Comfort Works

When I was a teenager, I loved two things: Anne Tyler books and Woody Allen movies. During recent, stressful times I have found myself drawn back to both of them. I guess it makes sense that in trying times you might reach for nostalgia. But I have also noticed a similarity in them that wasn’t as obvious before.

1. Career Trajectory. Both Anne Tyler and Woody Allen launched their first work earlier than they should have. Now, admittedly, someone else made the decision to give them a shot, but both hit their strides later. For Tyler, it was her fifth book, Searching for Caleb, that established her winning formula. She then published several stellar works – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, Morgan’s Passing, before falling back into a more repetitive groove, using a familiar bag of tricks. Woody Allen’s oevre is similar. I have never appreciated his first five films. After that he started a roll that continued for ten years before reverting to retreads of earlier works. This tells you something about the era in which they worked. In the ’60s people still took chances on amateurs who showed potential. That doesn’t happen anymore. If they were starting out today, their earlier works would have been rejected and they would have found success only when they polished their skills.
2. A bittersweet, old-fashioned tone. On the surface, Tyler and Allen’s works are not similar. She writes quirky domestic stories set in Baltimore. He produces urban dramedies and homages to classic Hollywood champagne comedies. But they do share a common tone. There is an old-fashioned feel to many of the central characters, as if they belong to a different era. The characters are often intellectually finicky with strong opinions and preferences. And, more often than not, the endings are bittersweet. The Accidental Tourist, for example, is both a romance and a sad story of a marriage ending. Anne Tyler recently admitted in an interview that she didn’t want Sarah and Macon to break up. The final scene, in which Macon moves on with Muriel, is a happy ending only for some readers.
3. The Old Becomes New. My chief criticism of both of them is the same: their later works are transparent rehashes of better, earlier efforts. Redhead by the Side of the Road is a perfect example of this. The protagonist, Micah, could easily be Macon’s son. (Maybe he and Muriel had one?) He is fussy, regimented, and clueless about women. Just as Macon’s fixed ways are altered by his bond with Alexander, Micah is enlightened by a brief encounter with an old girlfriend’s son. And both works end with the protagonist’s transformation. For the love of a good woman, he has learned to loosen up. Allen’s later films have the same problem. Long before interest in them waned, they have both clearly run out of ideas.