Breathing Lessons | Crazy for Sighing and Crazy for Loving You

Eder considers Breathing Lessons as Tyler's "funniest book," although perhaps "not her best" in the following review.

No Olympian or high-flying view for Anne Tyler's art and the people it invents. She is a low-flyer, a crop-duster, zooming in at head-height and lifting hats; skimming the ordinary because it provides certain essential kinds of humanity, sometimes catching a wing tip on it or blowing its dust into her engine; and finally, with all the risks, accomplishing a gleeful astonishment.

Her people are arrayed in comic eccentricity. But Tyler waives the preservative chill customary to such a thing. They perform as close as possible to life temperature. They are soft, sometimes too soft.

In...

[The entire page is 944 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.