Ladder of Years

This story, peopled by a truckload of the kind of quirky, vivid characters that are Anne Tyler's specialty, is a gem. Obviously, many people have a negative first reaction to the idea that a woman could simply walk away from her life, leaving husband, children, and sibs behind. But this is the genius of Tyler's writing. She spins a tale that almost borders on allegory. It is a wonderful world of "what if." What if I just took a walk down the beach and kept walking? How would I survive? Where would I go? What would I do? Do these people really need me at all? Tyler's creation of Delia's alter-ego, Miss Grinstead, is inspired. The notion of starting over, tabula rasa, is magic and sets the imagination in motion. The bare room, the careful meals of vegetable soup and yogurt, the tiny purchases that Delia makes with such introspection, and her hunger to keep things simple set a great stage for building the rest of the story. Tyler sets it up like a castle of Lincoln Logs, one wonderful piece at a time. As new people enter Delia's life, the complexities of just being alive on the planet come wandering back in, because that is just the way life works! The story does end a bit abruptly, or perhaps it only seems that way because the reader is left to wonder what becomes of all those new people in Delia's life. But really, that is ALSO how life works; things are rarely if ever wrapped up in a neat package, in the final analysis. Let your imagination off its leash for a while and take a climb on the Ladder of Years.

Delia Grinstead married young, had kids and lived a self-effacing life. She woke up one day to discover she'd pretty much disappeared as a person who counted for anything in the eyes of her husband, her children, her friends - and even herself. So she did something I'll wager lots and lots of women have been tempted to do at some time or another: she walked away, took a bus to wherever it was going, settled in a small town in Nowhere, USA, and rediscovered/recreated herself.This book is one of Anne Tyler's best. Spot-on characterization, situations, dialogue, effortless prose, hilarity and pathos on the same page. Satisfying and enlightening, endearing and emotional. A lesson in understanding and forgiveness, Ladder of Years bears up under reading and rereading.

Delia does what we all wish we could do at some point in our lives. She walks out on her life. Not because it's terrible or too hard, but because you feel like it. Who knows what the reason is? You need a change. You want to see what else is out there. The question of why will eat away at your mind while reading this novel and you'll never find a suitable answer. What Anne Tyler does in this novel is build a fictional story within a story. This woman creates a little world within her own world in which she feels space to breathe. A small apartment with a local library: what a perfect little escape. Every small action she performs within this world has something tremendously sacred attached to it because it belongs wholly to her. It is a chance for her to find out who she is again. After so many years of living in the role of a mother and having that image dominate the way in which people look at her, she is able to stand in the mirror and see herself as an independent woman. We should all be allowed small opportunities of selfishness from time to time. Delia is simply making up for lost time with the time she takes away from her family. You might think that it is inevitable she would return to her old life, but it isn't. It is her decision if she wants to go back or not and it is a hard one. This is the thrilling thing about this novel and it is why it is one of my favorite. Along with Delia, you are in completely unfamiliar territory where you feel the central character is empowered to direct her own destiny rather than the author or any of the other characters in the novel. You discover that we all have the choice to plunge into a well of potential and remerge as someone completely new. Each person is first and always in charge of whom he or she wants to be and if he or she needs to take dramatic measures to reclaim his or her identity than he or she should.

Fast and true: A book doesn't have to be a masterpiece or a 'classic' in order to speak to you. I knew from chapter one that _Ladder of Years_ was a regular story, without literary pretensions or fancy schmancy trickery designed to impress the reader or flatter our sensibilities. It spoke of the regular and the everyday - mostly of the small things that infuriate us all: the condescending husband, the whinnying nagging unmarried sister of the family, abrubt or impassive children. The main character in this novel, Delia Grinstead, does what we all, at one time or another, would love to do. On vacation with her family, she picks up her tote bag and simply walks away from the only life she's ever known and begins a new one. And it all begins with a rather unusual meeting with a stranger at the grocery store. This is a fine tale of the powers of time and perspective; not just in the need to be alone, but in the need to be with new people and in surroundings that do not require anything more than what you are willing to offer._Ladder of Years_ addresses everyone's favourite fantasy of erasing the past and becoming someone new, which is why it is so easy to get lost in Delia's life, in her thoughts and feelings toward her family. This is just a fantastic book, one that really picks up in the second half. I had to read the last 200 pages in one sitting - even classics aren't that attractive. Anne Tyler has again managed to impress me with the ordinary!Aside from the import of this novel, Anne Tyler has managed to draw out a great cast of characters. I always say that the author's characters are people you already know, or would (in some cases) like to know. Please read _Ladder of Years_.

Delia feels profoundly the diametrically opposed emotions many of us have as we reach the midpoint of our lives. Middle age is a time of retrospection-we wonder if the choices we made were good ones. We question our choice of spouse, our choice of career, our future without children in the house, our achievements (or lack thereof), even our very purpose in life. Delia acts on her doubts-pushed along by a grossly inattentive husband and acrimonious children. Without her unpleasant home life, Delia might have stayed forever, never knowing the answers to her questions. Tyler provides all of us going through the pangs of middle age an alter ego through whom we experience what we might never actually do ourselves. She demonstrates her great talent by creating a sympathetic character in Delia. We feel for Delia, even though, in leaving her family, she commits an act generally condemned by society. As other readers have expressed, at one time or another everyone with a spouse and children has felt like walking away. However, Delia doesn't "abandon" her family, she is emotionally shoved out the door.