I've loved Anne Tyler for forever. I assigned her Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant to the first freshman comp. class I taught in grad school. I've read a handful of her books at least two or three times each, and I'm pretty sure I've read every one of them at least once. I think Tyler is almost always at least pretty good, but she is only sporadically wonderful. The aforementioned Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, probably Celestial Navigation...I would put all of those in the "wonderful" category. And then there are others that stick with me and that I'm especially fond of like Searching For Caleb. And then there are some that I am, for whatever reason, not as personally charmed by, but that I recognize as impressive, ambitious achievements nonetheless (The Amateur Marriage, Back When We Were Grownups). So I'll just say it right off: Noah's Compass hasn't earned a spot in any of those categories. The protagonist, Liam Pennywell, is a 60 year old man with two failed marriages and three daughters whom he barely really knows. As the book opens, he's just lost his unimpressive, unfulfilling teaching job and is moving into a small apartment. He's attacked by a burglar his first night in the new apartment, and wakes up in a hospital, unable to remember anything about the attack. He becomes obsessed with regaining his memory, and this obsession leads, in a convoluted (some would say contrived) way to a relationship with a woman more than 20 years younger than he--one of Tyler's quirky women, this one named Eunice. It's hard not to read Noah's Compass as a sort of poor man's Accidental Tourist. We have the same sad, detached male protagonist, hoping to find redemption in the form of an offbeat woman. Tyler even gives us the same line about how love makes someone's flaws seem endearing. But Eunice's flaws never really do seem particularly endearing (she's no Muriel Pritchett), and her relationship with Liam never feels quite real. This was another audiobook, and the guy reading this one nearly drove me crazy. He sounded to be at least Liam's age, if not a good bit older, so it wasn't so bad when he was reading Liam's thoughts and words. But he gave most of the female characters grating, slightly cartoonish voices, and he read at a snail's pace. I won't say I didn't enjoy the book well enough, because I find Tyler endearing even at her worst, but I suspect this one will slip out of my mind in fairly short order. The ending still has me thinking, though. There's an almost frustrating lack of space oftentimes between Tyler's happy and sad endings. Or I guess between her hopeful and despairing endings. I remember reading an interview with her once in which she expressed amazement that many readers read the ending of The Clockwinder as happy when she thought it was so clearly not. I knew Noah's Compass was about to end, of course, but about 10 minutes out I started wondering how she was going to manage to finish it up with so little time. I don't know that the ending was unsatisfying, exactly, but it didn't really end up where I expected. Cryptic enough, yes? No spoilers! (because, after such a glowing review, I know everyone will be rushing out to read it).
My goal for next week is to read a book I unequivocally like!
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