tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post6589904997354604476..comments2024-03-13T16:33:53.563+00:00Comments on <b>Dr Tony Shaw</b><br>: Anne Tyler: Ladder of Years (1995)Dr Tony Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565448709541046337noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post-90948356920629960122012-12-25T14:42:56.112+00:002012-12-25T14:42:56.112+00:00Point taken, Kathy, although - as you suggest - De...<b>Point taken, Kathy, although - as you suggest - Della is very hard on Joel and Noah, playing with their emotions like that. And of course she's by no means the only character of Tyler's who leaves her family to try on a new life just like that.<br /><br />Obviously, I love Tyler too, which is why I've gotten through fourteen of her novels and shall not rest until I finish the lot.<br /><br />I'm still a little mystified about the importance of 'for Christ's sake!", though: it's not exactly blasphemous, after all.</b>Dr Tony Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07565448709541046337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post-87926112764123587302012-12-25T04:34:05.367+00:002012-12-25T04:34:05.367+00:00Della had gone from being her father's recepti...Della had gone from being her father's receptionist to being her husband's receptionist, working in the same office, living in the same house, wearing the same style of clothes she wore as a very young woman, propping up husband and children but receiving complaints rather than respect. In her year away, she adopts a new persona--legal secretary in a gray (not pink and ruffled) dress, confident, free to create her own life without the past pulling at her back into old patterns. When she returns home, she brings a new independence and maturity, and her family really see her for possibly the first time.<br /><br />That's my reading. As for Joel and Noah--I don't know what to think, and I'm disappointed that Delia would allow them to become so dependent on her and then just leave. And, as a panelist on NPR said many years ago, if a MAN had walked away from his family for a year and then walked back in as if nothing had happened, I would be incensed.<br /><br />But no matter. Tyler's characters are so quirky and engaging, they can do what they want and I'll still love them. (By the way, if my son said, "for Christ's sake!" I would express disapproval. In my world, it's not a phrase you use in front of your elders or in polite company.)Kathy Wallerhttp://towriteistowrite.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com