So, why am I reading Breathing Lessons? Well, because of my mother of course. Lately, my mother has been graciously indulging my suggestions and actually liking them. From Richard Price to David Foster Wallace, she's expanding her literary horizons and most recently, she's hooked on The Wire. I don't know about you, but I think my mom's pretty cool. And so I've been throwing stuff her way and naturally I thought it only fair that I read some of her favorite authors, Anne Tyler being one of them.
Reading Anne Tyler allows me to better understand my mother and the way she views the world. The main character is middle aged (like my mother), white (like my mother), middle class (like my mother), a wife and mother (like my mother), in a stable (although idiosyncratic) marriage (like my mother), and has adult children (like my mother). The foundation for identification is there. But also, the subject Tyler chooses to ponder I imagine my mother connecting with as well, which is for the most part, the everyday, the routine, the regular ebb and flow of life.
Maggie Moran is at the center of this meandering narrative, which is kind of a road trip novel. Maggie and her husband Ira travel to neighboring Pennsylvania for a funeral and take a small detour on the way home, visiting their son's moderatley estranged ex-wife and grandchild. Very little "happens" in the novel, the narrative told mostly from Maggie's perspective, which is abound with flashbacks, recalled memories and discursive storytelling, all of which Tyler does masterfully I might add.
The novel is surprisingly sad. As it progresses, the reader begins to realize that Maggie has an "unrealiable narrator" quality, or at least, heavily distorts events and people so as to mold them into her pleasant idea of life. Or maybe that's just Maggie's reality. I don't believe she distorts anything maliciously. Though the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Wait, no, I'm not saying she's going to Hell. Just saying, she's not a bad person.
"Maggie had a sudden view of her life as circular. It forever repeated itself, and it was entirely lacking in hope." pg. 315
"Ira's marriage was as steady as a tree; not even he could tell how wide and deep the roots went." pg. 157
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