2007's worst readin'

And the worst book I read in 2007 (NB: others disagree; the book overall has gotten great reviews, though it did get dinged by a sizeable minority of readers on Amazon.com):

Digging to America by Anne Tyler. It's a great idea for a novel--two families, one longtime American citizens and one in which the grandparents have emigrated from Iran, meet at the airport while waiting for their adoptive daughters to arrive from Korea, and life-long relationships ensue. What does it mean to be American, how can we keep the value of sustaining tradition without letting those traditions choke us, when should self-knowledge lead us to expand our horizons and when should it lead us to draw boundaries--all brilliant themes, exactly the kind of thing Miss Conduct is all about. And yet I wanted to step right between the lines of the page and smack everyone in the book (with the exception of Maryam, the Iranian grandmother) upside their dozy heads. Especially the book's designated plot driver, the appallingly named Bitsy Donaldson.

Any woman who allows herself to be called "Bitsy" beyond, say the age of twelve--well, what are you going to do? Like similar Tyler heroines (Rebecca Davitch, Maggie Moran), Bitsy is a meddler, a schmoozer, a foot-in-mouther but ever so well-meaning, which presumably is meant to make her adorable, or at least charmingly exasperating. She's contrasted with the cool, self-possessed Maryam, who wears jewel-toned sweaters and tweed trousers to babysit her grandchildren and eats light lunches, making sure she savors every bite. (Maryam does not need to rearrange her cupboards, thank you, Dr. Wansink.) I think we're supposed to feel sorry for the widowed Maryam as she sits in her "otherness" and reserve, missing out on the wonder and laughter of life's rich pageant. I did feel sorry for Maryam, but mostly because she was trapped in that awful book. I kept wanting to pull her out and take her for a nice pot of jasmine tea and some civilized conversation.

I enjoyed Tyler's The Amateur Marriage quite a bit, so I'm not exactly ready to give up on her. But having had similar complaints with Breathing Lessons and Back When We Were Grownups, I can't help but think that she's sentimentalizing her dysfunctional characters, especially the self-sacrificing maternal figures who give, give, give. Which is just wrongheaded. I'm all in favor of material and spiritual generosity, but these emotionally incontinent closet narcissists invariably give the wrong things to the wrong people. And the way Tyler romanticizes these women who undercut their own ambition and competence to live, compulsively, for others is also profoundly disingenuous. A writer needs time alone, a room of her own, and the ability to think her own thoughts without being constantly distracted by the needs and neuroses of other people. Tyler must value these things in her own life, so why does she treat them with such disdain in her novels? I'm certainly not saying writers should only write about writers; how dull would that be? Yet for a writer, a person, as privileged and successful as Anne Tyler to portray solitude, reflection, and self-awareness as somehow unconnected to the real, glorious, messy stuff of life seems suspect, and patronizing. Like telling your kid that chocolate is yucky and isn't broccoli SO much tastier.

In the words of the famous cartoon, I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.