Cornflower Book Group - Breathing Lessons

     Oh, what a sad book this is!

     Though very different in period, content and style, Breathing Lessons reminded me strongly of Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan, which evoked the same emotional response. For instance, I wrote that the latter was "a story full of compromise and disaffection, charting a mother's selflessness and what she is left with when her children are grown and have to live with their own ill-advised choices." Anne Tyler's book is also about expectations, ambitions, disappointments and chances thrown away, but unlike the Cannan, it's bittersweet and at times very funny. 

    Early on, Maggie, with typically straightforward - almost innocent - candour, relates the incident where her daughter Daisy asks, "Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to settle for being ordinary?", and it's the 'settling for' and the being 'ordinary', that's at the heart of this poignant, very skillfully told story. 

   Anne Tyler is adept at describing the internal by way of the external and of relating emotions on the grand scale to domestic details - "She seemed to have fallen in love again. In love with her own husband! The convenience of it pleased her - like finding right in her pantry all the fixings needed for a new recipe", and there again is evidence of this 'scaling down' of life's big moments, while the aspirations, at some level, remain.

    And the well-intentioned but incorrigible Maggie, a good but exhausting person, interfering in people's lives, trying to alter them, offering much that sits there, unwanted, until at the end of the book she sees with dispiriting clarity: "... a sudden view of her life as circular. It forever repeated itself and it was entirely lacking in hope."

    Fifty or sixty years from now, if Persephone Books are still going, Breathing Lessons would surely be a candidate for their list. It is a clear-sighted, intimate and lucid exposition of what can be the predicament of the wife and mother who just wants 'the best' for their loved ones, and social commentary apart, it's a very fluent, well-constructed piece, and an honest, revealing portrait of its subject.

    What did you think of it?

Comments

[Barbara MacLeod]

I feel a bit like the after-dinner speaker Willie McCulloch who (in the 1920s) travelled in Scotland reciting his monologues, one of which was entitled 'The Presentation of the Prizes'. One of his stories is of a local worthy at the golf club prize-giving who confessed: "I only played golf wonst. Afterwards I was taken out for dinner. And ladies and gentlemen, I enjoyed my dinner very much."

Well, I read 'Breathing Lessons' wonst - I persevered to the end - and, afterwards, went on to read Alexander McCall-Smith's 'The Sunday Philosophy Club' ... And, ladies and gentlemen, I enjoyed McCall-Smith very much.

'Breathing Lessons' is about (a) dysfunctional family and (b) a women who lies...well, tells stories.... The writing was well done; it was the content that made it quite depressing. It was drip-drip-drip all the way! Phew! As Schiller said "Against stupidity, even the gods struggle in vain!"

The trouble is that a story, a novel, for me must be something more than a mere telling of events, albeit ever so well done, hopefully be enlightening, i.e. show insight, and bring something new to the experience, e.g. see things in a new way. This book failed on both counts.

Maggie certainly was a great one for telling stories, basically, lies of many varieties, as she meddled and annoyed family members. Now, that is where, for me, the book could have done with the McCall-Smith Touch. There was plenty of substance here; it needed weight.

Both authors have the main protaganist as a woman who sticks her nose into other people's business. AMS's style is to pose a question in response to a point in the story which, let's say, in Maggie's case, has to do with lying. In 'The Sunday Philosophy Club', (Little Brown, 2004) he mentions public people, politicians - look at the lies they tell. One sees it more and more; it starts to become standard practice in society. He will develop this: "People have lost their moral compass." But then, there are lies and lies. "Not all lies are wrong...." and gives examples. "The answer is, surely, that lying in general is wrong, but that some lies, carefully identified as the exception, will be permissible. There were, therefore, good lies and bad lies...." But, he poses: was it so simple? "If one became accustomed to lying in such circumstances, the line between truth and falsehood could become blurred." Maggie exactly. This extra aspect in the writing really keeps me reading and thinking and hence is the source of my pleasure. Or put it another way, without this bit of weight I would quickly cast the book aside.

Redeeming qualities? I laughed out loud at the bit about Ira lending Fiona his Mariner's Library books [which were] "a whole row of memoirs of people who had sailed alone around the world and such...."As far as I'm concerned", Fiona told Maggie "those books are just more of that 'How I took Route So-and-so' that men always think is so fascinating." " Spot on!

Finally, this is a prize-winning book. M-m-m-m I think I'll let that go but what really irritates me is that my copy (Vintage 1992) has typos or maybe they are called printing errors, by that I mean missing full stops (e.g. 2 on page 65).

[Susie Vereker]

I enjoyed this very much too, Karen, though at one point I thought I was tired of the exhaustingly naïve and interfering Maggie. The author makes us recognise her kind-heartedness, but I’d hate to spend a real day in her company myself. Despite his constant games of solitaire, I felt some sympathy with the patient Ira until, at the end, he told his son he was useless in front of Fiona and the child. His excessive truthfulness seems to do more harm than Maggie’s well-meaning lies.

I particularly admire the way Anne Tyler writes in the third person as if she’s writing in the first - brilliant inner dialogue. And it is impressive that, in writing about seemingly ordinary people, she holds our attention for so long, though I found the novel sad, irritating or amusing rather than uproariously funny. (I worry a lot – for example I don’t think they should have been driving interstate without a spare tyre! And the funeral sex scene stretched my credulity.)
But thanks for recommending it - am now re-reading another Anne Packer.

[Dark Puss]

I think I was reading a different book from Cornflower, except that I agree with the comment about sadness. Maggie, and indeed Ira, are disfunctional, and I think that disfunctionality is well described. Barbara MacLeod puts the case against this book very well; having in 50 pages defined the characters the author should have done something rather more interesting than spend the remaining 270 in more of the same. I found myself mentally shouting "I get the point now move on!" I hasten to add that I'm not suggesting it should then turn into an all-action adventure, but that the reader should be more engaged, more challenged, more captivated if you will. I didn't detect the humour that Cornflower notes, either because I felt it was forced, or because it was so entangled with the blindness that the main characters had for the enveloping tragedy of their actions. I certainly did not feel Maggie was well intentioned, she was selfish in always wanting other people's lives to turn out as she wished. For me this was the tragedy of the story that Maggie never ever wanted people to grow up, she infantilises them and does not realise, possibly at heart doesn't care, how this can hurt, frustrate or alienate people she loves.

If this is Anne Tyler at her prize-winning best then I am not tempted to read any of her other books (unless they appear on CBG of course!).

[Cornflower]

Susie, just by way of an aside, your comment about Maggie reminded me of a incident related in Jenny Hartley's book "Reading Groups". In America there are paid(!) book group leaders, and one such who calls herself a "book enhancinator" is called into groups on an occasional basis to help get more out of challenging books or just to liven things up a bit. Sometimes she appears in role, and she did so for Breathing Lessons:
"Someone recently confessed to me that when I arrived to do a dramatic review as Maggie....dressed in a polyester dress and a little hat with a veil that I had found at a rummage sale, she thought I must be a new member of the group. She said that she felt genuinely sorry for anyone who would dress like that. She was relieved when I was introduced as the book reviewer and discovered I was in costume".
Lest this be mistaken for snobbishness, I think it does contribute to the summing up of the character.

[adele geras]

I must confess to not having had time to reread this for the group, but it's a book I liked enormously when I did read it. I think that what I liked about it was precisely what other people didn't so much enjoy. No one is as good as Anne T for throwing you in at the deep end of all kinds of family life and I just feel, whenever I read her books, that I am part of a more or less disfunctional/ordinary/annoying/endearing/entertaining and yes, also SAD family. There IS a lot of sadness in her books but also humour. A bit like life, no? And I thoroughly agree about the first person in a third person narrative. I like that style ever so much better than the continuous present first person that many novels seem these days to be written in.

[Dark Puss]

Name your price; I am very happy to contribute dear book group leader!

[Harriet]

Like Adele I am afraid I have not re-read this. I am a huge fan of Anne Tyler though this is not my favorite -- that would be The Patchwork Planet closely followed by The Accidental Tourist. I love the way she manages to be both sad and funny, and how she sees so wonderfully perceptively into people's hearts and mind, and how brilliantly she analyses relationships, generally unsatisfactory ones. Dark Puss, it would be sad if you did not try another! And by the way this one appears in today's Guardian list of 1000 essential books, as does The Accidental Tourist.

[Rebecca]

Many of the comment completely enforce what I felt about the book--that it's sad and depressing, even though Tyler's wonderful zingers of description leaven it a bit. Maybe "disheartening" is the best word: it seems to show us in an almost first-person way (Susie's point; very well put!) all of Maggie's excuses and weaknesses, but then moves outwards to show us how those characteristics hurt other people, along with Maggie's complete lack of change. It seems to me that if someone were aware of the damage she was doing in the way the narrative shows, she would work to alter it! The impact on Leroy (the granddaughter; I've returned the library copy so I may be wrong on the name) is the most unforgivable, I think.

This is the novel that derailed my resolution to read all of Anne Tyler a few years ago. In the depths of winter in New England it was just too much--echoes of Ethan Frome and lives of endless repetition! HOWEVER, I do love Tyler's Accidental Tourist, in which the vagaries of human life and love manage to resolve themselves a bit more hopefully. If anyone is intrigued by Tyler and has only read BL, I'd recommend Accidental Tourist next. Patchwork Planet is another of hers that my husband and I both enjoyed.

--Editor's note: I keep rereading my opening paragraph and all I can say is that I have a bad head cold and it seems to have muddied my diction. My apologies.

[Dark Puss]

Dear Harriet, I have today's Guardian but have not yet got to read much of it, so thank you for your comment. I'll take your advice to read Accidental Tourist or Patchwork Planet, but I do hope they are significantly better books!

Reflecting on the comments, and my own views, as I went to my flute lesson this afternoon I think this story might have worked much better for me if it had been a "short story" of 100 pages. I still feel that they way the idea was developed was just not sustainable over a book of three times that length.

[fiberjoy.wordpress.com]

I've not yet finished with Breathing Lessons and have almost abandoned it due to Maggie.

Perhaps it's the timing, I might have enjoyed it 20 years ago but currently I don't have patience for people who are harebrained busybodies. Having watched - and enduring some of the fallout - in the past few years as a couple different families were destroyed by women similar to Maggie has me wanting to keep them at a long arm's length. From the very first I hoped Maggie's silly thoughts and actions were to be chalked up to one of those days we all experience but, no, this is who she is. Beware the marshmallow person with little common sense and a need to be in everyone's lives. Whew! Sorry I'm so uncharitable and harsh.

[litlove]

I'm not part of the book group, but I very much enjoyed this novel when I read it many years ago, and it's been lovely reading everyone's reviews and recalling the book in my mind!

[GeraniumCat]

Every few years I re-read The Accidental Tourist - a book I find immensely satisfying - but I can't imagine ever wanting to return to Maggie's company! I actually quite enjoyed Breathing Lessons, though I found it sad and inclined to make me brood on the compromises and dissatisfactions of relationships, but by the end I despaired of Maggie's inability to learn from the results of her interference, her readiness to try to mould the lives of others. I very much liked the way in which we are from the start caught up in Maggie's interior life and, at this point our sympathies are largely with her, and then, when the viewpoint changes to Ira's we begin to see the extent of her faults more clearly. But I agree with Dark Puss that it goes on too long after we've got the point, and I was very depressed by Ira's relationship with Jesse, which seemed more negative than it should have been even allowing for the dysfunctionality of the family.

I was going to agree that the "sex at the funeral" scene stretched credulity, but on reflection I think that Maggie is so incapable of seeing anything from anyone else's point of view that it is plausible.

And that, I think is the focus of my feelings about this book: I started out being amused by a poignant story of a good but interfering woman, but ended up full of distaste for a person who meddles so relentlessly and with so little empathy that she leaves a trail of damaged lives behind her:

"She had simply felt as if the world were the tiniest bit out of focus, the colours not quite within the lines...and if she made the smallest adjustment then everything would settle prefectly into place."

And you know that the next time Maggie feels like that, she'll act without any consideration for anything but her own wishes.

[Mr Cornflower]

What a curious experience - I feel as if I've just watched an episode of the Simpsons guest-written by John Updike. As a result I can't decide whether this is a rich, warts and all parable of existential angst in middle America, or a sequence of hit and miss tragi-comic episodes. But it's interesting that even those who didn't rate the book highly found Maggie a sufficiently credible character to spend a lot of energy denouncing her faults, which is a compliment of sorts.
The most enjoyable part of the book for some members of the Cornflower family was the Ritz cracker apple pie!

[Susie Vereker]

Re the first comment, I like amd admire Alexander McCall Smith but I never find myself becoming much involved with his characters. It's more his ideas that are interesting, his backgrounds and his comedy. Admittedly I haven't read many of his books.

In my opinion, he and Anne Tyler don't have much in common, so I wouldn't think of comparing them. I'm always emotionally involved with AT's characters, even the dread Maggie. I'm reading Patchwork Planet at the moment and am all for Barnaby. Hope he doesn't let me down.
(Fascinated by the fancy dress Book Club lady, Cornflower. Will we have to dress up for the next one?)

[GeraniumCat]

I meant to add that, by chance, I was halfway through Princes in the Land when I read Cornflower's comments on the similarity between the two books. I hadn't really thought about it until then, because the periods and settings were so different, but I read the remainder being very conscious of it. I liked Joanna Cannan's book rather better than Breathing Lessons.

[Simon S]

Apologies this is so late my internet just wouldnt let me leave comments for ages on any blogs, odd. So Breathing Lessons...

Loved the style of writing thought the way Anne Tyler can write in third person yet put across the internal dialogue of the characters was great. I sadly didnt like the characters very much though. I didnt mind Maggie I just thought she had some serious self esteem issues from her looks to her family perceptions of her and her interferring was her way of coping. She actually reminded me of someone in my imediate family. I simply didnt understand what she saw in Ira and why they were together.

I really like Anne Tyler from the two I have read (the other was Digging To America) and though I gather this wasnt her best book from other members of the group I didnt think it was a bad one. And as for winning the Pulitzer, hmmmm, it was twenty years ago and yet the book felt it could have been written last week if you know what I mean. I laughed in places too for the others that did.