FICTION:THIS IS THE 18th book from the pen of the gifted and prolific American writer Anne Tyler, Pulitzer prize-winner and author of such internationally acclaimed works as The Accidental Touristand Saint Maybe.
Her sterling talent for composing an enthralling story, skillfully paced and enlivened by more than one startling, but eminently satisfying, plot twist, is on display here. And her favourite subject matter, the lives of ordinary people, supplies the content – a sharp dissection of the anatomy of a family, headed by Lear-ish Liam, a 60-year-old, divorced schoolteacher who has just been forced into redundancy, and who is embarking on the final phase of his life – fiche bliain ag dul ar lár. The novel is mediated through his perspective, which is ironic and clear-sighted but not bleak. This, even though his career has been spiralling inexorably downhill since his beginnings as a prize-winning student of philosophy, through various decreasingly prestigious teaching posts, to the point he reaches in the novel, where he feels lucky to get a part-time job as a kindergarten assistant. Cast adrift from his career, a wife or two, and his three daughters, he is floating around on the deluge of his own past. Like Noah, Liam isn’t going in any particular direction, as he points out to little Jonah, the son of his bossy fundamentalist Christian daughter Louise:
“There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. He was just bobbing up and down, so he didn’t need a compass, or a rudder, or a sextant . . .”
Tyler looks at several major issues in the novel, including atheism and conventional religion, filial and parental responsibility, adultery, suicide. Assault. Loss of love, status, money, memory – everything. Always humorous and never heavy-handed, she treats these issues respectfully and the novel offers the reader plenty of food for thought. Nevertheless, there is some quality in the work which simplifies or dilutes it. It's not that Tyler is superficial, or patronising, but sometimes the novel feels a bit like the colouring books called The Bible for Tiny Totswhich Jonah assiduously paints, under the perplexed supervision of his atheistic grandfather. She never really plunges into the murky depths of life but bobs around on top – or, to mix the metaphor, is careful to stay between the lines. Of course one could say this about many good novels. But it's not a feature of the best. For instance, Liam has certain qualities in common with the hero of JM Coetzee's great novel, Disgrace. Although Liam is not in disgrace (maybe that's part of the problem) he is being punished for what his family perceives as his selfishness, his egotistic devotion to his own thoughts, his lack of engagement. Low key, he hasn't paid enough attention to other human beings, especially if they happen to be female. And, like Coetzee's hero, he moves from the intellectual height of the university to what the world views as the lowest rung on the ladder. But somehow Coetzee impresses in a way that Tyler, for all the precision she brings to bear on the depiction of emotion and domestic relations, does not. A fairer comparison may be with some of Alice Munro's latest stories about old age and decline. Anne Tyler has plenty in common with Munro, as far as subject matter, wit and intelligence, are concerned, but there is nevertheless an interesting contrast in the way the authors treat similar themes, and it does not favour Tyler. Munro's way is more complex, deeper, more honest; writing similarly accessible prose, she takes risks that Tyler tends to avoid. It is difficult to put one's finger on what the difference is, and finally it seems to be one that looks rather superficial in itself – the way the sentences are shaped. Typically they are short, and she uses too many exclamation marks. The thinking follows suit, as it must.
Nevertheless, this is a wise and very engaging novel. Its ending in particular is highly satisfactory. It turns out Liam is actually happy enough to be alone in his small, spare apartment. Maybe it is what he really wanted all along. It is not giving away much to leave him there, alone, on Christmas day, sitting in his rocking chair reading a book about Socrates. He has no guests, no invitations. No turkey (the menus in this novel are among its more depressing features – tins of soup feature prominently).
“Socrates said – what was it he said? Something about the fewer his wants, the closer he was to the gods? . . . A book in the hand, a chicken in the oven . . . He was solvent, if not rich, and healthy.”
He doesn’t even have a bottle of wine for Christmas (hopefully there’s a beer in his rather nice fridge). And if this book were a bottle of wine, it would not be a vintage Bordeaux, robust and mysterious – more like a nice Riesling. Light and drinkable, but low in alcohol. In short, a book for our times.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a novelist and short-story writer