Rating: 
Summary: Unbelievable Ending
Review: I tend to prefer novels that tell a plausible story. Stories where the characters act in acceptable ways for their personality types. No matter how much we'd like to believe it's possible, people do not change once they reach an adult maturity level even when they're faced with a life altering event or decision.In Anne Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist" the main character, Macon Leary, does just that. He makes a drastic change in his life after he is well into middle age. His decision just didn't seem plausible in light of his personality and situation in life. Macon's son Ethan has been killed during a robbery at a fast food restaurant while away at camp. The death of their son pulls apart Macon and his wife Sarah. The book opens with Sarah asking Macon for a divorce. Not knowing anything about their marriage at the outset we have to accept this as a reasonable request as Macon doesn't put up much of a fight. And that's the crux of the problem I ultimately had with this novel. Macon isn't much of a fighter at all. Life has been okay for him but his early years have effectively beaten him into submission. He is a man of routine and I was never able to picture him having enough nerve to do what he does at the end of the novel. The other main character of The Accidental Tourist is a 20-something dog trainer by the name of Muriel Pritchett. She has been tasked with the responsibility of training Macon's dog, Edward. After Macon moves in with his three siblings at their grandparent's old home Edward begins to get more out of control than normal. His siblings propose giving Edward away but Macon can't because he was Ethan's pet. Immediately after Muriel is introduced we realize that she's on the lookout for a man, any man, to provide for her and her son Alexander. Muriel is a real go getter but can never make the kind of money she wants to be able to give Alexander a better life. She latches on to Macon as her ticket to the middle class. I did like this novel's approach to the main characters, especially Muriel. She is presented as a lonely single mother looking for a provider and not for someone to love. She never really drifted from that the whole story. Even when she showed up on the plane to Paris I never got the sense it was because she loved Macon but it was because she felt he was her best chance out of poverty. I would like to have seen a little more of Sarah in this story. It seems cruel what happens to her. Of course bad things happen to good people all the time in real life. Sarah seems to be just another one of those good people. I believe her only real fault is her underestimation of Macon. She believes him to be an even meeker man than I do. In the end she pays for it but what seems an unfair price. To sum up, The Accidental Tourist was entertaining and interesting until the ending. But the ending is usually the most important part of any story. It's what most often leaves an impression upon you and I was completely unsatisfied with this ending.
Rating: 
Summary: A reluctant traveler through life
Review: "The Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler is a book that describes deep pain and half-hearted love in the main character, Macon Leary. Macon and his wife, Sarah, have lost their 12-year-old son Ethan, who was killed by a gunman in a restaurant robbery. Sarah leaves Macon because his grief is "muffled." (He says he iis "enduring.") Macon goes to live with his sister, Rose, and brothers Porter and Charles when he breaks his leg setting up one of many systems he has adopted in his home to make life easier, less burdensome. (He washes his clothes by stepping all over them in the shower every night, rather than do laundry. He makes "body bags" out of sheets so he doesn't have to go through all the labor of changing the sheets on the bed.) He finds while living with Rose and "the boys" that his dog, Edward, has become mean, biting him, growling and charging visitors, but he can't bear to give the dog up or put him to sleep because the dog was Ethan's. So, he hires Muriel Pritchett to help him train Edward. Macon's occupation gives the book its title. He is a travel writer for business travelers, and he tells them how to travel without feeling like they're away from home. The series is titled "The Accidental Tourist." Macon lives his life this way as well; his son's loss has scarred him deeply and he tries to remain withdrawn and untouched by other things in life. Muriel pursues him and he falls into a relationship with her and her son, Alexander, even though she is less educated, dresses flamboyantly, makes grammatical errors he finds annoying. He notices his family's eccentricities and religiously obrserved routines, but he's not sure he desires to be free of them. But he also cannot commit to Muriel. The relationship, his living there, his concern for Alexander are reluctant ... accidental. Underneath everything is his grief over the loss of his son and his inability to move himself along or direct himself. Everything here seems sad and lonely. Rose's romance with Macon's publisher can't withstand the pull of her routines at home. Macon's brothers are both divorced. Muriel's mother is critical and demeaning. Alexander is frail and lonely, teased and marginalized by the children at school. Macon misses his son. I was sad when this ended, because I had grown to love the characters, even though they are strange, irritating and imperfect. I don't want to give away too much, but I will say that the ending is gratifying, without being trite or cliché. The grief never ebbs, but there are other trajectories in Macon's life (and the lives of those around him) that carry them to other satisfying destinations.
Rating: 
Summary: Routine freaks
Review: After the tragic and senseless shooting of their teenaged son, Macon and Sarah drift further and further apart as Macon, a travel writer, retreats into himself, barely acknowledging that his son was ever part of his life.Sarah leaves after two years to set up her own apartment, leaving Macon alone for the first time. He devises quirky routines to simplify his life, becoming more and more weird in his efforts to block out the past. Eventually a broken leg forces him to move back in with his sister and two brothers, where they live according to strict routines, not realising what a stultifying effect this life style is having on them all.A chance meeting with an eccentric dog trainer, Muriel, shocks Macon at first, but under her influence, he gradually opens up his mind to possibilities of looking at things in a more relaxed way.This is an unusual story but most enjoyable and you'll very likelt recognise people that you know who can't cope with anything different in their lives.
Rating:
Summary: The Book That Wrote Itself
Review: I hesitate to give this book a ten, at first, only because I do not believe in absolutes... there must be some book of surpassing greatness... and it will probably be this author's next work. Tyler is a writer of enormous skill. Her books seemingly write themselves, with characters that live so entirely in a world so simply evoked that from the first line-- no joke-- you are hynotized. The Accidental Tourist is Tyler's tour de force about a man who, forgive me, hates to tour. Macon Leary, as his name suggests, is not entirely comfortable with his surroundings: home, himself, his work. And for heartrending, sometimes hysterical, reasons. Living in Baltimore, suddenly without a family or routine, he falls apart and in doing so releases himself to forces that slowly allow him to see that it is not love, necessarily, but who we are with another person, that determines what kind of life we lead.
Rating:
Summary: Listen to the George Guidall Version
Review: I just finished listening to the unabridged Recorded Books version of this book for the second time. It is narrated by George Guidall, who is one of the best narrators out there. If you are going to listen to this book on tape, I highly recommend this version. See if your library has it, or go to recordedbooks.com and rent it--it will be well worth it. He also narrates another Anne Tyler book, Saint Maybe, and does just as fabulous a job on that one. Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors, and George Guidall is one of my favorite narrators--the two together are amazing!
Rating:
Summary: Delicious Fiction
Review: A wonderfully different, yet incredibly real, piece of solid fiction. Not inspirational, or even thought provoking, it is a lovely work of art that sucks you into Macon's simple life and leaves you truly in love with him, and all of Tyler's palpable characters.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is devoid of anything that can be described as art
Review: I have tried to stick with this story.........we have a paperback copy that we ran across in the process of going through some old boxes and I picked it up and started to read..........it may be that something in the narrative will produce, at some point, a compelling, engaging and involving story but I am one third through this and can't turn another page. My biggest problem with "The Accidental Tourist" (and it is a BIG problem) is that the narrative is boring...there is no ART in the way words and sentences are constructed and that, combined with a story line that is thin, have, for me, produced a non-page-turner. I think it is unfortunate that this work received some good reviews...what has happened to our standards.
Rating:
Summary: Much better than the movie!
Review: I reread THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST as part of a writing exercise, and guess what? It was better the second time around.
The novel begins with Macon Leary and his wife Sarah in a car returning from a vacation that was supposed to help them deal with the murder of their son, Ethan. Macon doesn't want to talk about it because that would force him to deal with his feelings. Sarah asks for a divorce.
The other main character in the novel shows up when Edward, Ethan's dog, begins to act up, assaulting Macon's boss, Julian. He calls in a dog trainer and this is where the novel really begins to heat up. She recognizes Macon as a possible catch and she's not the type of person to be denied. If you've seen the movie, she's nothing like Geena Davis. She's more of a trailer-park type who loves thrift stores. She has fly-away hair that refuses to take a comb. When Sarah decides she wants Macon back, the conflict becomes one of who will he choose, Sarah or the bohemian Muriel? Muriel shows her pluck when she follows Macon to Paris where he's working on an update of a guidebook for businessmen, hence the title, the ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Macon hates Paris; he pretty much hates every place that isn't Baltimore. He thinks the people are rude and ethnocentric, but every single Parisian he encounters when in Muriel's company is a saint. She helps him see the City of Light through her eyes. She even finds a thrift shop in Paris.
I was most impressed by the job Tyler did with her minor characters. Edward the dog holds the novel together. Without him, Macon would never have met Muriel. Every time the novel needs an addition boost, Edward provides it. Then there's Rose, Macon's spinster sister, whose marriage to Julian creates an additional complication for Macon. She's a female version of Macon who shares Macon's "geographic dyslexia" and wonders back to the home place shortly after her marriage.
This novel is a real hoot and if you haven't read it because you've seen the movie, you're really missing out. As usual the book is much better than the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Macon & Muriel - Kevin & Lisa
Review: I watched this movie last night (11/25) and I loved it. I found the balance between Macon & Muriel so complete. Everything that happened in this movie is what could and has happened to real people, but then again Macon & Muriel were 'real'. The emotions from beginning to that very beautiful ending made me cry and reminded me of someone very special in my own life. I have ordered both the book and the video for my library.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story
Review: I bought this book, because it was my choice for my Proficiency Exam.
Macon Leary is a man who lives in a rather seclusive manner. Brought up by his grandparents and having three other siblings, Macon is rather seclusive, and fusses extremely over things that others are comfortable about. Recently divorced and father of a murdered little boy, he is trying to get over things, but unfortunately Macon is feeling blank and empty.
Then comes Muriel. A young, phenomenally silly woman, whose son suffers from about a million allergies. She is the one to show Macon how to live.
The book is mainly a comedy, but really it is a view of life today, of the small details that conjure each person's personality.
Tyler writes in an original, humorous way and her characters are delightfully authentic, especially the Leary family, and the book gave me lots of thoughts and feelings.
|
