by Anne Tyler. "In the sixty-first year of his life, Liam Pennywell lost his job." Echoing loudly the cadences of biblical prose, Tyler's opening sentence portends Liam's ominous downward spiral. Soon after he's forced into early retirement from a second-rate private boy's school, Liam moves to a smaller apartment. Once unpacked, he lies down to sleep and wakes up the next morning, head sore and bandaged, in the hospital. With no recollection about how he ended up there, Liam wanders through his days searching, much like Noah scanning the desolate waters for land. Along the way, he meets Eunice, who cannot prod his memory of that night but does stir some of Liam's other long-forgotten feelings. Working at her characteristically leisurely pace, Tyler poignantly portrays one man's search for wholeness and redemption as he picks up the shards of a life shattered by the crashing waves of aging. Unlike similar Updike and Roth characters, who worry more about their inability to perform sexual athletics any longer, Tyler's character struggles with the visceral loss of identity brought on by forced retirement and the indignities of memory loss. Verdict Another winning effort by Tyler; for readers of Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest and early Tyler novels such as Dinner at Homesick Restaurant. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Noah's compass : a novel
by Anne Tyler. "In the sixty-first year of his life, Liam Pennywell lost his job." Echoing loudly the cadences of biblical prose, Tyler's opening sentence portends Liam's ominous downward spiral. Soon after he's forced into early retirement from a second-rate private boy's school, Liam moves to a smaller apartment. Once unpacked, he lies down to sleep and wakes up the next morning, head sore and bandaged, in the hospital. With no recollection about how he ended up there, Liam wanders through his days searching, much like Noah scanning the desolate waters for land. Along the way, he meets Eunice, who cannot prod his memory of that night but does stir some of Liam's other long-forgotten feelings. Working at her characteristically leisurely pace, Tyler poignantly portrays one man's search for wholeness and redemption as he picks up the shards of a life shattered by the crashing waves of aging. Unlike similar Updike and Roth characters, who worry more about their inability to perform sexual athletics any longer, Tyler's character struggles with the visceral loss of identity brought on by forced retirement and the indignities of memory loss. Verdict Another winning effort by Tyler; for readers of Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest and early Tyler novels such as Dinner at Homesick Restaurant. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)
