I first read DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT when it came out more than 30 years ago and my reading of it then and now are quite different. I found the family quirky then. I find them sad now. As we grow older, things seem more set in stone and a dysfunctional family seems unlikely to change.
It is the most critically acclaimed and beloved of Tyler's books and is often compared to AS I LAY DYING.
All the members of the Tull family are dysfunctional. Beck, the father, deserts his family and for most of the book, we believe he is the primary cause of all their troubles. We don't understand why until the very end and share the frustrations and puzzlement of his wife, Pearl with his actions.
Pearl is run into the ground supporting her family and is seldom up to coping with them. Only a brave writer would give a woman so beset by financial problems such unlikable traits. She resorts to various verbal abuses that scar the children. Cody, the eldest, develops such severe hangups over his father's desertion and his mother's display of favoritism he becomes emotionally estranged from the family. His resentment of his younger brother and the action he takes to ameliorate his pain is painful to read. Jenny grows up scattered and remote despite her profession. Ezra, the most sympathetic character of the book and owner of the "Homesick Restaurant" shares this beaten down quality.
There are few acts of heroism in this book and, in fact, few big scenes. Its success can be pinned to the small accretion of details and words that give the Tull family life. You may not either like or dislike any character in this book, but you will believe they exist. And although you may not want to eat dinner with them, you can
picture them in Baltimore even now.
This is one of my favorite Anne Tyler novels. I haven't read one in a long time though. Maybe it's time now.
9 comments:
I think that happens a lot, Patti, where we read a book when we're young, and think differently about it when we're older. And it's interesting how people who seem one way when you first read a book seem very different another time...
It does happen often. Are we more sympathetic or more judgmental?
Diane just read Anne Tyler's REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD and liked it. But, it's a very short book.
Many of us, Patti, I feel are just more mature. Well, not me. I remain a thirteen-year-old kid at heart (and mind).
I tried to read it a couple of years ago. Maybe I am more judgmental now, or just less tolerant, but I couldn't take the mother. Family dynamics are why we have no contact with Jackie's sisters or their families.
I read a few Anne Tyler novels years ago. Including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and The Accidental Tourist. I enjoyed them but for some reason stopped reading her. I guess it's a matter of too many books and too little time.
I also read this shortly after it was published and absolutely loved it. But I read a couple of other Tyler novels and didn't like them nearly as much and never got back to her. Anyway, this makes me want to reread it, which I'll do if my library ever reopens. I seem to recall that the book was terribly funny, but I'm sure that one's sense of humor is one of those things that changes over time.
It is my favorite although the first ten were all good. Loved THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST almost as much.
I think as you get older you are less open to different kinds of books. Unless you join a book group which forces you to read all sorts of books. Reading a very odd one now.
Been meaning to read REDHEAD. I just got onto HOOPLA. Maybe it will be on there.
Dysfunctional families are dysfunctional in varying degrees but reading about them more than I can deal with my son's wife came from an extreme version of that will syndrome and it has affected their marriage to a large degree. How sad :-)
Post a Comment