Of course she looked natural why not, when she went through life looking dead?Īmanda, though a nasty piece of work, does help to give us the outsider view – the context or environment where Tyler allows her two off-the-wall characters, Jeremy and Mary, to live – and we’re going to need that as the worlds of Mary and Jeremy are either offbeat or distinctly strange, in Jeremy’s case.
You hear people say at funerals, “How natural she looks! As though she were asleep.” And most of the time they are telling a falsehood, but in Mother’s case, it was absolutely true. I particularly loved the fact that Tyler had the courage to start off the novel with a family funeral and, far more importantly, with Amanda, Jeremy’s sister, who’s not a nice character at all, but who says some very rich and humorous things: That said, there are lighter moments of pleasure in this multi-viewpoint book which are also well worth reading. After all, I thought Love Story was funny but this is really not. It’s powerful stuff, and I’m not usually one to weep, which just goes to show how darn powerful it is. Usually Tyler gives us some brightness and hope, but here she lets the difficulties and unhappy moments of life have their say, to the fullest effect.
I also have to say that it’s one of the most devastating and probably the best of the Anne Tyler novels I’ve read and I was weeping like a child at one or two moments throughout the story and then again at the end. This is a quiet and lyrical novel which crept up on me and simply wouldn’t let go. So, when his new lodger, Mary Tell, arrives, Jeremy is faced with a challenge he really can’t handle … Jeremy Pauling is a bachelor with a passion for making sculptures out of odds and ends, and a terror of beautiful women. Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler – of lyricism and life
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