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I thought of this while reading Anne Tyler's 18th novel, Noah's Compass, an offbeat, bittersweet love story about life's missed opportunities, because Tyler is a champion of the so-called loser. With the notable exception of her last novel, Digging to America, which dealt with issues of immigration and American identity, Tyler's focus has been on awkward, shy, lonely, often mismatched people, mostly residents of Baltimore, who all become remarkable and uncommonly sympathetic under her wry but gentle scrutiny.
Whether she's considering the conflict between domesticity and freedom or tracking a single day in the life of a couple who love each other through 28 years of basic incompatibility -- as she did in her 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner, Breathing Lessons -- a central element of many Tyler novels is her characters' unsettling realization that their life hasn't gone the way they had hoped. It is not uncommon for a Tyler character to not just think about the road not taken but to veer off track and take it. In her ninth novel, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, (1982) Beck Tull deserts his wife and three children. In her 13th, Ladder of Years, (1995), Tyler's 40-year-old heroine walks away from her husband and three children while on vacation. Back When We Were Grownups opens with the line, "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."
Noah's Compass is about a man who has somehow lived the wrong life because he never fully engaged with anything or anyone. When Liam Pennywell, a schoolteacher, is forced into early retirement at 60, it propels him in new, not altogether comfortable directions. Look how easy it is to slip into an Anne Tyler novel:
Note that colloquial, good-natured, tone-setting "anyhow" and "Oh, don't ask." They alert us that this guy, Liam Pennywell, is not a fighter but rather iseasily resigned, passive, even fatalistic -- a characterization Tyler reinforces in all that follows. He's a man with "a fondness for routine" whose "policy [is] not to argue. (An infuriating policy, his daughters always claimed.)"In the sixty-first year of his life, Liam Pennywell lost his job.
It wasn't such a good job, anyhow. He'd been teaching fifth grade in a second-rate private boys' school. Fifth grade wasn't even what he'd been trained for. Teaching wasn't what he'd been trained for. His degree was in philosophy. Oh, don't ask.
After getting the axe at work, Liam enthusiastically takes a hatchet to his expenses, downsizing his very existence: "It could be just the nudge he needed to push him on to the next stage -- the final stage, the summing-up stage." His new apartment, across the highway from a mall, is barebones and charmless, but he settles in contentedly for the first night of the rest of his life there. When he wakes up in a hospital "with a helmet of gauze on his head," he's as mystified as we are, and Tyler has us totally hooked.
Liam has no recollection of how he landed in the hospital, and this memory gap -- more than the loss of his job, more than the loss of his first wife to postpartum depression and his second to divorce, more than the loss of connection with his three daughters -- is what finally makes him feel out of control. It also leads to a harsh reassessment of his past:
How could he have ended up so alone? Two failed marriages (for he had to count Millie's death as a failure), three daughters who led their own lives, and a sister he seldom spoke to. The merest handful of friends -- more like acquaintances, really. A promising youth that had somehow trailed off in a series of low-paying jobs far beneath his qualifications. Why, that last job had used about 10 percent of his brain!Note how the exclamation point deftly expresses Liam's exasperation but lack of real anger.
Gradually, we watch his narrowly circumscribed life expand -- though with minimal encouragement or effort on his part. His flaky 17-year-old daughter, Kitty, comes to live with him to escape her overly restrictive mother, Barbara, whom she describes as "this, like rule-monger. Nit-picker." His fundamentalist Christian middle daughter periodically drops off his somber grandson, Jonah, with a coloring book of Bible stories. Discussing Noah and his Ark, Liam explains that Noah didn't need sails or a compass because he wasn't going anywhere but was just trying to stay afloat. The parallel with Liam, bobbing rudderless in the sea of his life, is beautifully implied.
An unlikely life preserver and soul mate surfaces in the form of Eunice Dunstead. Obsessed with his missing memory, Liam is first drawn to Eunice because of her job as a personal assistant who serves as a sort of "hired rememberer" or "external hard drive" for a successful developer who's losing his power of recall. Despite being "plump and frizzy-haired and bespectacled, dumpily dressed, bizarrely jeweled, too young for him and too earnest," Eunice is increasingly beguiling to him as they connect.
With delightful, comic precision that is reminiscent of an Alan Ayckbourn farce, Tyler orchestrates the giddy comings and goings of Liam's outspokenly critical daughters, ex-wife, and sister, all of whom think he's a hopeless loser, as they repeatedly interrupt his improbable budding romance. Even in less antic, more somber moments, she maintains a light touch and captures the texture of family interactions with vivid details.
Yet just when we're cueing in my mother's "I know there's a god," Tyler pulls a fast one on us. It turns out she's more interested in the ramifications of broken marriages -- Liam's, and his parents' -- than in the happily-ever-after. Are we surprised? We shouldn't be. The absent parent and the question of whether one person's happiness justifies hurting another have been recurrent themes in her fiction. Noah's Compass is yet another reminder that we should never, ever underestimate Anne Tyler: she's nimble, she's wise, and she's as deep as those biblical floodwaters. --Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New Yorkbased book critic whose reviews appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.
Tyler's work is characterized by a meticulous attention to detail, a genuine love of her characters, and a quirky sense of humor. Her public persona is characterized by its own quirks, as well. She refuses to grant face-to-face interviews. She has never publicly read from any of her books. She does not do book signings or tours. All of this has lent a certain mystique to her novels, although Tyler has said that her reluctance to become a public figure status is actually the result of simple shyness, not to mention her desire for her writing to speak for itself. Fortunately, Anne Tyler's work speaks with a clear, fully-realized voice that does not require unnecessary elucidation by the writer.
Tyler published her first novel If Morning Ever Comes in 1964, and that singular voice was already in place. This astute debut that tracks the self-realization of a young man named Ben Joe Hawkins displayed Tyler's characteristic wit and gentle eccentricity right off the bat. Harper's declared the novel "a triumph," and Tyler was on her way to creating an impressive catalog of novels chronicling the every day hopes, fears, dreams, failures, and victories of small-town Americans. Having come of age, herself, in rural North Carolina, Tyler had particular insight into the lives of her characters. Each novel was a little shimmering gem, winning her a devoted following and public accolades that more than compensated for her refusal to appear in public. Her novel Earthly Possessions, the story of a housewife who is taken hostage by a young man during a bank robbery, was released the same year she won an award for "literary excellence and promise of important work to come" from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. The book also went on to become a television movie starring Susan Sarandon and Stephen Dorff in 1999.
However, the most well-known adaptation of one of Tyler's novels arrived more than a decade earlier when The Accidental Tourist was made into an Academy Award winning film starring Geena Davis and William Hurt. Consequently, The Accidental Tourist is viewed by some as Tyler's signature novel, covering many of the writer's favorite themes: the push and pull of marriage, the appearance of a romantic eccentric, personal tragedy, and the quest to escape from the drudgery of routine. The Accidental Tourist won the National Book Critics Circle Award and hit number one on The New York Times Bestseller list.
Three years later, Tyler received the Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons, which further explored themes of marriage and self-examination. Despite having won the prestigious Pulitzer, Tyler still refused to allow herself to be drawn into the spotlight. Quietly, contemplatively, she chose to continue publishing a sequence of uniformly fine novels, including Saint Maybe, Ladder of Years, and The Amateur Marriage.
Anne Tyler's novel Digging to America reexamines many of her chief obsessions, while also possibly drawing upon a personal triumph -- her marriage to Iranian psychiatrist and novelist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi -- and the tragedy of his death in 1997. Digging to America follows the relationship between two families, the Iranian Yazdans and the all-American Donaldsons, as they become closer and closer and affect each other deeper and deeper over a succession of years. Digging to America is arguably Tyler's deepest and most profound work to date. It also delivers more of her peculiar brand of humor, which will surely please her longtime fans, thrilled that she continues spinning tales with the trademark attention to character that has distinguished her stories ever since she was a little girl, whispering to herself in the dark. Tyler may have decided to remain in the dark and out of the public eye, but the stories she has to tell have shed more than their share of light on the lives of her readers.
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Noah’s Compass, Anne Tyler’s subtle, deeply empathetic, and richly rewarding new novel.
1. When Anne Tyler was just starting to write Noah’s Compass, a journalist asked her what it was about. She replied, “I’d like to write about a man who feels he has nothing more to expect from his life; but it’s anybody’s guess what the real subject will turn out to be in the end.” Did that turn out to be the real subject of the book?
2. What does the title mean?
3. After reading the first chapter, did you have any idea where the story would lead?
4. On page 26, Tyler writes, “The distressing thing about losing a memory, he thought, was that it felt like losing control.” Why is Liam so interested in control?
5. Is this really the first memory he’s lost?
6. At the top of page 49, Liam thinks about his true self, and how it seemed to have disappeared after the incident. What does Liam consider to be his “true self”? Is he right?
7. Why does Liam become so obsessed with Ishmael Cope?
8. Discuss Liam’s attitude toward women. Does he treat his blood relatives differently from Barbara and Eunice? Why or why not?
9. Why does Liam’s initial impression of Eunice transform into something completely different? Why does he keep their relationship a secret from his daughters?
10. What does religion represent in the novel?
11. On page 186, Eunice insists, “I’m not . . . devious, Liam!” What does she mean by this? Does she actually believe it?
12. What does the palm-reading scene on page 204–5 tell us about Liam? What point is Tyler making?
13. Reread Barbara’s description of Liam on page 224. Is it accurate? Whyor why not?
14. Ultimately, why does Liam turn Eunice away, soon after telling her, “You’re the woman I love, and life is too short to go through it without you!” (page 230)?
15. When does Liam stop wishing he could remember the break-in? Why?
16. On page 243 Liam wonders, “Why was it that he had known so many sad women?” How would you answer this question?
17. What is the meaning of the Epictetus quote on page 266? What does Liam intend by reciting it?
18. Discuss the ending. Is Liam happy?
In a set of email conversations that took place in December 2009, Tyler discussed her fear of memory loss (a theme in her new book), her labor-intensive style of writing -- it includes a tape recorder and multiple handwritten drafts -- and why she wishes you wouldn't read her first four novels. --Cameron Martin
Barnes & Noble Review: In the beginning of Noah's Compass, the protagonist, Liam Pennywell, is assaultedduring a home break-in and loses his memory of the event. For a time, he'sconsumed by this gap in his life. What was the inspiration for this conceit and forthe focus on memory? Do you think you'd be more or less concerned aboutlosing a memory such as this? Or is Liam's experience the relative equivalent ofhow you think you'd handle that?
Anne Tyler: One night after I'd gone to bedI heard the house creaking downstairs, but I was too sleepy to investigate. Then I started thinking about how if it were a burglar intent on beaning me, I wouldn't know anyway till I woke up the next morning. And so: no psychological trauma! Except I'd probably try for days to figure out what had happened. (Though perhaps not for as many days as Liam.)
Why that thought gave birth to a whole novel,I'm not sure. I do know thatI have been fascinated by the subject of memory all my life. Now that I'm in my sixties, with instances of Alzheimer's disease on both sides of my family, my biggest fear is that I'll end up with no memory whatsoever. Yet I agree with Liam that there is such a thing as remembering too much, and I half admire his resolute refusal to dwell on his past.
BNR: Before he became a school teacher, Liam had trained to be a philosopher, andit's mentioned that he's fond of Epictetus and Arrian. If you had to boil it downto a few key tenets, what's Liam's philosophy on life? And how successful is heat adhering to his beliefs?
AT: I suspect that Liam would be uncomfortable at the thought of spelling out his specific philosophy of life. I chose Epictetus and Arrian as his favorites for a most literal reason: they were Stoics, and Liam is, in another sense of the word, a stoic himself.
I do think he is an honorable man-as shown by his decision toward the end of the book. The "compass" of the title is a moral one, as well as a physical one.
BNR: The book is told from the third-person point of view, hewing closely to Liam's perspective. Atwhat stage of the writing did you settle on this POV -- as opposed to the first person, which you've employed in other works? Isit more fun to write from a male angle? More taxing?
AT: Point of view is not something I consciously decide. Almost always, when I come up with a plot I find that the point of view has automatically arrived with it, part and parcel of the story.
The first-person viewpoint is more enjoyable to write, because it lets me meander more freely, and it can reveal more of the character's self-delusions. Really all the advantages are with first-person, so I'm sorry I don't get to pick and choose.
There's surprisingly little difference between writing from a male angle and from a female angle, but I feel more restricted in my language when I'm writing as a male character because males tend to sound less emotionally expressive than females.
BNR: Has this attitude toward point of view -- that it comes part and parcel with the character -- always been thecase, even with your earliest novels? Or was it an observation you arrived atonly after a lot of hand-wringing with a particular work?
AT: Yes, as far as I can remember that has always been the case.
I have to work doggedly for my plots, but then a few days after I've figured one out, the first sentence will simply float into my hearing. ForA Patchwork Planet:"I am a man you can trust." Or for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant:"While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her." That's how I learn what the viewpoint should be.
BNR: The title of the book, Noah's Compass, refers to the Biblical character whobuilt the ark and survived thegreat flood. At one point in the creative process did you settle on the title? Wereother titles considered? In your experience (18 novels), how much influencedoes the title of a book (and when you pick it) have on the finished product?
AT: Thetitle evolved organically. Liam and his small grandson were discussing the Bible story and they just grabbed the conversation away from me, as characters sometimes do, and came up with the reference to Noah's lack of a clear destination. It seemed appropriate to Liam's own situation; so that was it, and I didn't look any further.
Titles are hugely important to me, but they arrive in all sorts of ways. Celestial Navigation existedbefore the book did, and the book was cooked up to go with it. I was dissatisfied withThe Accidental Tourist as a title-itseemed to me too obvious-soI offered a $100 prize to my daughters' schoolmates if they could invent something better. And a number of my titles have been vetoed by my editor, Judith Jones, which means I've had to scramble for a new one long after the book was finished. That's no fun at all.
BNR: The private boy's school in the book, St. Dyfrig's, does not actually exist inBaltimore, and St. Dyfrig is a rather obscure Christian saint from the mid-6thcentury. Is there a particular significance to the name in the context of this novel?
AT: None whatsoever. I just leafed through a book of saints for a name, and when I came across "Dyfrig," it made me laugh. Words that use Y as a vowel often strike me as funny.
BNR: How many drafts did you make of Noah's Compass? Was that more or lesson par with the number of drafts you've made for other novels? Did any of your books come relatively easy, from beginningconceit to finished product?
AT: It all depends on how you count, but I'd say the book took four drafts. That's three longhand drafts before I entered it in the computer, and then I copied the computer version into longhand again. I read that fourth version into a tape recorder and then listened to the tape recorder while I followed along on the computer screen to pick up any minor changes I had made.
Ridiculous, I know. But it's more or less the way I've always done it, except for the three or four earliest books which I wrote without revising, under the mistaken impression that revising was a form of cheating. Nowadays, I love revising. I think of Draft One as work and the revisions as play.
My easiest book was Searching for Caleb, which felt like attending one long, merry party. My hardest was Noah's Compass.I didn't know why at the time, but now I think it was because it reminded me too much of my own current stage of life: no new milestones to look forward to.
BNR: Your 2004 novel The Amateur Marriage was 60 years presented in 10chapters. Noah's Compass covers a single summer, from the end of oneschool year to the beginning of the other. In your experience, which type ofcanvas is easier to work with and why?
AT: Longer periods are easier for me. That's because when you don't have an action-filled plot, the mere passage of time can provide one. People get born, they marry, they die: there you go.
I felt very confined with Breathing Lessons, which covered only a single day. The one after that, Saint Maybe, took place over years and years-deliberately.
BNR: You've written numerous short stories, though none have been collected forpublication. Do you plan to publish a collected works? When was the last timeyou wrote a short story for publication? And how has your attitude towards themedium perhaps evolved since you began writing?
AT: I think my short stories shirk a little bit, as if I'd told myself while I was writing them that they don't matter as much as novels. There are only five or six that I feel like claiming now, and that's not enough to form a collection.
I haven't written a short story in decades. I can imagine, though, that I may eventually have to go back to them, because writing novels requires a good memory. You have to keep so many balls in the air. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do that endlessly.
BNR: Do you have similar reservations about any ofyour novels? Are there particular works that, if given the option, you'dchange? I've read that you consider Dinner at theHomesick Restaurant to be the favorite of your works. Which novel stands outas your least favorite, and why?
AT: I would like to buy up the rights to my first four novels (If Morning Ever Comes, The Tin Can Tree, A Slipping Down Life, and The Clock Winder) and remove them from circulation. Those are the books I wrote in the days when I thought it would be cheating to rewrite. They feel blurry to me now-not well enough defined. I think it was only with Celestial Navigationthat I began to know what I was doing.
BNR: You've been the guesteditor for several short story collections, including the most recent Best of theSouth, published in 2005. Who are some contemporary short story writerswhose work strikes you as particularly strong or inventive?
AT: I believe that the owner of the short story form nowadays is William Trevor. A relatively brief story of his accomplishes more than most people's novels. It was William Trevor's writing that made me realize that my own stories gave short shrift to the reader.
BNR: Reading your manuscripts into a tape recorder would seem to give you an earfor the rhythm of your prose. Among other writers, whose work stands out foryou as rhythmically beautiful?
AT: I used to read aloud to my husband in the evenings, and I learned from that to appreciate the work of William Faulkner-someone I'd never much liked until then. Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were other writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.
BNR: What are you working on now? What can you tell us about the plot, settingand characters of your next novel?
AT: I'm writing a novel about a man whose wife returns from the dead. The setting will be Baltimore, as always.
1. Do you like Liam Pennywell as a person? Do you identify with him as a character? How?
2. Liam loses his job and moves into an efficiency apartment, thinking he doesn’t have much left to live for and that this final part of life is meant to be “the stage where he sat in his rocking chair and reflected on what it all meant, in the end” (p. 3) . Do you think this is an accurate reflection of Liam’s life at this point? Do you think most people his age and in his position feel similarly?
3. Liam has strained relationships with his daughters and his ex-wife, and blames himself for these circumstances. Do you think he is right to do so? In what ways have the women in his life contributed to these difficult relationships?
4. How do you think each of his daughters would describe Liam?
5. Kitty becomes especially close with her father over the course of the novel, choosing to live with him over her mother at the end. Did this ring true for you as a reader?
6. What was your first impression of Eunice when Liam spotted her in the doctor’s office? Would you ever be tempted to “[pay] someone else to experience your life for you” (p. 67), as Liam desires?
7. Do you think that Liam and Eunice make a good match? Why or why not? Does their age difference matter?
8. As you were reading the novel, did you ever suspect that Eunice was married? How did you feel when Liam discovered this fact from Eunice’s mother?
9. Do you think that Liam should have tried to make things work with Eunice, or did he do the right thing by ending things with her after he found out that she was married? Should he have just taken his “share of happiness,” as his father suggested?
10. Eunice says to Liam that married people “go on being involved for all time even if they’re divorced” (p. 229). Do you think this is a true statement? Do you think Liam, Barbara, Eunice, and Eunice’s husband, Norman, behave this way?
11. The only time Noah is mentioned in the book is when Liam is babysitting Jonah and tells him the story of Noah’s Ark. Liam says that “ ‘Noah didn’t need to figure out directions, because the whole world was underwater and so it made no difference’ ” (p. 220). How do you think this story relates to Liam’s own life?
12. Liam seems to regard his life largely as a failure, and comments to Barbara that “It’s as if I’ve never been entirely present in my own life” (p. 263). Would you agree with Liam about his statement? To what degree do you feel present in your own life?
13. Liam thinks that: “We live such tangled, fraught lives . . . but in the end we die like all the other animals and we’re buried in the ground and after a few more years we might as well not have existed” (p. 210). Liam is comforted by this thought; do you feel that way, or do you find this viewpoint depressing?
14. Memory, or the lack thereof, is a large issue for Liam. What do you think he is trying to achieve by recalling the night of his break-in and any other memories that seem to have escaped him?
15. When Liam does have the opportunity to confront his attacker, he says no, even though he has longed for this throughout most of the novel. Why do you think he decides not to pursue this? How has Liam changed between the night of the attack and the day when his attacker is identified?
16. Liam set out to be a philosopher, ended up as a fifthgrade teacher at a private boys’ school for most of his career, and became a Zayda at a nursery school after being fired from teaching. Do you think Liam would have been happier as a philosopher? In what ways has your life taken unexpected turns and how did you deal with them?
17. Did you like the ending of the novel? Did you feel that it satisfactorily answered everything?
In Baltimore Liam Pennywell thought he would be the great twentieth and twenty-first century philosopher rather than a fifth grade school teacher at St. Dyfrig. However, to be an accomplished muse takes ambition and hard work; two traits that Liam lacks as his two former wives and his three estrange daughters would testify. He is taken aback when the second-rate private school retires him though he just turned sixty one.
He comes home bewildered only to wake up the next day in a hospital with no recall of the assault in his apartment. Liam needs to know what happened during the lost hours so he begins a quest. He meets thirtyish Eunice, whose élan for life is opposite of his dark world view. Somehow she encourages him to be all he can be; although he insists that is not much he vows to try to shake off his lethargy with reckless abandonment.
This is a terrific character study that avoids clichés so the audience roots for Liam to regain what he once had and lost after years of what he perceived were kidney shots from those who he loved. The story line is leisurely and meandering with no great nirvana as Liam tries with Eunice encouraging him. Anne Tyler is at her best with this super tale of a man kicked to the curb and the young woman who insists That's Life (Sinatra) as "Some people get their kicks stompin' on your dreams" while others will encourage you to "get back in the race".
Harriet Klausner
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 17, 2010
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Ann Tyler's has the amazing gift of transforming ordinary characters and every day situations into remarkable novels. Her writing reminds us that the simplicity of real life often make for the best stories.
5 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.sw7134
Posted January 7, 2010
I have been reading Anne Tyler's books for 25 years. She has never let me down. Her characters are so real, so funny, and so much more interesting than the people I deal with in my everyday life. There is nothing better than an Anne Tyler novel,. I planned the last 3 days reading it, putting it down more than I really wanted to, hoping it would last forever! How I long to meet Liam here in Florida. I can only hope she will continue to write about the good in ordinary people.
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Typical Anne Tyler. Exactly what we have come to expect from her books. She takes an ordinary event in someone's life and explores it and all of it's ramifications in depth. Along the way we come to feel like the characters are part of our very own families.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.mrsbecky51
Posted February 1, 2010
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I enjoyed this main character. It was a good read with not much action. The plot was lacking in action but somehow I kept reading endearing myself with the character of Liam. I enjoyed the author's writing style.
When I finished the book, I asked myself what in the world did I just read? I am a bit confused as to why it is named Noah's Compass, because little reference is made to Noah. I will be anxious to hear how others liked or disliked it. I would be hesitant to buy another book by Anne Tyler.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Following a Pulitzer Prize for BREATHING LESSONS and accolades from every newspaper, journal, and reviewer imaginable for other works what further praise could be heaped upon the unparalleled Anne Tyler? She has captured readers once again with a story of ordinary people, their hopes, joys, regrets, and fears. Ordinary people, yes, but intriguing to us because Tyler presents them with such discernment, kindness, wisdom and humor.
At 61 years of age Liam Pennywell lost his job. For him it wasn't much of a job anyway; he had a degree in philosophy. But, he had been teaching fifth grade in a second tier boy's school, and Noah accepted his unexpected unemployment stoically thinking, "This might be a sign. It could just be the nudge he needed to push him on to the next stage - the final stage, ....... The stage where he sat in his rocking chair and reflected upon what it all meant, in the end."
That was exactly what he intended to do but first he had to move into less expensive living quarters - a modest condominium on the rim of Baltimore. Unfortunately, that rocking chair would have to wait because on his first night in his new home someone broke in, assaulted him, and the next thing Noah knew he awoke in a hospital bed unable to remember what had happened and why he was there.
The lost few hours soon mean everything to him,; he becomes obsessed with remembering that time period. To him, "The distressing thing about losing a memory was that it felt like losing control." And, Noah does want things to be in control whether it is being bothered by mismatched dining chairs in a coffee shop or his grandson, Jonah, ignoring the lines in a coloring book.
Noah is a rather isolated individual with few friends, a sister of whom he's not particularly fond, twice married (once widowed and once divorced), and the father of three daughters he doesn't see very often. Nonetheless, when he is released from the hospital all rally about to help (or hinder) in various ways. In addition, he meets Eunice, a 38-year-old plump, rather frumpy woman given to wearing "balloony" trousers and heavy sandals. She serves as what might be called a "rememberer" for a very wealthy man who is suffering from dimentia. Noah believes that perhaps Eunice is precisely what he needs.
As Noah continues to pursue his quest for those lost hours we learn more about his earlier life, and see his daughters in greater depth. Tyler is a genius with spare prose and attention to telling detail whether it be a torn belt loop or long, flexible fingers "ending in nailbitten nubbins - lemur fingers." Every detail paints a broader picture of the character described. NOAH'S COMPASS is a rare beauty of a book - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 9, 2011
A few months in the life of a 60-year old man facing retirement. May sound dull; is anything but. Noah is preparing to die, and in fact, learns how to live. Loved it!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.It could be argued that Anne Tyler has been writing the same book for the past dozen or so years and, honestly no one could refute that except for Anne Tyler herself, whom I'm sure would be a daunting menace in any form of WWF cage match. Still, I really enjoy her (one) story and I love her characters. She writes about good Baltimore people doing good things and, although I've never been to Baltimore, I'd like to assume that it's populated with these lovable but emotionally disjointed people that she populates her books with.
The main character of this novel is a divorced older gentleman who's become staid in his relationship with life. He is robbed, loses his memory and tries to evoke it via a new dumpy girlfriend who just so happens to have an undisclosed vanilla flavored husband waiting in the wings. He's got a segmented family of daughters and an overbearing ex-wife who keep him honest but still, he's lost and his Bible beating grandson provides the type of secular wisdom that only a toddler can appreciate.
Even though I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars I'm not going to sit here and proclaim that it pushes the curtains aside on life and teaches you how to understand the broken world as we know it. If anything, it gives up on doing that, and this is exactly why I love it. This is a book about life in all its messiness which exists on the world's book-shelf currently populated by Dan Brown's and Stig Larsen's. It is sorely needed.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 28, 2010
For me, the characters were unintriguing, the life boring and depressing. I definitely do not recommend.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 14, 2010
I found this not worth the investment of my time.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.DRAMAMAMA2
Posted March 5, 2010
Love Ann Tyler and enjoyed this little gem very much.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.ekassel
Posted February 20, 2010
It's not her best but if you like Tyler you will like Noah's Compass. Always takes an ordinary person and brings them to life. Tyler usually sets her stories in Baltimore and as a former resident I enjoy reading about streets and areas that have good memories for me. Her writing quality is always above average.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This novel starts out as a mystery-who assaulted Liam Pennywell in his new apartment and left him in a hospital without knowing who hit him? The solution to the questions around the assault fade into the background as Liam gets out of the hospital and starts to cope with his new condition: he is retired, involuntarily, from a job he didn't like at a private school. He was forced to teach English though he was a philosophy major and, at sixty-one was invited to be laid off. Though he had a case for staying, Liam decided this was a great opportunity to change his life. So he sold his home, moved into the apartment and began to worry about what powers he was losing. So dire were his concerns that he looked for a "reminder"-a sort of assistant who could serve as mental nurse, confidante and amanuensis. He thinks he's found her when he locates Eunice Dunstead, a frumpy thirty-eight year old. They fall into an awkward affair and he begins to have serious thoughts. But that's on the outside of Liam's life. On the inside he has to deal with three daughters: Kitty and her boyfriend, Damien; Louise, the born-again; and Xanthe, who suspects Damien of being Liam's assailant. Throw into the mix Barbara, Liam's second ex-wife (the first died) and assorted other mostly women and you have poor Liam merely trying to survive his retirement. The saving grace for him turns out to be his grandson, Jonah who, at four, loves to color badly and to talk with "Poppy" about many things. Included in his wondering about the world is the clever assumption that Noah was a bad man. He killed a lot of animals because he only took two of each of them on his boat.
With the cute grandson, the swarm of females around him and the questions of love and death in the air, this begins to sound like a woman's novel and, in many ways, that's what it becomes. But the character of Liam is an appealing one and we wish him well on his hapless quest for his real self. Largely through no fault of his own, the sky clears and there is every indication that he'll make it through, minus a few people he thought would be with him at the finish.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.AVIDRDRJ
Posted February 18, 2010
I totally understand how Anne Tyler's novels are not everyone's cup of tea. I felt the same way when I read her first couple of books, years ago. But I got used to her understated style and grew to adore her quirky, disfunctional characters. One summer while waiting for her next book to come out and longing to read her again, I re-read all of her books. So it was with great joy that I welcomed her latest, Noah's Compass, and it didn't disappoint. The only disappointment is that I read it too fast and now I'll probably have to wait several years for her next one!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Premier voice performer Arthur Morey beautifully assumes the persona of protagonist Liam Pennywell in this wise, affecting story. Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Tyler is a kind, generous author; Morey is a kind, generous reader presenting Liam as an ordinary fellow with regrets, hopes and aspirations common to many. A teacher of performance and writing at several universites Morey brings both knowledge and awareness to his narrative.
Following a Pulitzer Prize for BREATHING LESSONS and accolades from every newspaper, journal, and reviewer imaginable for other works what further praise could be heaped upon the unparalleled Anne Tyler? She has captured readers once again with a story of ordinary people, their hopes, joys, regrets, and fears. Ordinary people, yes, but intriguing to us because Tyler presents them with such discernment, kindness, wisdom and humor.
At 61 years of age Liam Pennywell lost his job. For him it wasn't much of a job anyway; he had a degree in philosophy. But, he had been teaching fifth grade in a second tier boy's school, and Noah accepted his unexpected unemployment stoically thinking, "This might be a sign. It could just be the nudge he needed to push him on to the next stage - the final stage, ....... The stage where he sat in his rocking chair and reflected upon what it all meant, in the end."
That was exactly what he intended to do but first he had to move into less expensive living quarters - a modest condominium on the rim of Baltimore. Unfortunately, that rocking chair would have to wait because on his first night in his new home someone broke in, assaulted him, and the next thing Noah knew he awoke in a hospital bed unable to remember what had happened and why he was there.
The lost few hours soon mean everything to him,; he becomes obsessed with remembering that time period. To him, "The distressing thing about losing a memory was that it felt like losing control." And, Noah does want things to be in control whether it is being bothered by mismatched dining chairs in a coffee shop or his grandson, Jonah, ignoring the lines in a coloring book.
Noah is a rather isolated individual with few friends, a sister of whom he's not particularly fond, twice married (once widowed and once divorced), and the father of three daughters he doesn't see very often. Nonetheless, when he is released from the hospital all rally about to help (or hinder) in various ways. In addition, he meets Eunice, a 38-year-old plump, rather frumpy woman given to wearing "balloony" trousers and heavy sandals. She serves as what might be called a "rememberer" for a very wealthy man who is suffering from dimentia. Noah believes that perhaps Eunice is precisely what he needs.
As Noah continues to pursue his quest for those lost hours we learn more about his earlier life, and see his daughters in greater depth. Tyler is a genius with spare prose and attention to telling detail whether it be a torn belt loop or long, flexible fingers "ending in nailbitten nubbins - lemur fingers." Every detail paints a broader picture of the character described. NOAH'S COMPASS is a rare beauty of a book - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 17, 2012
Been a fan for 40 yrs. Her subtle humor sparse. Her characters not tug at your heart endearing ln this one.wanted to go back to a tyler world of the everyday and revel ln the realities of life. I was so tired of vampires and detectives. At first i was tickled to meet liam but then the joy left. I felt like tyler was saying that is it folks that is all life is. It is not exciting at all. No wonder liam found comfort in the idea of death. But her othet books celebrate the ordinary the subtle. This one philosophically stoicaly accepts it. Maybe we are just watching our lives liam said. O but anne that is why i loved you. You made me feel that even a trip to the grocerystore was living. Romance laughter tears belonged to all of us. We ALL mattered. I too will accept my death but i want to read the books you used to write that made me FEEL.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Being a retired teacher who suffer from a stroke, I could relae to this book. The characters were realistic and the plot was genuine. A great book!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Pat-
Posted April 25, 2010
Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass was an interesting story with a compelling character.
I didn't enjoy the ending. Something was left unsaid.
I feel this book would be a good for character study/discussion for a book club.
littlekt
Posted April 13, 2010
An interesting story about an older man suddenly adrift in the world. He is an interesting, if not particularly compelling character. While I was curious about what he would do with himself, I found myself often more frustrated with him than rooting for him. He was a curious protagonist, as he was not terribly sympathetic. I would recommend this book for an interesting character study, even though the end of the story left me feeling unfulfilled... I sensed this was done intentionally, but did not find the story particularly enjoyable. Still worth the time, however, as it did make me think. I believe this would make an excellent story for a book club to discuss.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This is probably not Anne Tyler's finest work, but even when Tyler's mediocre, she far exceeds the accomplishments of other authors at their very best. A male hero -- somewhat rare in Tyler's works -- only added to my enjoyment. Most of Tyler's work is female-centric, but as a male, I find her economy of language facsinating and her sentence structure impeccable. Just hope that there are many more novels to come.
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Overview
BONUS: This edition contains a Noah's Compass discussion guide and an excerpt from Anne Tyler's The Beginner's Goodbye.Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new and spare condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged. His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen...