May 27, 2009

Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler

This book is like a big plate of salad placed in front of a four year old. You know it's good for you, you know it's important to eat, you know if you eat it there will be dessert. So you eat it, and you decide it's not all that bad, and you're glad you're doing something that's good for you, but you'd really rather just have some ice cream.

This is the story of an agoraphobic artist who falls in love with one of his boarders. They get married (sort of), and as time goes by he begins to wonder if his wife has been a muse for him or if her presence is actually holding him back. On his wife's end of things, she dislikes the fact that she's always depended on men for everything she needs and wants to know if she can do things on her own, or if she's strong enough to do them on her own.

It was a beautiful book, a healthy and artistic book, but it was about as enjoyable to read as the fine print on a pre-approved credit card offer.

4 comments:

  1. Hmm have you read anything else by Anne Tyler? I've only read one of her books before during college and really enjoyed it.

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  2. Britni- yes, I've read An Accidental Tourist, Saint Maybe, Breathing Lessons, Ladder of Years, Back When We Were Grown-ups, and Patchwork Planet. This is the only one I've disliked. But honestly I'm tired of Tyler's style. Everything is always so dark and dingy. She's brilliant, but not enjoyable IMO.

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  3. Well, I won't be getting this one! Thanks!

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  4. Oh what a relief to find this comment after all the reviews oohing and aahing over it. I am a Tyler fan too but I found myself trudging through this book like it was congealed oatmeal - and I just couldn't get what happened in the intervening years between Mary saying "yes" to Jeremy and the baby being born - it's like she decided to skip all the stuff that would have explained how this unlikely couple lasted for so long together. Even salad is too happy a term to use for this book - salad can be fresh, crispy, crunchy. This was just depressingly soggy.

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