Awesome book! Makes you think! :)
A book that draws you into the lives of the two main characters. Decent people, but in a marriage that should never have been. Another good story from Tyler.
very interesting and well written
Anne Tyler, prolific author of Breathing Lessons (made into a movie), writes this evocative novel.
Pauline and Michael seemed like the perfect couple--young, good-looking, made for each other. Set during WW II, it seems that while other couples grow more seasoned, these two remain amateurs. Still, they go on, "feuding, fussing and fighting." They have 3 children; one becomes a runaway in the turbulent 60's era. Pauline and Michael must rescue their little grandson from their "flower-child" daughter. "Tune in, turn on, and drop out," might have been the advice of Timothy O'Leary, but what about the damage that leaves behind?
In this embracing and perceptive novel, Anne Tyler captures the nuances of everyday life with such telling precision that every page brings nods of recognition.
Michael & Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good looking, made for each other. The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in the Polish quarter of Balitmore, he was smitten. And in the heat of WW II fervour, they marry in haste. In this achingly poingnant & unforgettable novel Tyler turns marriage inside out, to show us how attitudes trickle down the generations & marriage moulds its partners, for better or worse.
Some parts might be "R" rated!
Great writing. Typical of Tyler - always a bit depressing.
Very good book about a marriage over many years.
Another fast, good read from Tyler.
I usually love Anne Tyler's novels, but this one left me lukewarm. Although it is, like her other novels, thoughtful and well written, I didn't get much from it. The characters live, age, etc. Huh.
After reading it, I learned that Tyler had intended to keep writing this book for her entire life, weaving new parts of the family into it and extending it back in time. She saw it as a work without an ending. This helps explain the lack of structure. Also, I'm not sure that this kind of work qualifies as a novel? Either way, it was lovely but totally missable.
From the very beginning, everyone who knew Michael and Pauline could tell that they were absolutely meant to be together. As a couple, they seemed to be perfectly matched: young, good-looking, made for each other. As a matter of fact, their first meeting with each other seemed to be almost like a scene from a romantic novel or some old Hollywood movie.
The moment Pauline - a stranger to the Polish neighborhood of Eastern Avenue in Baltimore, even though she lived only twenty minutes away - walked into his mother's grocery store, Michael is completely smitten. Pauline steps into the store as a damsel in distress, and Michael becomes her hero. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty marriage. Yet, this is definitely a couple who never should have married.
Pauline, impulsive and impractical, tumbles headlong through life and takes to marriage in a relatively hit-or-miss fashion. Michael, serious and deliberate all throughout his life, proceeds into marriage in exactly the same precise and measured way - dealing with Pauline and her various issues in a fairly judgemental and predictable fashion. And, in time - while other young married couples who were equally as inept from the beginning seemed to grow more seasoned and settled in their own marriages - both Michael and Pauline remained amateurs. Over time, the couple's foolish and petty quarrels inevitably take their toll.
Even when they find themselves - almost three decades later - loving, instant parents to their little three-year-old grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, Michael and Pauline still seem unable to bridge the cavernous distance created by their deep-rooted differences. For flighty Pauline - who clings to the notion that given enough time, all things wrong can be made right again - the rifts in their marriage can always be patched. Yet to the unyielding Michael, their differences have become unbearable.
I must say that I absolutely loved reading this book. In my opinion, Anne Tyler is thoughtful and measured in her writing style; deeply invested in the development of her characters and plots. She is actually a tremendous writer.
I am always amazed at how easily I can get lost in her stories. To me, they never seem forced or disjointed. This book was equally as easy to read and to get lost in; there was a poignancy and a realistic quality to this plot that I thoroughly enjoyed. I give this book an A+!
Thoroughly enjoyable. Characters are staying with me - I keep thinking about them.
Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage is not so much a novel as a really long argument. Michael is a good boy from a Polish neighborhood in Baltimore; Pauline is a harum-scarum, bright-cheeked girl who blows into Michael's family's grocery store at the outset of World War II. She appears with a bloodied brow, supported by a gaggle of girlfriends. Michael patches her up, and neither of them are ever the same. Well, not the same as they were before, but pretty much the same as everyone else. After the war, they live over the shop with Michael's mother till they've saved enough to move to the suburbs. There they remain with their three children, until the onset of the sixties, when their eldest daughter runs away to San Francisco. Their marriage survives for a while, finally crumbling in the seventies.