Now that I've finished it, I'm finding myself replaying ths deceptively simple story in my mind. At first when I read Anne Tyler, nothing but a good story seems to register for me - I get so enmeshed in the characters that I stop being conscious of the style of the prose. She seems so artless, so real, about how she tells the story, that I almost forget it's a novel. I start thinking of the characters as though they are actually people I know, and I wonder what I can learn from their experiences.
The amateur marriage of Michael and Pauline is also a self-conscious one. Both characters inwardly reflect on their relative unhappiness together compared to other people's lives. Pauline's tendency is to live life by the seat of her pants, while Michael is more controlled and careful: this difference in their temperments seems to account for a constrant chafing between them.
The thing I thought continually along the way was: but I'm sure this happens to all couples. Most people marry someone who is tempermentally different, and of course this is bound to cause irritations very similar to the ones Pauline and Michael undergo - she drives a little too crazily: he wonders why he always has to remind her to be more careful. He doesn't act as warmly toward people as she would like: she wishes he would just lighten up.
Is this the point Anne Tyler is trying to make? Simply that all married couples regard their lives together as amateur? Are Michael and Pauline a special case?
Another funny thing about Tyler is that not one of her characters seems to get "special" treatment: you don't get a sense that she prefers one to another. Yet, because the characterizations are so realistic, I found myself liking certain characters better than others. I couldn't stand Michael near the end, though I found myself enjoying Pauline more and more, and I think that someone else might have a totally different view of the same characters.