Book Review: "Celestial Navigation" by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is a great author and I have so far read many of her works. These include but are not limited to, 'The Redhead by the Side of the Road', 'Searching for Caleb', 'Back When We Were Grown Ups', 'A Spool of Blue Thread', and 'Clock Dance'. Though I have read a lot of her work, I still think there are more things to discover when it comes to reading her. Initially, when it came to 'Celestial Navigation' I was unsure about whether I was going to truly enjoy it because it was quite slow and awkward to start. When the story finally got underway though, the artifice of supplementary characters faded away and we were left with something quite extraordinary. It may not be my favourite Anne Tyler novel, but it is still very much enjoyable.

This is a book about a thirty-eight year old man named Jeremy who still lives with his mother and spends his time creating artworks, but is ultimately failing really badly at it. Now, Jeremy has some sort of affliction that I believe is related to something in the letter the mother gave to her daughters but I won't go too much into that. The mother ends up dying and the daughters must return to sort out her funeral. The eldest daughter, Amanda, is quite cruel and heartless. Her narrative is first, this is something I didn't think was a very good idea because the reader does not like her. She can often be intimidating without reason, stern without cause and is purposefully quite tyrannical to her siblings - something she disguises as care.

After the mother passes away, the boarding house that Jeremy shared with her becomes his. He stays in his room creating artwork until one day he goes to answer the phone and someone on the other end is asking for Mary Tell. When Mary comes around, she ends up crying over the phone and hugging Jeremy - who immediately falls in love with her. Mary is not being granted a divorce by her previous husband, Gus and he has written a letter that if he ever sees Mary or the children again, he will kill them. All the while, Jeremy is trying to court Mary.

The relationship is a strange one with Mary being so independent, or at least making an effort to be - she also hops from relationship to relationship. Jeremy on the other hand, is too scared to even go outside, answer the door, get his mail or even pick up the phone. He becomes very weak and sick whenever he has to function like a normal human being. As the book goes on, we start to realise that it is about more than just Mary.

The great advantage of this book is Anne Tyler's writing style. It's fluid and readable, descriptive and after reading the book you really do feel like you know the characters on a deep and personal level, as if they are real. Her writing style is in no way purposefully confusing and there are only very few plot holes in her books - some of which I think are placed there on purpose. For example: after the covering of the mother's death, we don't hear from Jeremy's sisters ever again. That is no accident. That is Anne Tyler telling us who matters in Jeremy's life to him at that moment.

The book takes the forms of different narrative set over the 1960s and 1970s. Sometimes, a character's narrative will be written in first person and sometimes, it is written in third person. Again, seeing as how none of Jeremy's narratives are in first person - I think Anne Tyler is trying to tell us something about his life. Something that is definitely relative to the letter that the mother left for the girls when she died. Again, I won't say what that is but when you read the book, I am sure you will think about it just as deeply as I have.

All in all, I found this to be probably not Anne Tyler's best book, but something that was definitely an interesting read. The main thing I would've changed is the start and the end, I feel like the end didn't really make that much of an impact and the book started in an unusually blunt way with a voice the reader does not like. Otherwise, this is a pretty great book and I'm glad there's still more Anne Tyler to read.