The French Braid By Anne Tyler book review
BY Harsimran Kaur ON May 25 , 2022 IN BOOK REVIEWS, The French Braid By Anne Tyler-Fiction
Rating: 2/5
A family is a united by love, compassion and warmth but sometimes for reasons unknown, the union breaks, its entire edifice falls apart and people drift away. What carries them to another realm is a perfidy of life which we are not oblivious to; loss of loved one, geographical permutations, a malignant trauma or an irony that fails the belief to love someone dearly. Is it a deception that we linger on to or a reality that we fail to recognize? The truth is, drifting never fails to surprise us.
The book in my hand, “The French Braid” had a lot to tell about life, but somewhere the author has not been able to bind a story with eloquence. It’s a fast-track read, sober in its narrative but not very captivating though. The book by Anne Taylor is a journey of “Garretts”—Robert Garret and Mercy Garret. It encapsulates their ups and downs from the 1950s right up to the post pandemic era. Spanning 60 years and multiple generations, it offers a diffuse, affectionate portrait of the Garretts, a loving but aloof family in which nearly everything is left unsaid. The Garrett’s drift away from each other for greener pastures yet are inextricably connected.The roots of this familial distance are a central plot of “French Braid.”
Anne Taylor in her effortless writing projects strong empowered women full of choices in her book. She also broaches some of the fundamental issues revolving around woman such as motherhood, marriage and female emancipation in a subtle way.The concept of a family explained through a ‘French Braid ‘bears a great significance in the book. However, book fails to provide a convincing plot and the events elucidated are mundane.
Take away
A simple book that expounds the subtleties of life and how we make and unmake our own validations to justify it! Aspirations take us away but what still remains intact is our value system that is conjoined to keep our hearts entwined.