Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons is a giant of a book, a giant because of the way in which it gently wraps you into its characters’ world and allows you to feel their lives being lived. It’s a giant of a book in a very small world, a world inhabited by Maggie and her husband, Ira, and, it seems, by precious little else. They are long married, happy, perhaps without really knowing it, and replete with generally unacknowledged failure.

Breathing Lessons starts with Maggie picking up the family car after its repair job and spruce up. She immediately runs into a truck and doesn’t stop. She and Ira then head off on a long drive to a funeral of a long lost friend. Memories revisit high school and adolescence as the widow attempts to recreate her wedding service to bid farewell to her husband. The songs her friends originally sang turn out to be highly inappropriate, depending on your point of view, and some don’t want to try to recreate their youth and so become dignified spoilsports. Some old scores are retallied, none settled, of course.

Then Ira and Maggie set off home and decide to call in on their son’s estranged wife and their granddaughter, a girl of seven, it turns out, they haven’t seen since she was an infant. On the way there is a strange encounter with a fellow traveller. Maggie invents a story, for some reason, which he believes. She pursues the scam, is as duplicitous as hell and carries the whole thing off as if it had been gospel from the start. A strange episode.

Maggie is surprised that she does not recognise her granddaughter. Perhaps Anne Tyler is suggesting that the only really important things for Maggie are those she keeps within the confines of her head. Fiona, the estranged daughter-in-law, seems surprisingly accommodating, even more so when details emerge of how poorly treated she has been by Maggie and her son, Jesse. Maggie and Ira clearly weren’t too good at being parents, or grandparents, either.

Maggie convinces herself that she can get the separated couple back together and cajoles her daughter-in-law and granddaughter to motor back to Baltimore with them. She phones her son and arranges for him to call round later that day, after the travellers have reached the family home. It seems that everyone except Maggie is both indifferent and sceptical, but, for some reason, everyone goes along with her suggestions. And, of course, it all goes nowhere. None of these folk, by the way, could be described as intellectual. Not one of them seems to have read a book or, indeed, ever suffered the trauma of a moment of self-reflection since birth. All anyone ever does is react, and then usually wrongly.

Maggie is the book’s central and essential character. Ira, her husband, for the most part busies himself driving, playing solitaire or teaching Frisbee. But basically he seems to hover around the edge of Maggie’s universe, occasionally putting his foot in it by pointing out the odd reality here and there, realities that Maggie expends massive resources trying to ignore or deny. She makes mistakes. She crashes the car every time she drives (two out of two in the book). She constantly imagines herself as God’s gift, a sort of Mrs Fix-It for everyone else’s problems. But she is singularly unable to organise her own existence. She is overweight and yet overeats. She is full of self-justification, almost invariably based on obviously false premises. And she seems to have developed absolutely no powers of self-analysis or reflection, even when reality occasionally forces its way into her existence to contradict her assumptions and undermine her intentions.

I have to admit that I tried to start the book at least three times without success. For me, Maggie’s character was just not quite credible and, if it were credible, I could find no reason why I would want to read about such a person. I persevered this time, however, and the result was a rewarding insight into an uncultured and eventually valueless approach to life that, I suspect, Anne Tyler suspects may be widespread, though I feel that she would not be as judgmental about it as myself.

In the end, all of the characters in Breathing Lessons are failures, who consistently render their own lives a chaotic mess, both inside and outside their heads. They are surrounded by their own mistakes and missed opportunities. These are people who really work at their incompetence and succeed brilliantly. I can’t help feeling that at least one of them, in the normal run of things, would display an intellect superior to a demented parrot and a facility for self-reflection greater than a sooty fireback. But no one ever does. Perhaps that’s the point.

About the Author

Philip Spires
Author of Mission, an African novel set in Kenya

http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Michael, a missionary priest, has just killed Munyasya. It was an accident, but Mulonzya, a politician, exploits the tragedy for his own ends. Boniface, a church worker, has just lost his child. He did not make it to the hospital in time, possibly because Michael went to the Mission to retrieve a letter from Janet, a teacher, and the priest’s neighbour. It is Munyasya who has the last laugh, however.

Ann Coulter, Al Franken: Who in History Would You Be? FDR & Hitler!

US Auctions Australian Auctions Austrian Auctions Belgian Auctions Canadian Auctions French Auctions German Auctions Indian Auctions Irish Auctions Italian Auctions Dutch Auctions Polish Auctions Spanish Auctions Swiss Auctions UK Auctions

Best Match Time: ending soonest Time: newly listed Price: lowest first Price: highest first Price + Shipping: lowest first Price + Shipping: highest first

NANCY ANN STORY BOOK DOLLS BOY GIRL 4 1 2 ORIGINAL    US $24.99

NASB Doll Winter Bisque pudgy    US $36.00

NASB Doll Winter Bisque frozen legs    US $15.00

NASB Doll Bisque frozen legs    US $10.00

3 Nancy Ann Storie book dolls all marked on back Fixers    US $8.00

Story Book Doll Floral dress felt pink hat    US $8.61

Story Book Doll Cream long dress gold trim    US $12.27

RAGGEDY ANN the LUCKY PENNY I Love You    US $19.99

Nancy Ann Storybook Bisque Doll 178 w box Painted Eyes    US $5.99

Vintage Hard Plastic Nancy Ann Story Book Doll    US $21.50

Vintage Hard Plastic Nancy Ann Story Book Doll Beauty    US $9.01

Vintage Hard Plastic Ballet Story Book Doll    US $9.06

Vintage HP Alice Thru Looking Glass Story Book Doll    US $9.99

Vintage 1950s Vogue GINNY Doll Brown Hair Walker    US $15.50

Vintage 1950s Vogue GINNY Doll Blonde Walker    US $14.49

DOLLS Nancy Ann Storybook COMPOSITION HARD PLASTIC    US $13.01

Marcella Stories Johnny Gruelle Raggedy Ann 1929    US $9.00

Madame Alexander Southern Girl 11 Compo Wendy 1942    US $49.00

Raggedy Ann by Applause limited    US $45.99

Nancy Ann Storybook Plastic Doll 171 w box Sleepy eye    US $17.00

Nancy Ann Storybook Plastic Doll 160 w box Sleepy eye    US $30.99

Nancy Ann Storybook Plastic Doll 177 w box Painted Eye    US $4.99

Alice in Wonderland Jointed Bisque Storybook Doll    US $200.00

VINTAGE DUCHESS DOLL 1948 RED HAIR NANCY ANN STORYBK    US $5.99

NANCY ANN STORYBOOK DOLL FOR PARTS    US $9.99

LIMITED SALUTE TO LIBERTY RAGGEDY ANN ANDY    US $.99

VINTAGE NANCY ANN STORY BOOK DOLL 5 1 2 INCHES 1950S    US $6.00

Vintage 1950s Fashion Doll Clothes    US $29.00

Vintage 1954 NASB Muffie Walker Doll in Orig Dress    US $74.99

TalysSlaith DRAGON CHANGELING OOAK SCULPT Ann Galvin    US $23.08

Nancy Ann Storybook Alice in the Looking Glass 125    US $10.00

DOLL CRAFTER COSTUMING JULY 2010 Reborns Tiny Baby    US $8.99

Lovely Vintage Nancy Ann Storybook Doll Straw Hat    US $12.99

Raggedy Ann and the Golden Butterfly    US $9.99

Raggedy Ann and the Magic Pebble Doll    US $9.99

VINTAGE NASB NANCY ANN STORYBOOK STORY BOOK BISQUE DOLL    US $9.90

5 INCH BISQUE NANCY ANN STORY BOOK DOLL QUEEN OF HEARTS    US $4.99

Miss Holland Nancy Ann Like KH doll original paper    US $55.00

Nancy Ann Pudgy Bisque 1941 DollFlowered Cotton Gown    US $16.50

1978 RAGGEDY ANDY DOLL 1960 RAGGEDY ANN SC STORY BOOK    US $9.99

Powered by phpBay Pro

	Ann Blyth Poster Movie Movie Story Magazine Cover 1940's 27x40

	The Helen Morgan Story Poster 27x40 Ann Blyth Paul Newman Richard Carlson

	The Helen Morgan Story Poster Argentine 27x40 Ann Blyth Paul Newman Richard Carlson

	Beulah Land

	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Two-Disc Special Edition)

	MGM Classic Musicals (West Side Story/Guys and Dolls/Fiddler on the Roof/A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum/How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying/Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

	Summer Replacement

	Not for Ourselves Alone - The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony [VHS]

	Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long [VHS]

	Verne Miller [VHS]

	Womens Costume Story Book Character Adult Raggedy Ann Anne Rag Doll Girl Cute Dress Party Outfit Roma

	Womens Costume Story Book Character Adult Raggedy Ann Anne Rag Doll Girl Cute Dress Party Outfit Roma by Fenvy

	Ultimate Movie Music Collection

	Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories (CD & Region 2 DVD)

	Greatest Songs from the Musicals

	LEGO Toy Story Buzz's Star Command Ship (7593)

	Russian Nesting Doll Five Princesses Cinderella Snow White Little Mermaid Ariel Jasmine Barbie 5 Pc / 6-7 in #7.109

	Little Mermaid Russian Nesting Nested Stacking Doll. 5 Pieces / 4 in Tall #4.103

	The Outsider: A Novel

	If Everybody Did