โ Scribed by Tyler, Anne
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Maggie Moran's mission is to connect and unite people, whether they want to be united or not. Maggie is a meddler and as she and her husband, Ira, drive 90 miles to the funeral of an old friend, Ira contemplates his wasted life and the traffic, while Maggie hatches a plant to reunite her son Jesse with his long-estranged wife and baby. As Ira explains, "She thinks the people she loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things around to suit her view of them." Though everyone criticizes her for being "ordinary," Maggie's ability to see the beauty and potential in others ultimately proves that she is the only one fighting the resignation they all fear. The book captured the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1989.
In perhaps her most mainstream, accessible novel so far, Tyler spins a tale of marriage and middle-class lives, in an age when social standards and life expectations have gone askew. While she remains a brilliant observer of human nature, there is a subtle change here in Tyler's focus. Where before her protagonists were eccentric, sometimes slightly fantastical characters who came at the end to a sense of peace, if not happiness, Maggie Moran and her husband Ira are average, unexceptional, even somewhat drab; and outside of some small epiphanies, little is changed between them at the story's close. It's this very realism that makes the story so effective and moving. Taking place on one summer day, when Maggie and Ira drive from Baltimore to Pennsylvania to a funeral, with an accidental detour involving an old black man they pass on the road and a side trip to see their former daughter-in-law and their seven-year-old grandchild, the novel reveals the basic incompatibility of their 28-year marriage and the love that binds them together nonetheless. This is another typical Tyler union of opposites: Maggie is impetuous, scatterbrained, klutzy, accident prone and garrulous; Ira is self-contained, precise, dignified, aloof with, however, an irritating (or endearing ) habit of whistling tunes that betray his inner thoughts. Both feel that their children are strangers, that the generations are "sliding downhill," and that somehow they have gone wrong in a society whose values they no longer recognize. With irresistibly funny passages you want to read out loud and poignant insights that illuminate the serious business of sharing lives in an unsettling world, this is Tyler's best novel yet. 175,000 first printing ; BOMC main selection; Franklin Library signed first edition.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Number of Words in Auth: 2
Formats : EPUB
Number of Formats : 1
Has Cover : Yes
All Identifiers : amazon:0785799524, barnesnoble:w/breathing-lessons-anne-tyler/1102808005, goodreads:2677506, google:s7enPwAACAAJ, isbn:9780785799528
Single Author : Anne Tyler
Original Source : New_Files_08_11
Sorted Author by LN, FN: Tyler, Anne
Title Length : 017
Title Parm D : Breathing Lessons
Title Parm G : Breathing Lessons
Num of Aut : 1
Title Parm B : (
Record ID : 4923
Uncomma Author : Anne Tyler
Title Parm A : Breathing Lessons
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
### Amazon.com Review Maggie Moran's mission is to connect and unite people, whether they want to be united or not. Maggie is a meddler and as she and her husband, Ira, drive 90 miles to the funeral of an old friend, Ira contemplates his wasted life and the traffic, while Maggie hatches a plant to
**Awards** Pulitzer Prize for Fiction One hot summer day Maggie and Ira drive from Baltimore towards Pennsylvania, to the funeral of the husband of Maggie's best friend. During the course of that journey, the author shows all there is to know about a marriage. The author also wrote "Saint May
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne Tyler's *The Beginner's Goodbye.* Maggie and Ira Moran have been married for twenty-eight years--and it shows: in their quarrels, in their routines, in their ability to tolerate with affection each other' s eccentricities. Maggie, a kooky, lovab