Breathing Lessons

Now, this could be a pretty heavy subject so Ms. Tyler wisely chooses to leaven her lessons with humor. Her protagonist, Maggie Morgan, will remind many of other fictional characters beginning with the lovable red head, Lucy Ricardo, in I Love Lucy. Those who have Dreamed the Impossible Dream while watching Man of La Mancha (or while reading Don Quixote) will recognize elements of Don Quixote in her character. The humor plays the same role that the fools play in Shakespeare's tragedies, to lighten the atmosphere from profoundly sad situations.

Maggie is a klutz who doesn't let her klutziness stop her. She's a one-woman pile driver intent on her purposes of spreading love and connection among all she meets. Her husband, Ira, plays the foil (the Desi Ricardo/Sancho Panza role) to help us know what the real situation is. Ira is almost all reason while Maggie is almost all love. You will find Ira to be interesting for examples of how reason needs to accommodate love.

Breathing Lessons shows a typical day for Maggie and Ira in an atypical environment . . . while on an out-of-town trip on a Saturday for a memorial service for the husband of Maggie's old friend. That environment turns the day into a quest (like Don Quixote) and they meet many interesting characters on whom Maggie has an unforgettable impact.

Many will look for a heroic ending featuring accomplishment. But did Don Quixote have such an ending? Ms. Tyler redefines heroism in terms of continuing to love and hope for the best . . . even when everything crumbles into dust. I think anyone will be inspired by the example of Maggie to do the right thing.

As you probably know, this book won a Pulitzer Prize which it certainly deserved. Seldom has a book created such a new an ennobling expression of human potential in the context of our all-too-human tendency to err.

Many will find Maggie's klutziness to be overdone . . . and possibly annoying. I, too, found it a little overdone, but enjoyed the book nevertheless. Ms. Tyler doesn't want us to miss the point that we should make the most of our talents . . . however modest or great they are.

Nice job, Ms. Tyler!


The EXTRA-Ordinary Maggie   November 14, 2002
Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom)
12 out of 16 found this review helpful

Let me tell you why I liked this book. It gave me a different perspective. Although many people (both readers and characters in the book) have criticised her for being one-dimensional I found her to be quite extraordinary. Her sensitivity and sense of place within her family is touching. The reason why her image radiates ordinariness is because everyone has labelled her that way. I found this to be true in the way that people often create labels for others and then the label is accepted as some kind of truth. Maggie may not be a likeable person or even a realistic person you can picture in your life, but certainly everyone can empathise with the tendency people have to suffocate other people with images they have created for them. I don't think Maggie is that simple. If she were than she could never imagine a life outside of her own. But, when she and Ira get in a fight in the car and she demands to be let out she imagines a completely different life for herself. This is the imaginary flight that is carried out in actuality in Ladder of Years. You could say that this is the off-handed daydream of a flat character because it is just as immediately forgotten as it is conjured. However, I think this suggests a more complex state of mind. One which can envision other states of being but consciously rejects them. Incidentally this is a very ordinary trait, one that I imagine many people can sympathise with. In some ways she is more ordinary than most people because she is always actively trying to normalise other people. She is not only suppressed by other people's images of her, but she is trying to mould everyone into the image she wants them to be. Her intentions are always positive. She wants them to be better people and fulfil their potential, but at the same time she is stifling their sense of individual identity by imaging them to inhabit an image that isn't realistic. This is a common difficulty with people who are "well-wishers". A major reason for why I appreciated this novel so much is because of its comic perspective. While dealing with the difficult relations between people, especially family, it is able to not take itself too seriously. There are incredibly comic moments such as the car accident and when Maggie and Ira are caught making out in the friend's bedroom. Anne Tyler is able to balance the serious and the comic while making shrewd observations about human nature. She shows us we all have the ability to be just like everyone else and wholly our own person at the same time.