false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166693660m/15764.jpg 15764 33 Anne Tyler's <I>The Amateur Marriage</I> is not so much a novel as a really long argument. Michael is a good boy from a Polish neighborhood in Baltimore; Pauline is a harum-scarum, bright-cheeked girl who blows into Michael's family's grocery store at the outset of World War II. She appears with a bloodied brow, supported by a gaggle of girlfriends. Michael patches her up, and neither of them are ever the same. Well, not the same as they were before, but pretty much the same as everyone else. After the war, they live over the shop with Michael's mother till they've saved enough to move to the suburbs. There they remain with their three children, until the onset of the sixties, when their eldest daughter runs away to San Francisco. Their marriage survives for a while, finally crumbling in the seventies. If this all sounds a tad generic, Tyler's case isn't helped by the characteristics she's given the two spouses. Him: repressed, censorious, quiet. Her: voluble, emotional, romantic. Mars, meet Venus. What marks this couple, though, and what makes them come alive, is their bitter, unproductive, tooth-and-nail fighting. Tyler is exploring the way that ordinary-seeming, prosperous people can survive in emotional poverty for years on end. She gets just right the tricks Michael and Pauline play on themselves in order to stay together: "How many times," Pauline asks herself, "when she was weary of dealing with Michael, had she forced herself to recall the way he'd looked that first day? The slant of his fine cheekbones, the firming of his lips as he pressed the adhesive tape in place on her forehead." Only in antogonism do Michael and Pauline find a way to express themselves. <I>--Claire Dederer</I> 838459 2004 The Amateur Marriage: A Novel total:2737|5:318|4:1016|3:1026|2:333|1:44| 2737 9442 3366 298 4 5 false false Mon Oct 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 17 23:04:06 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 22:52:23 -0700 2008
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 ...more...]]> 4 4 false false Thu Aug 14 13:00:59 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 22 09:37:39 -0800 2008 4 2 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 21 07:28:35 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 21 07:51:15 -0700 2008
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 ...more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Aug 23 11:24:02 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 11:24:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 22 13:27:40 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 21 08:54:54 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 4 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Mon Sep 10 11:27:02 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 10 11:45:01 -0700 2007
I th...more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Feb 18 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 15:30:13 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 18 15:42:16 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Oct 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 12:24:47 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 02 18:20:23 -0700 2008 1
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 fa...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 22:22:21 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 22:48:28 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Nov 24 09:48:43 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 24 09:52:32 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 true false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 16 11:54:39 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 16 11:59:40 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jun 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 20:28:13 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 04:58:40 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 01 05:48:31 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 22 12:52:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Oct 09 19:29:42 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 10 15:20:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 23:24:37 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 00:05:12 -0800 2009
That being said, naturally I simply adore Anne Tyler for her novelistic works that depict raw human emotions and real feelings without the use of firey-explosives...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:17:17 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:17:17 -0800 2009 Tyler reliably dredges up the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly of domestic life in Baltimore. Though "seldom if ever spiteful," notes The New York Times Book Review, Tyler is a "mischief-maker" in the spirit of Jane Austen. Amateur Marriage, while departing from the tra...

more...]]> 1 0 false false Wed Jun 13 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 09 20:22:40 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 20:31:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Oct 06 08:17:17 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 08:26:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Mar 20 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Sep 25 09:32:39 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 10:02:12 -0700 2009
I listened to it in audiobook format on a road trip to the Oregon Coast in 2005. It disgusted me. I completely forgot I had even read it until I signed up for Goodreads. A friend had added a book with a similar title and I racked ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Sep 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 16:05:52 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 17:10:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=15764