{"id":2000,"date":"2015-11-29T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T15:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2015-11-29T15:52:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T15:52:31","slug":"fiction-review-the-beginners-goodbye-by-anne-tyler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/11\/fiction-review-the-beginners-goodbye-by-anne-tyler\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction review: &#8216;The Beginner&#8217;s Goodbye&#8217; by Anne Tyler"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"big420BoxBody\">\n<div class=\"big420BoxContent\">\n<div class=\"reviewText mediumText description\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1333577280l\/12482658.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"318\" height=\"472\" \/>Aaron is a man with a withered arm and leg after a childhood illness. His family and friends fuss around him, but he won\u2019t be cosseted, and has become a curmudgeonly adult, grumpy at everyone and unable to interact sociably with the world. He works in the family\u2019s small publishing business, a vanity press which also publishes a series of how-to books, The Beginner\u2019s (whatever). Aaron marries a woman just as socially inept as he is, and when she dies suddenly, he begins to encounter her ghost. The plot, such as it is, involves Aaron coming to terms with Dorothy\u2019s death, and beginning to move on with his life (hence the title).<\/p>\n<p>I found this book a very easy read. There\u2019s quite a bit of humour, and, as something of a curmudgeon myself, I very much enjoyed Aaron\u2019s snappishness and passive resistance. With his house damaged by a fallen tree (which also killed his wife), he simply continues to live in the undamaged part until the rain collapses the roof and forces him out. Even then, he has to be pushed into getting things fixed. To say the story is flimsy would be a gross understatement &#8211; there really isn\u2019t any plot to speak of, the whole premise is Aaron\u2019s quirky character &#8211; but it still flowed along quite gently to its resolution.<\/p>\n<p>An odd sort of book, very readable and entertaining, but it left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. Like meringue, it looks and tastes good, but isn\u2019t very substantial. Still, I enjoyed it as a lightweight, very quick read (I read it from cover to cover during a single short-haul flight). Four stars.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"review-like\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aaron is a man with a withered arm and leg after a childhood illness. His family and friends fuss around him, but he won\u2019t be cosseted, and has become a curmudgeonly adult, grumpy at everyone and unable to interact sociably with the world. He works in the family\u2019s small publishing business, a vanity press which also publishes a series of how-to books, The Beginner\u2019s (whatever). Aaron marries a woman just as socially inept as he is, and when she dies suddenly, he begins to encounter her ghost. The plot, such as it is, involves Aaron coming to terms with Dorothy\u2019s death, and beginning to move on with his life (hence the title). I found this book a very easy read. There\u2019s quite a bit of humour, and, as something of a curmudgeon myself, I very much enjoyed Aaron\u2019s snappishness and passive resistance. With his house damaged by a fallen tree [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63],"tags":[166],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2002,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}