Featured Reading Guide
Anne Tyler
Quintessential Tyler, yet full of surprises a perfectly pitched, enchanting and affecting novel about a man adrift in his own life, Noah’s Compass chimes gently, heartbreakingly with our times. With the humour and poignancy of her classic The Accidental Tourist (though with a protagonist who doesn’t venture far from home) Anne Tyler’s new novel tells the story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his sixty-first year. A classical pedant, he’s just been let go from his schoolteaching job and downsizes to a tiny out-of-town apartment, where he goes to bed early and alone on…
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Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes , was published in 1964 whilst her 11th novel, Breathing Lessons , won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. In 1994, Tyler was nominated ‘the greatest living novelist writing in English’ by Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
topAbout the Book
Quintessential Tyler, yet full of surprises a perfectly pitched, enchanting and affecting novel about a man adrift in his own life, Noah’s Compass chimes gently, heartbreakingly with our times. With the humour and poignancy of her classic The Accidental Tourist (though with a protagonist who doesn’t venture far from home) Anne Tyler’s new novel tells the story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his sixty-first year. A classical pedant, he’s just been let go from his schoolteaching job and downsizes to a tiny out-of-town apartment, where he goes to bed early and alone on his first night. Widowed, re-married, divorced and the father of three daughters, Liam is a man who is proud of his recall but has learned to dodge issues and skirt adventure. An unpleasant event occurs, though, to jolt him out of his certainty. Obsessed with a frightening gap in his memory, he sets out to uncover what happened, and finds instead an unusual woman with secrets of her own, and a late-flowering love that brings its own thorny problems. His ex-wife (sensible Barbara) and daughters worry about him but Liam blunders on, His teenage daughter Kitty is sent to stay – though it s not clear who is minding whom. His middle daughter, Louise, is a born-again Christian with a son called Jonah, but her certainties leave Liam still more perplexed. Noah s Compass is about memory and its loss, about incidents and relationships which open up sight lines into a painful past long dead for a man who becomes aware that merely trying to stay afloat may not be enough.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- The theme of solitude runs through the novel. Is it possible to be alone without being lonely?
- Do you think Liam and Eunice experience real love for each other or are they merely filling voids in each other’s lives? What other examples of romantic love are there in the novel and which did you find the most convincing?
- Philosophy could be defined as a search for the truth about life. In what ways is Noah’s Compass a philosophical novel?
- Liam comments on Noah’s situation during the great flood: ‘There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. He was just bobbing up and down, so he didn’t need a compass’. How does Liam’s life lack direction? Should we need a compass in life or is just trying to stay afloat enough?
- Despite feeling detached from his family, Liam becomes increasingly involved with them as the novel develops. Why does his attitude change?
- Why is it initially so important to Liam to recover his memory loss, and why do you think his obsession with this fades?
- Liam’s realisation that he has ‘never been entirely present’ in his own life suggests an element of regret. What does he mean by this and how does he seek to put it right?
- What function do Kitty and Damian perform in the novel? In what ways do they shed light on Liam’s situation?
- How do you think Liam’s life has been shaped by his experience with Millie?
- Anne Tyler has been described as ‘an exquisite chronicler of the everyday’ (Observer). Discuss ways in which she makes mundane actions, interactions or events unusually evocative in Noah’s Compass.
Other Books by Anne Tyler
A Patchwork Planet
Barnaby Gaitlin is a loser – just short of thirty he’s the black sheep of a …
A Slipping Down Life
In a small Southern town teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock…
A Tin Can Tree
When young Jamie Pike dies in a tragic accident, she leaves behind a family …
Back When We Were Grownups…
When Joe Davitch first saw Rebecca, it was at a party at the Davitch home – a…
Breathing Lessons
Breathing Lessons covers the events of a day in the life of Maggie Moran, …
Celestial Navigation
Jeremy Pauling is a thirty-eight-year-old batchelor who has never left home. He…
Digging to America
Friday August 15th, 1997. The night the girls arrived. Two tiny Korean babies…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Twin ~ Gerbrand Bakker (2007)
- Keeping the World Away ~ Margaret Forster (2007)
- The Other Side of the Bridge ~ Mary Lawson (2007)
- The Taxi Queue ~ Janet Davey (2008)
Additional Online Resources
The Temporal Horizon ~ K. Linton (1989)
Art and the Accidental in Anne Tyler’s Major Novels ~ J. Voelker (1989)
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