More Words: The writing is flawless. Characters, Setting, Dialogue - Superb. Only now that I've read this book about life's disappointments and compromises I'm not sure if my life is really as great as I imagine. Anyhow I started out feeling enamoured with Maggie (she's just so cute) and then slowly I started to fall out of love with her (she's pathologically inaccurately wishfully meddlesome). Finally at the end of the day... well it was a just a long day, and I like her anyway. Only now I feel depressed. Don't read this book on a bad day.
Plot Summary: The misadventures of a long-time married couple travelling to and from a funeral, and all the history in between.
Quotes:
"Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to
settle for being ordinary?"
Why did popular songs always focus on romantic love? Why this preoccupation with first meetings, sad partings,honeyed kisses, heartbreak, when life was so full of children's births and trips to the shore and longtime jokes with friends? Once Maggie had seen on TV where archaeologists had just unearthed a fragment of music from who knows how many centuries B.C., and it was a boy's lament for a girl who didn't love him back. Then besides the songs there were the magazine stroes and the novels and the moves, even the hair-spray ads and the pantyhose ads. It struck Maggie as disporportionate.Misleading, in fact.
Questions:
- Why does Ira play solitare all the time?
- Is Maggie's idea of Ira accurate?
- Do all marriages settle out like this?
- Why is the story entitled: Breathing Lessons?
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