Updike. I found this fascinating because Hornby used to be my absolute favourite author when I was a teenager (there was I time I would not leave the house without "High Fidelity" in my bag, and I'd re-read passages in breaks at school). Recalling his novels, I suddenly could clearly see her influence on his easy-to-read and heartfelt pop fiction. John Updike is a very different author to Nick Hornby, but also one who's writing means a lot to me. Accurate depictions of normalcy and mundane US-American family settings are things I admire in both his and Tyler's writing. It suddenly struck me that Anne Tyler has both at times the heft of a high brow literature titan like Updike and the tweeness of Hornby. No wonder I'm so fascinated by her style.
Anyway, this novel is not her best. The main characters are very unlikable and I had trouble caring about them. I'm a big fan of disfunctionality and miscommunications in novels, but here it felt quite trite. I liked the second part of the novel, when we don't see them as a firm family unit much better, and I enjoyed some more minor characters. All in all, stylistically great as always, but the emotional attachment was lacking. Since packing story lines aren't Tyler's thing, but the characters, if these don't fully work for me, the books never come fully together.
TL;DR: A good but somewhat lackluster novel with annoying main characters.
Anne Tyler, from my most to least favourite:
A Spool of Blue Thread 4/5
A Patchwork Planet 4/5
Ladder of Years 4/5
The Amateur Marriage 3/5
Clock Dance 3/5
Anyway, this novel is not her best. The main characters are very unlikable and I had trouble caring about them. I'm a big fan of disfunctionality and miscommunications in novels, but here it felt quite trite. I liked the second part of the novel, when we don't see them as a firm family unit much better, and I enjoyed some more minor characters. All in all, stylistically great as always, but the emotional attachment was lacking. Since packing story lines aren't Tyler's thing, but the characters, if these don't fully work for me, the books never come fully together.
TL;DR: A good but somewhat lackluster novel with annoying main characters.
Anne Tyler, from my most to least favourite:
A Spool of Blue Thread 4/5
A Patchwork Planet 4/5
Ladder of Years 4/5
The Amateur Marriage 3/5
Clock Dance 3/5
February 12, 2024
Michael e Pauline si sposano molto giovani, senza essersi conosciuti bene e sull'onda di un impulso che può essere considerato amore a prima vista. Ma sono una coppia male assortita, hanno due caratteri troppo diversi e il loro matrimonio non è felice.
Anne Tyler è una maestra nel raccontare le piccole cose, le quotidianità, i rituali e gli aspetti di una famiglia normale e insoddisfatta.
Sarebbe tutto quasi banale e la scrittura non sembra nemmeno tanto ricercata, ma ci si sente coinvolti, partecipi, il libro è difficile da posare.
Nel corso del romanzo accadranno un paio di eventi importanti, che renderanno la vicenda meno "banale", tuttavia non sono questi gli elementi che fanno procedere il lettore, quanto piuttosto il cesello umano che Tyler riesce a creare e che forse è il valore più importante in ogni lettura che facciamo.
Anne Tyler è una maestra nel raccontare le piccole cose, le quotidianità, i rituali e gli aspetti di una famiglia normale e insoddisfatta.
Sarebbe tutto quasi banale e la scrittura non sembra nemmeno tanto ricercata, ma ci si sente coinvolti, partecipi, il libro è difficile da posare.
Nel corso del romanzo accadranno un paio di eventi importanti, che renderanno la vicenda meno "banale", tuttavia non sono questi gli elementi che fanno procedere il lettore, quanto piuttosto il cesello umano che Tyler riesce a creare e che forse è il valore più importante in ogni lettura che facciamo.
April 21, 2021
The Amateur Marriage
by Anne Tyler
The more I read by this author the more cozy I feel. . . like she gets me. Most everything in this book is an experience I’ve had, and like so many experiences it flies through your life like a train. Life events that are supposed to be “forever” events can end in a way that feels abrupt, yet reveal the seeds of their demise in some of the first interactions between two people. Sadly, it is often only in the lonely aftermath one can see and recognize the looming consequential climate change of a relationship in which one never questions the other side of the tale (the end), that place in the future, which is surely the happily- ever-after of the promised fairy tale. In this book, Michael, the husband, blames it on the amateur status of the participants. I wonder. In my mind wild first marriages and pairings seem to result due to the wild careening of romantically desperate despots who have little to lose. The explosion is fueled by spontaneity, ticking clocks and freedom freshly raw and ripped from new or old tethers.
What drew me into each page, once I had settled into the general theme and direction of this read, was the careful, detailed thinking of each pertinent character. Pauline, the bride, the mama, the center of the family hub – until she wasn’t. Michael, the groom, the dad who quietly supported (unless he didn’t – which deviation was also done on the quiet), who knew he was the stay and guard, the provider and loyal yes man. Each of the children of this union were drawn with all the variety of my own family, and so it rang true and deep. Eventually the core family dynamic was nuanced by introduced members marrying in, new generations who add more layers of love and responsibility, duty and care.
The final moment of moments of Michael and Pauline’s marriage played out for me like film noir. . .one party aware, one not - for a while. Then the epiphany like a hammer to the back, chasing every atom of oxygen from lung, when the only salvation is a kind of paralysis of body and mind. This is really happening. This is really over.
And yet – all does not fall apart. Life just rearranges. Readjusts. After gasps, breathing restarts. Laughter is compelled from unexpected sources, heart jumps into rhythm, sun sets, and rises, and bills need paying, cars need driving, kids need, pets need, life needs. That next attempt at coupling? One pays more attention. One changes habits to match others rather than forcing them to adopt yours. One is more tolerant and long-suffering. One doesn't keep score or track. When hurt, one speaks up, draws clear lines and boundaries. When a voice speaks, one listens and hears. One understands discussions don't have winners and losers - they are exchanges of information.
At the beginning this book irritated me. I understood it too well, it rubbed some well-tended scars. But by the end I was in a five-star beam. Maybe first attempts at marriage are not for naught, after all. Accidental marriage? Amateur marriage? Miscast? Failed? No. Any love that existed remains hidden in unexpected memories, that rise up unbidden to comfort or confound.
This turned from an ordinary read to something that was quite personal and affirming. Not sure it will do that for all, but I hope all readers will get the good juicy juice out of every word, as I did.
by Anne Tyler
The more I read by this author the more cozy I feel. . . like she gets me. Most everything in this book is an experience I’ve had, and like so many experiences it flies through your life like a train. Life events that are supposed to be “forever” events can end in a way that feels abrupt, yet reveal the seeds of their demise in some of the first interactions between two people. Sadly, it is often only in the lonely aftermath one can see and recognize the looming consequential climate change of a relationship in which one never questions the other side of the tale (the end), that place in the future, which is surely the happily- ever-after of the promised fairy tale. In this book, Michael, the husband, blames it on the amateur status of the participants. I wonder. In my mind wild first marriages and pairings seem to result due to the wild careening of romantically desperate despots who have little to lose. The explosion is fueled by spontaneity, ticking clocks and freedom freshly raw and ripped from new or old tethers.
What drew me into each page, once I had settled into the general theme and direction of this read, was the careful, detailed thinking of each pertinent character. Pauline, the bride, the mama, the center of the family hub – until she wasn’t. Michael, the groom, the dad who quietly supported (unless he didn’t – which deviation was also done on the quiet), who knew he was the stay and guard, the provider and loyal yes man. Each of the children of this union were drawn with all the variety of my own family, and so it rang true and deep. Eventually the core family dynamic was nuanced by introduced members marrying in, new generations who add more layers of love and responsibility, duty and care.
The final moment of moments of Michael and Pauline’s marriage played out for me like film noir. . .one party aware, one not - for a while. Then the epiphany like a hammer to the back, chasing every atom of oxygen from lung, when the only salvation is a kind of paralysis of body and mind. This is really happening. This is really over.
And yet – all does not fall apart. Life just rearranges. Readjusts. After gasps, breathing restarts. Laughter is compelled from unexpected sources, heart jumps into rhythm, sun sets, and rises, and bills need paying, cars need driving, kids need, pets need, life needs. That next attempt at coupling? One pays more attention. One changes habits to match others rather than forcing them to adopt yours. One is more tolerant and long-suffering. One doesn't keep score or track. When hurt, one speaks up, draws clear lines and boundaries. When a voice speaks, one listens and hears. One understands discussions don't have winners and losers - they are exchanges of information.
At the beginning this book irritated me. I understood it too well, it rubbed some well-tended scars. But by the end I was in a five-star beam. Maybe first attempts at marriage are not for naught, after all. Accidental marriage? Amateur marriage? Miscast? Failed? No. Any love that existed remains hidden in unexpected memories, that rise up unbidden to comfort or confound.
This turned from an ordinary read to something that was quite personal and affirming. Not sure it will do that for all, but I hope all readers will get the good juicy juice out of every word, as I did.
November 21, 2025
This was my third Anne Tyler, and now, with surety, I can say three things I know and love about her. She creates sweet-and-savoury stories about living life, one day at a time, one emotion after another, nudged ahead by experience. Her characters are always simple but complicated people from small towns, muddling through mistakes and missteps, trying to do the best they can to live a decent life; she keeps a sharp focus on the facilities essential to our survival. Her narrative’s centre stage is shared by the bonds that keep a family together or draw them apart, and mismatched or made-for-each-other marriages.
Somewhere, sometime ago, I read that her stories were without a sense of mystery but isn’t life the biggest mystery of all? I mean, I am plenty mystified by her subjects - how life works the same but differently for us, how we make sense of ourselves and those around us or fail to, how easily love can turn into indifference, how little grievances pile up over time, how we live our best in moments, how days turn into years and life changes in some ways and also, not at all. And truth be told, I read her novels with a much faster pace than I would a mystery or a thriller.
One sleepless night, one whole day of work, and a half-sleepless night is all it took to finish The Amateur Marriage, a novel that jumps years in time with every chapter to tell the story of two incredibly different people, Michael and Pauline, and their ill-matched marriage. Theirs is a world far removed from mine, yet everything they did and thought resembled mine. That’s the magic of Anne Tyler. It’s as if I’m under her spell, and I’d gladly remain there.
Writing, as how she writes it, tells me that life is a tragedy only sometimes but comical more often than we know it. Between the two, life goes by in a flow. 4.5 stars!
Somewhere, sometime ago, I read that her stories were without a sense of mystery but isn’t life the biggest mystery of all? I mean, I am plenty mystified by her subjects - how life works the same but differently for us, how we make sense of ourselves and those around us or fail to, how easily love can turn into indifference, how little grievances pile up over time, how we live our best in moments, how days turn into years and life changes in some ways and also, not at all. And truth be told, I read her novels with a much faster pace than I would a mystery or a thriller.
One sleepless night, one whole day of work, and a half-sleepless night is all it took to finish The Amateur Marriage, a novel that jumps years in time with every chapter to tell the story of two incredibly different people, Michael and Pauline, and their ill-matched marriage. Theirs is a world far removed from mine, yet everything they did and thought resembled mine. That’s the magic of Anne Tyler. It’s as if I’m under her spell, and I’d gladly remain there.
Writing, as how she writes it, tells me that life is a tragedy only sometimes but comical more often than we know it. Between the two, life goes by in a flow. 4.5 stars!
May 6, 2011
it passeth all understanding that the gifted, compelling author of such innovative engrossing novels as Celestial Navigation and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant could have put forth for publication this awkward, disjointed, banal badly written mess. what also passeth understanding is that it got published even if it was written by Anne Tyler. Apparently, no matter how bad a book is, if its author has a name, even respectable publishers will print and promote it.
There is zero character development in this book. Indeed, there isn't an interesting fully-fleshed character in it We see characters from superficial exteriors only Not one has any ideas nor does any enlighten us in any facet of human behavior or character development. There isn't one character who would be a welcome addition to a dinner party
Moreover, either they are walking cliches or presented as being so fragmented and unreal that the reader can't care about them in any way One example: a 3 year old child abandoned and abused by his inexplicably drug addicted mother is rescued by grandparents and miraculously develops into a completely normal child who never shows any trauma. That just does not happen Such maltreated children can be rescued but only with great difficulty over many years
This book takes place between 1941 and the upheavels of the 60's and 70's, but not once does any character view those turbulent years and tell the reader their reactions to what was going on--even the one who drops out. There is no reason given for her flight. Similarly, the couple that gets divorced never once speaks in his or her voice about their marriage Tyler just gives us unconvincing external snippets of dialogue
There is zero character development in this book. Indeed, there isn't an interesting fully-fleshed character in it We see characters from superficial exteriors only Not one has any ideas nor does any enlighten us in any facet of human behavior or character development. There isn't one character who would be a welcome addition to a dinner party
Moreover, either they are walking cliches or presented as being so fragmented and unreal that the reader can't care about them in any way One example: a 3 year old child abandoned and abused by his inexplicably drug addicted mother is rescued by grandparents and miraculously develops into a completely normal child who never shows any trauma. That just does not happen Such maltreated children can be rescued but only with great difficulty over many years
This book takes place between 1941 and the upheavels of the 60's and 70's, but not once does any character view those turbulent years and tell the reader their reactions to what was going on--even the one who drops out. There is no reason given for her flight. Similarly, the couple that gets divorced never once speaks in his or her voice about their marriage Tyler just gives us unconvincing external snippets of dialogue
March 21, 2021
Along with A Spool of Blue Thread, this is undoubtedly the most ambitious Tyler I’ve read. It reminded me a bit of Roth’s American Pastoral, and Yates’s Revolutionary Road. The story tracks a marriage, a family, over generations. It seamlessly, simply evokes and reflects different cultural shifts and changing relationship dynamics over the decades. It’s made up of ten chapters that focus on different stages of the lives of its characters, though it’s always about the family unit, and at its heart, Michael and Pauline and their marriage. Reviewers have said it’s like a series of linked short stories, but the only thing that gives it that feel is the way Tyler ended the chapters so perfectly. Tyler is so good at endings, and in this novel she treats the reader to an ending ten times; it was a treat I took a lot of pleasure in. It’s a rare gift to really nail the ending of a novel, to really land that final blow right in the sweet spot. Tyler is a master at it. But anyway it is otherwise very much a novel. Tyler’s hyperrealism stuns me. There’s such confidence in the steady, unfussy style of the telling, the mechanics are so well hidden. It’s popular now in fiction to feel the author in the story, it’s so normal for readers to make autobiographical associations. But Tyler is no where in her stories. They belong entirely to her characters – astonishingly lifelike, complex creations. The Amateur Marriage has touches of Tyler’s humour, but it felt to me like her most sober, somber work. I’m going through a bit of a thing at the moment, and so much in this book resonated – it was eerie, it made me uncomfortable, but I needed its relentless truth-telling. Give her the Nobel, damn it.
March 12, 2016
I liked the writing more than I liked the book itself. This isn't my typical read, but I was intrigued by the book's description. It focuses on three generations of a family and the impacts of a marriage on all of them.
My biggest struggle was that the main characters, Michael and Pauline, were very hard to like and frustrated me beyond belief. I appreciated that Tyler did an excellent job in writing such flawed characters, but it was very challenging for me to read. Their life choices and its ramifications were depressing. I found myself disliking Pauline all together. As a woman, I was horrified by her decisions and overall approach to life; I wasn't able to relate to her in any way. I felt a small level of empathy for Michael, but I wasn't attached enough to his character to develop more.
To me this book was a snapshot of specific moments in the lives of the couple, their children, and grandchildren. It focused on specific moments in their lives and the impact of seemingly small decisions, which over the course of the book the reader was able to see the ramifications.
I did enjoy that the 10 chapters each had a specific chapter name that was referenced in some way during that section. I also liked that the chapters alternated between various family members' perspectives while still telling a cohesive story. At times, I was shocked by how many years passed in between the end of one chapter and the start of another. While this book wasn't a real winner for me story-wise, I would try another Tyler (perhaps her Pulitzer Prize winner, Breathing Lessons).
My biggest struggle was that the main characters, Michael and Pauline, were very hard to like and frustrated me beyond belief. I appreciated that Tyler did an excellent job in writing such flawed characters, but it was very challenging for me to read. Their life choices and its ramifications were depressing. I found myself disliking Pauline all together. As a woman, I was horrified by her decisions and overall approach to life; I wasn't able to relate to her in any way. I felt a small level of empathy for Michael, but I wasn't attached enough to his character to develop more.
To me this book was a snapshot of specific moments in the lives of the couple, their children, and grandchildren. It focused on specific moments in their lives and the impact of seemingly small decisions, which over the course of the book the reader was able to see the ramifications.
I did enjoy that the 10 chapters each had a specific chapter name that was referenced in some way during that section. I also liked that the chapters alternated between various family members' perspectives while still telling a cohesive story. At times, I was shocked by how many years passed in between the end of one chapter and the start of another. While this book wasn't a real winner for me story-wise, I would try another Tyler (perhaps her Pulitzer Prize winner, Breathing Lessons).
August 18, 2023
اولش که شروع شد فکرکردم چه داستان حوصله سربری .. اما ادامه اش همه چیز رو عوض کرد .
این دقیقا داستان یک ازدواج بود که سوار برزمانه بر شرایط و از روی چیزی به جز ایده آل های متعارف و مرسوم و خیلی ناشیانه راه خودشو باز کرد و زندگی پنج شش نفر رو شکل داد .
یک زندگی پر از کاش و انگار خیلی واقعی ، چون نه از نبود عشق باکی بود و نه از دعوا نه گم شدن و رفتن و هرگز برنگشتن . و دست آخر یک نقطه یک ضربه حساس درست در جایی که فکرش رو هم نمیکردیم دیگه چیزی مونده باشه که بتونه این ازدواج رو از پا دربیاره دقیقا همین کارو کرد . و پیدا کردن یک راه نو یک جفت نو و مرگ
سرنوشت دوگانه ای که باعث شد بگم دیگه چیزی برای گفتن نمونده جز اینکه که دست آخر انگار زن های مادر همیشه قرار بازنده از این دنیا برن .
اما توصیه میکنم بخونیدش داستانیه که کاملا غرقش میشید .
این دقیقا داستان یک ازدواج بود که سوار برزمانه بر شرایط و از روی چیزی به جز ایده آل های متعارف و مرسوم و خیلی ناشیانه راه خودشو باز کرد و زندگی پنج شش نفر رو شکل داد .
یک زندگی پر از کاش و انگار خیلی واقعی ، چون نه از نبود عشق باکی بود و نه از دعوا نه گم شدن و رفتن و هرگز برنگشتن . و دست آخر یک نقطه یک ضربه حساس درست در جایی که فکرش رو هم نمیکردیم دیگه چیزی مونده باشه که بتونه این ازدواج رو از پا دربیاره دقیقا همین کارو کرد . و پیدا کردن یک راه نو یک جفت نو و مرگ
سرنوشت دوگانه ای که باعث شد بگم دیگه چیزی برای گفتن نمونده جز اینکه که دست آخر انگار زن های مادر همیشه قرار بازنده از این دنیا برن .
اما توصیه میکنم بخونیدش داستانیه که کاملا غرقش میشید .
August 28, 2021
Nuostabi knyga apie šeimos santykius. Anne Tyler sugebėjo paspausti visus mano jautriausius mygtukus. Užvertus paskutinį lapą, ėjau ieškoti nosinaitės 😭 Yra tokių knygų, kai gali skaityt neatsitraukdama ir atsipūst tik pabaigus. Ši - viena tokių. Paprastai ir aiškiai apie kasdienybę, kurioje ne vienoje situacijoje galime atpažinti save.
"Mėgėjiška santuoka"- apie porą, kuri, liaudiškai tariant, visus trisdešimt santuokos metų, ėdė vienas kitą. Ginčyjosi, kivirčyjosi, nenusileido vienas kitam. Kuris viršesnis, kuris labiau užsispyręs.
Nežinau kodėl, bet man kilo keistos asociacijos su "Stouneriu". Galbūt, Maiklas man kažkiek jį priminė. Toks pat užsispyręs, nesocialus, kritiškas.
Gaila pagrindinių herojų, kvaili jų barniai, veltui tiek laiko iššvaistė, et...
"Mėgėjiška santuoka"- apie porą, kuri, liaudiškai tariant, visus trisdešimt santuokos metų, ėdė vienas kitą. Ginčyjosi, kivirčyjosi, nenusileido vienas kitam. Kuris viršesnis, kuris labiau užsispyręs.
Nežinau kodėl, bet man kilo keistos asociacijos su "Stouneriu". Galbūt, Maiklas man kažkiek jį priminė. Toks pat užsispyręs, nesocialus, kritiškas.
Gaila pagrindinių herojų, kvaili jų barniai, veltui tiek laiko iššvaistė, et...
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