Noah's Compass
A Novel
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
Like Noah in the flood, Tyler's protagonist, Liam Pennywell, is a likable, unmoored figure. Having lost his job at 60, he feels too old to search for another, too young to retire. Arthur Morey offers a Liam whose pleasant voice grows on listeners; he makes us care for this unambitious man who thinks more eloquently than he speaks. Morey capably narrates passages that showcase Tyler's humorous observations, set like gems among pitch-perfect conversations between Liam and those who make up his world, including acquaintances, daughters, and an ex-wife. Morey portrays a variety of memorable characters, though his fretful-sounding voicing of Liam's girlfriend may take getting used to. Listeners drawn into this quirky, intimate narrative will be quite willing to overlook such a small detail. J.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
Starred review from September 21, 2009
Like Tyler's previous protagonists, Liam Pennywell is a man of unexceptional talents, plain demeanor, modest means and curtailed ambition. At age 60, he's been fired from his teaching job at a “second-rate private boys' school” in Baltimore, a job below his academic training and original expectations. An unsentimental, noncontemplative survivor of two failed marriages and the emotionally detached father of three grown daughters, Liam is jolted into alarm after he's attacked in his apartment and loses all memory of the experience. His search to recover those lost hours leads him into an uneasy exploration of his disappointing life and into an unlikely new relationship with Eunice, a socially inept walking fashion disaster who is half his age. She is also spontaneous and enthusiastic, and Liam longs to cast off his inertia and embrace the “joyous recklessness” that he feels in her company. Tyler's gift is to make the reader empathize with this flawed but decent man, and to marvel at how this determinedly low-key, plainspoken novelist achieves miracles of insight and understanding.
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