The Amateur Marriage: A Novel
by Anne Tyler
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Read in November, 2005
It’s about mismatched married. Michael and Pauline have very different personalities, which is actually will be alright if they can take the best out from each other and make their personalities into something that complement each other. Instead, knowing how different they are, they expect their partner to change and fulfill their expectation. Both of them were so self-center, even when their daughter escaped, they were still not trying to accept their partner as they were and learn to life to...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommended to Evie by:
Everyonerecommends it for: Everyone
AFter I read The Accidental Tourist, I went back on Amazon and bought this and Back When We Were Grownups.
I love how Tyler masks tension the characters are experiencing internally and in their relationships with descriptions of the banal. You just know someone is going to blow a gasket at any moment, but she makes the characters and the reader simmer in it, turning up the heat slowly with the passing years, seemingly meaningless squabbles, and resignation.
Pauline and Michael are just ...more
I love how Tyler masks tension the characters are experiencing internally and in their relationships with descriptions of the banal. You just know someone is going to blow a gasket at any moment, but she makes the characters and the reader simmer in it, turning up the heat slowly with the passing years, seemingly meaningless squabbles, and resignation.
Pauline and Michael are just ...more
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Read in August, 2008
At first I really liked this book, but as it dragged on, I found the characters about as tedious as they found each other. The most interesting character is the one who is absent for most of the book. The rest could have been rounded up and sent off to the camps, and this reader would not have given two figs.
Oh the ennui of the middle classes! Yawn. They weren't even quite nasty enough to care about. Their story was certainly not interesting enough to fill fifty years.
I thought that th...more
Oh the ennui of the middle classes! Yawn. They weren't even quite nasty enough to care about. Their story was certainly not interesting enough to fill fifty years.
I thought that th...more
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
women who've been married for 7+ years
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 ope...more
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 ope...more
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the amateur marriage took me completely by surprise. i did not expect to love it as much as i did, nor did i expect to finish or even begin it as quickly as i did. but it was one of those situations where every free moment i had, my eyes wandered over to the book and i was just swallowing it whole the entire time. it's not very long, BUT it very well could have been. i love authors who have the capacity to write their novel without overburdening or stretching it out unnecessarily. bonus points f...more
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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 ...more
The genius of Tyler is in her understated approach to the great themes of life. Behind the seemingly trivial details of the ...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
airport readers
Anne Tyler, the queen of respectable airport fiction, offers us in The Amateur Marriage a rather amateur narrative. The 342 pages of the novel recall the entirety of one couple's time together, from their wedding in 1942 to their divorce in the late 1980s. It's like reading a series of passive-aggressive quarrels over and over again, the kind your parents often had when they didn't want anyone to think they were fighting. Tyler's overarching theme seems to be "don't marry too young"...more
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Read in April, 2005
In this novel we follow the relationship of two young people,from their first meeting until old age.Michael and Pauline jump into marriage during the war,because everyone wanted them married and everyone said they were for each other. But the enthusiasm of the honeymoon vanishes soon and they have to face their differences. Michael cannot understand the sudden changes of mood and the devouring spells of anger and hate of his wife,Pauline. He expected their marriage should go well by itself. Paul...more
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Read in January, 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...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Aubrey by:
middle-aged womenrecommends it for: middle-aged men and women
This is a quick read. She does a good job of portraying the daily ins and outs of regular people's lives. Most of the book I felt like I was reading a 1950's version of my home life growing up in the 90's. With that said, and perhaps this is the true reality of life, the book was a bit depressing. I got to the end and thought, "Boy, I sure how this isn't how I feel in my 50's", but in a way I already do feel the way the characters do. I especially thought the party scene at the en...more
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Read in December, 2007
This was a very interesting read about relationship dynamics in a marriage of seemingly mismatched people- its interesting to see how and why they get together and stay together, and then grow apart....and how their differences effect their marriage, lives and children- the book chronicles their relationship from the time they meet and fall in love to their marriage, children, middle age, to when they live their lives apart and eventually their deaths...etc....it really is fascinating- Tyler has...more
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Read in April, 2008
I really loved "Digging to America" so I thought I would give another of her books a try. The book un-intentionally addresses emotional abandonment in so many ways - between husband and wife, mother and child, brother and sister, even friend to friend - - Tyler creates characters that you feel you know. She drafts a relationship between Mike and Pauline that makes you really see how two people collide in marriage. Although, as a testament to Tyler's writing skills, I wanted to kick Mik...more
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Read in March, 2008
Wow. I never read Anne Tyler but I'm really excited to get into more of her books. This book was picked up at a book sale on a whim - I never nothing about it which makes it all the more rewarding because it was so good. It started a little slow but picked up quickly and I oculdn't put it down. It was a love story and a story about family but the most fascinating aspect was that it spanned over the entire lifetime of two people. Reading about different eras, from the 1940's forward, was fun. It ...more
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Read in June, 2008
This was an interesting novel chronicling the marriage (and dissolution of said marriage) of Michael and Pauline. I really enjoyed how each chapter represented a different period of their lives; no awkward transitions or unnecessary info to slow things down. The book follows them from when they first meet at the outset of World War II through 1990. The chapters bound forward, aging children and spouses and the times. But ultimately, there was something too flat about the characters. I found the ...more
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Read in May, 2008
I was actually disappointed in this book. I think it is the first time Anne Tyler has ever disappointed. Her characters are usually so great, flawed and real. This time, they were still well-developed, but they weren't likeable; none of them. Not one character in the entire book was really and truly likeable. Plus, the story was sad. Sad in the sense of painting the sky a gloomy shade of grey. Realistic? Maybe. Do I want to spend hours reading something that will leave me disappo...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
kathy whitmore
Once again, clearly drawn characters make the day. The novel begins with a pre-war romance of unlikely origin. Boy meets girl, but girl moves in different social circles. Girl falls for boy and a quick marriage ensues. Boy comes home from war and the Amateur Marriage begins between a clearly mismatched couple. Yet, they endure through fights and patch ups and the loss of a child. Ultimately each moves on, but in totally different ways. I truly came to care for these people. I'd recommend...more
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Read in January, 2007
I believe that by growing up around Baltimore this book resonated in a different way for me than for those unfamiliar with the culture of the city. This is not the Baltimore of The Wire or John Waters, but a more It would have been more relevant had I grown up during the 1960s. The story, however, translates across generations detailing the difficulties of being a mother, a daughter, a father. It reminds us that familial love is not always simple and easy but as hard and trying as romantic ...more
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recommends it for:
fans of women's fiction
In the fervor of the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pauline and Michael meet each other by chance, and rush into marriage. Unlike most other young couples, Pauline and Michael never seem able to get past the petty squabbles, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings. For the next thirty years of their relationship, their fundamental differences affect every member of the family. Tyler is extremely adept at dissecting a marriage, one that never should taken place. This novel is a surpri...more
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I like the early parts the best. Wish Ms. Tyler would get out a bit more, see the rest of the world, and sheesh, her kids are like middle-aged children. But she does understand scenic action, so I'm learning something. Beginning of the novel much better than the middle. Too sweet for my taste, and characters not believable. But she is very successful, in the middle world between literary fiction and commercial fiction. Won the Pulitzer in 1988 for Breathing Lessons. Her earlier novels were bette...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in April, 2008
I enjoy Anne Taylor's writing style - fluid and easy - and this book was an airport read that was downed faster than a shot of jagermeister (hehe, just kidding, that would be one quick barf for me).
I like that she's not grossly romantic, that she throws in the grimy, icky realist bits, but also reveals those moments when things are distilled and crystal clear, and they actually DO look rosy.... for a minute. 'Cause that's how life really does work - murkiness with moments of clarity - and th...more
I like that she's not grossly romantic, that she throws in the grimy, icky realist bits, but also reveals those moments when things are distilled and crystal clear, and they actually DO look rosy.... for a minute. 'Cause that's how life really does work - murkiness with moments of clarity - and th...more
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