Anne Tyler, Close-Up Artist, Takes Away for Family Friction Novel


The novel’s emotional crescendo comes in at Robin and Mercy’s 50th anniversary party. (Twenty years after she moved in, they still haven’t told the kids.) Watching home movies with her disconnected, mute thoughts, Robin says: “Was there some kind of limit to how long a scene could be in those days? last? Each one was very short. … Fluffy! And then goodbye. Congrats to all of them. … He flew too fast, he thought as the screen went black. And he didn’t just mean the movie.”

“The French Braid” is a novel about what is left to us, when all the choices are made, when the children grow up, dreams come true or abandoned are remembered. It is a moving meditation on the passage of time.

The novel ends on a poignant note as the now retired David unexpectedly drowns in family closeness when his son moves in with him during the pandemic. In his 5-year-old granddaughter, Garrett is surprised to discover the characteristics of his family. “This is how David’s father would raise his shoulders whenever he was intent on a mission—a man Benny had never seen.” This leads her to remember the French braids her daughter wore as a child: “Her hair would still be wavy when she unwrapped them.”

David tells his wife: “That’s how families work. You think you got rid of them but never really Free; ripples bend forever.”

It’s the turn of old Tyler: an enlightenment that will surprise no one, a clever restatement of conventional wisdom that confirms what we already believe. That’s why some (mostly male) critics have emotionally dismissed her work—the hallmark of the genre known as “female fiction.” It’s a publishing euphemism that carries more than a stench of misogyny, implying that fiction written by and about women is by definition less than literature – heartwarming rather than cerebral, reassuring rather than defiant. Of course, Tyler has occasionally fallen into these traps throughout his long career. (To see “A Patched Planet.”) But the “French Braid” is the opposite of reassuring. The novel is filled with a kind of old-school feminism that is now outdated. She looks directly at the consequences of her repressed female ambition – the woman herself and those in her orbit.

For all its charm, “The French Braid” is a quietly subversive novel that tackles key assumptions about femininity, motherhood, and women’s aging. Contrary to the message of thousands of self-help books, Mercy’s efforts to launch a career in midlife are fruitless. It advertises its services in neighborhood grocers and on laundry notice boards: “Let a Professional Artist Paint a Portrait of Your House.” After all her years as a housewife, her only subject is home life.

Grieving the lost possibilities in Mercy’s life, Tyler targets an emotional metaphor embedded deep within American culture. Despite this, the feminist movement (not to mention “female fiction”) still clings to the notion of motherhood as the ultimate emotional gratification, the grand and crowning gratification of a woman’s life. This is not the case for Mercy Garrett.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *