Customer Reviews

Tin Can Tree (Arena Books)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My expectations for this book were very low, which might be why I found it so good. I had heard that this was her worst novel. but having read 12 of the other 13, I had to read this one. It lacks the complexities of plot and character of her later novels, but the simplicity is not a weakness. It is a gentle story of unexceptional people in a sleepy little town where nothing ever happens - apart from the odd accidental death - but Tyler pulls the reader in through the front doors and makes us care. Joan and James are probably too similar to several other early Tyler characters, but the author keeps our interest up. These people might be dull to the outside world, but Tyler shows us the spark of rebellion flickering deep inside - hinting at the one big decisive act of their lives (this usually involves running away from a big famlily - it happens in almost all of Tyler's books!). If you are not a big Tyler fan you won't like this book, but if you are, ignore the critics and treat yourself!

As an avid reader of Anne Tyler's works, I found The Tin Can Tree to be a surprising letdown. Over the past year I've read eight of the fourteen books Tyler's written and had greatly enjoyed every other one. However, I had to force myself to finish The Tin Can Tree and was sadly disappointed as to how much I didn't love it. If you are a fan of Anne Tyler, read it; maybe you will enjoy it more than I did. If you have yet to read Anne Tyler, don't form your opinion on this book. I suggest reading Celestial Navigation or Ladder of Years, two of my favorite novels of Anne Tyler's mastery.

I am a huge Anne Tyler fan, so I was disappointed that Tin Can Tree wasn't up the the caliber of Accidental Tourist (my favorite Tyler novel) or Breathing Lessons. But it one of her first, and the signs of her ability are there. The story of Janie Rose and how her parents cope with her death is compelling, but the problem is the treatment of it is somehow superficial. The author is so intent on showing me life in small town America that she leaves the novel's core family, the Pike's inaccessible. All the relationships were superficial. The characters of James, and Ansell in particular, took up far too much space, especially since their story never went anywhere. In short, this book had alot of great elements that did not up to a novel worthy of Tyler's talent

While a smaller, almost novella sized novel about characters familiar to those in Tyler's audience, it is simply amazing how this book, written in her early 20's, still manages to captivate and amuse. The prone, home-bound brother is a truly original creation. I came to this after finishing most of this author's earlier work and was worried I would find her early novels reflecting what one would expect to hear from a first time, very young novelist in the sixties. But the book is timeless and her style already cemented. Slower paced, but a fine read.

I've repeatedly called her the world's greatest living author, and last year I waxed melodic about my "Anne Tyler Project" which involved reading all her works, with no other lesser authors cutting in, in the order she wrote them. But what I may have failed to mention is that two titles weren't available in Chiang Mai. I ordered them from Amazon, and after resisting the urge this long, it's time to enjoy them.

This is an oldie, almost as old as this here reviewer, and it starts immediately after the funeral of a six-year-old girl. It didn't take me long at all to remember what's so remarkable about Anne Tyler. She writes real life. Characters you have known, sharp observations that you read in a second and think about for an hour, wit, description, wisdom, humor, insight, warmth, that knowing chuckle or smile you get of "so true, so true," plot or what the wags call a lack of one. If you reduce a real person's life to a series of plot points, you wind up with no clue whatsoever what that person's about. If you don't believe me, read Anne Tyler. You'll learn what writing is, and if you also learn that you can't do it, so what? Just enjoy what she can do.

I grew up in a very large Southern family which I have referred to as the funeral of the week club. Grandaddy had 8 brothers and sisters, Gramma had 7, all of them had a buncha young'uns, and that's just Mom's side of the family. With so many relatives, somebody just had to die every time you turned around. I consider myself an expert on funerals, and on the feeding frenzy afterwards. I could be relied on to drink all of the deceased's grape juice, and Gramma was fairly quick to realize I wasn't raiding the wine cellar at age 6.

But I digress. Anne Tyler grew up in North Carolina, too. She took me right back there, and writing just doesn't get any more real than this.

When we write, one of our goals is to take the reader out of his world for a little while by putting him in one just as real. One of our other goals is for that reader to remember our story after he's finished reading it. On both these counts, nobody ever has or ever will do it better than Anne Tyler. I am one jaded old [...], but she never fails to move me.

I really liked this book. Not much happens, it's more of a character study, but, by the end, you feel like you truly know at least most of the main characters.

This novel is about a southern family, specifically about the relationship between
a cousin and a little boy whose sister has just died. The cousin has a boyfriend
who will never marry her. He spends his time nursing his hypochondriac brother.
The cousin runs away and eventually comes back with the realization that nothing
will change between her and her boyfriend.

I thought I'd read all of Tyler's work but there it was, The Tin Can Tree, new to me. Tyler is one of those writers who can cover familiar ground and yet in each novel have you see it in a new and profound way. Perhaps it's that she so clearly draws the characters that their views on family life are so unique to them, as in real life each of us sees things in our own way. I stand in awe of Tyler -- she makes writing well look easy. And we all know from reading other writers, it ain't easy.

This was only ths second of Anne Tyler's so far seventeen novels (1965), and, though I don't think it is one of her best, it is still one that carried me along. It is set in an unnamed tobacco-growing state, perhaps North Carolina. The most dramatic event happened before the novel opened and is not described - the death in an accident of a little girl called Janie Rose Pike; and nothing much - let alone anything dramatic - happens until very near the end of the book. Janey's mother is almost catatonic with grief and hardly speaks to anyone. Not that the other characters (except Ansell - see below) are ever very articulate. They communicate with each other in a laconic, often monosyllabic way, leave short sentences unfinished, and sometimes scarcely listen to each other, following their own trains of thought. Janey's little brother Simon - his age is never given, but I guess he is about eight - must be affected both by his sister's death and by his mother being totally withdrawn and paying no attention to him; but really this is our interpretation: there are lots of little boys who behave the way he does without being bereft. He is fond of his 26 year old cousin Joan who has been living with the family for some years and has helped looking after him and Janey Rose. Joan, too, must be affected by Janey Rose's death, but again this is something we must assume, since what seems to upset her most is having to cope with her aunt's withdrawal. Joan also has another problem: she is in love with James, a close neighbour and friend of the Pike family; but James feels he has to look after his weird brother Ansell, who may actually have something wrong with his health but is certainly a demanding hypochondriac with a torrent of talk - which Joan and the other members of that laconic community find hard to cope with. No wonder that Ansell feels aggrieved that nobody is listening to him.

This is an understated book and we have to get below its surface, and it is understandable that some readers will have found the surface too humdrum to hold their attention.

I am a big fan of Anne Tyler and have read most of her books and liked every one of them EXCEPT for "The Tin Can Tree". It was boring. Plain and simple.