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Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies.Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.
Dr. Battista show more has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.
When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around? show less
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akblanchard Socially awkward characters find love.
VenusofUrbino Another Shakespeare retelling (this time "A Midsummer Night's Dream") that was really fun.
Member Reviews
I won this book from the Early Reviewers program - it's part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series where current authors retell one of Shakespeare's works. This is a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew, and it is very well done. I kind of wondered how she would pull off this story in a modern setting and make it believable. I also worried that perhaps Anne Tyler might not be the best choice for this lighter fair, although I love her books - she is so great at creating quirky characters and writing character driven stories. And while there is always humor in her writing, I would never label her books comedy, which is definitely where the Taming of the Shrew falls. BUT, she carried it off brilliantly.
Kate Battista is the shrew - she is show more grumpy and impatient. A woman of few words and a lot of action. She is not afraid of speaking her mind. Still, you feel for her because she has become stuck. She runs her father's household and takes care of her teen-aged sister Bunny. She has a job that she doesn't love and is not very good at. She follows the strange rules that her father has set for the running of the household, but there is no joy, really, in her daily existence. Enter Pyotr, her father's research assistant, whose work visa is about to expire - you can guess what happens. Kate's father wants her to marry Pyotr in order to allow him to stay in the US permanently, thus enabling her father's research to proceed uninterrupted. What follows is delightful - a light, fluffy story that will have you laughing out loud. Not great literature, but certainly great fun. Highly recommended. show less
Kate Battista is the shrew - she is show more grumpy and impatient. A woman of few words and a lot of action. She is not afraid of speaking her mind. Still, you feel for her because she has become stuck. She runs her father's household and takes care of her teen-aged sister Bunny. She has a job that she doesn't love and is not very good at. She follows the strange rules that her father has set for the running of the household, but there is no joy, really, in her daily existence. Enter Pyotr, her father's research assistant, whose work visa is about to expire - you can guess what happens. Kate's father wants her to marry Pyotr in order to allow him to stay in the US permanently, thus enabling her father's research to proceed uninterrupted. What follows is delightful - a light, fluffy story that will have you laughing out loud. Not great literature, but certainly great fun. Highly recommended. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Absolutely delightful!
I must admit that there was not much of the shrew with Kate Batista. If anything Kate, a nursery school assistant, comes across as a displaced and down trodden person who is floating through life rather than partaking of it. Viewing life from the outside. I keep flashing back to where her four year old girl students are playing with dolls and acting out life's situations and to Kate it seems so foreign. There is much of Kate that is silent and doll like, allowing life to happen around her, allowing other people to chart her path. She seems to have spent a lifetime trying to make up for what she's not. She does not believe in herself. She takes the line of least resistance, particularly having grown up with a show more brilliant and driven scientist father. Kate's father is a self centred man who analysis his world scientifically, governing the very food the family eats from a nutritional standpoint. They eat a meat mash concoction every night. Much is made of that relationship with food and in particular Kate's acquiescence to what is desired.
Dr. Battista (somewhere on the Aspergers continuum) gives Kate the gift of a personal remembrance. A rare and precious moment. He talks to Kate about her relationship with her mother and the fun things they used to do, a relationship Kate couldn't remember. This was important. Those memories relived could have helped Kate years before, but they were never extended. This was a poignant moment, a catalyst where things changed for Kate.
There are some absolutely delightful lines throughout. Tyler's turn of phrase and use of language is exquisite. I occasionally found myself breaking out into gusts of laughter.
I loved that Kate related more to her four year olds than grown ups. And the dilemma of the little boys who now wondered who they would marry, if not Kate was hilarious, charming and sad.
So distressed by the coming loss of his talented research assistant due to visa laws, Dr Battista decides that the only way forward is for Pyotr to marry Kate. He sets out to make this happen in all sorts of ways without telling Kate. There are some truly amusing moments. Pyotr is rather a gem and as the relationship between them develops, set against the background of the dysfunctional Battista family, we are treated to a magical and very human read.
There is not much that is vinegary about Kate. If however you know the Skipping Vinegar Girl neon sign where the girl is trapped, skipping eternally, then you capture something of Kate's life until now.
So glad I read this. I can think about it for ages!
A NetGalley ARC show less
I must admit that there was not much of the shrew with Kate Batista. If anything Kate, a nursery school assistant, comes across as a displaced and down trodden person who is floating through life rather than partaking of it. Viewing life from the outside. I keep flashing back to where her four year old girl students are playing with dolls and acting out life's situations and to Kate it seems so foreign. There is much of Kate that is silent and doll like, allowing life to happen around her, allowing other people to chart her path. She seems to have spent a lifetime trying to make up for what she's not. She does not believe in herself. She takes the line of least resistance, particularly having grown up with a show more brilliant and driven scientist father. Kate's father is a self centred man who analysis his world scientifically, governing the very food the family eats from a nutritional standpoint. They eat a meat mash concoction every night. Much is made of that relationship with food and in particular Kate's acquiescence to what is desired.
Dr. Battista (somewhere on the Aspergers continuum) gives Kate the gift of a personal remembrance. A rare and precious moment. He talks to Kate about her relationship with her mother and the fun things they used to do, a relationship Kate couldn't remember. This was important. Those memories relived could have helped Kate years before, but they were never extended. This was a poignant moment, a catalyst where things changed for Kate.
There are some absolutely delightful lines throughout. Tyler's turn of phrase and use of language is exquisite. I occasionally found myself breaking out into gusts of laughter.
I loved that Kate related more to her four year olds than grown ups. And the dilemma of the little boys who now wondered who they would marry, if not Kate was hilarious, charming and sad.
So distressed by the coming loss of his talented research assistant due to visa laws, Dr Battista decides that the only way forward is for Pyotr to marry Kate. He sets out to make this happen in all sorts of ways without telling Kate. There are some truly amusing moments. Pyotr is rather a gem and as the relationship between them develops, set against the background of the dysfunctional Battista family, we are treated to a magical and very human read.
There is not much that is vinegary about Kate. If however you know the Skipping Vinegar Girl neon sign where the girl is trapped, skipping eternally, then you capture something of Kate's life until now.
So glad I read this. I can think about it for ages!
A NetGalley ARC show less
This is one of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which talented modern authors take a crack at retelling Shakespeare’s plays in contemporary settings. I enjoyed [Vinegar Girl], Anne Tyler’s version of [The Taming of the Shrew], in the way I usually enjoy her novels. They are diverting, feel “true”, and touch on life’s emotional issues without getting too profound or demanding much of the reader. I had a bit more fun with this one than I have with some of her other recent novels, and if I’m not mistaken, so did she.
Kate Battista is 29 years old, keeping house for her father and much younger sister, and working, more or less by default, as a teacher’s assistant in a pre-school. She was “invited” to leave college after show more telling a science professor that his explanation of a fundamental principle was half-assed. Although she could have re-applied after taking a semester off, she hasn’t bothered, not being particularly motivated to any career path. She isn’t crazy about her job and is often “on probation” for one thing or another, but the kids like her. She isn’t exactly devoted to her family, although she willingly follows and enforces her father’s household rules, some of which are mighty peculiar. She’s a bit ill-tempered and fairly anti-social.
Suddenly, it begins to become clear to her that her father and his research assistant, a Russian microbiologist whose visa is expiring, are hatching a plot to keep Pyotr in the country by that old tried-and-true method of marrying him to a American. Kate, that is. Both men initially assume she’ll be fine with this idea, and her father especially is bewildered to learn that she isn’t about it. At all. Such a simple request, really. Nothing much has to change. Pyotr will move in with them, Kate can carry on her life as before; things just have to look good for the Immigration people, that’s all.
It’s been a long time since I read [The Taming of the Shrew], but Tyler’s plot seems much less complicated than Shakespeare’s, and it leaves out all the framing and almost all the subplots, although there are frequent nods to the play.
While Pyotr isn’t actively looking for a wife, and money isn’t what he needs, marrying Kate would be an advantage to him. He needs a green card to stay on in America. Dr. Battista needs his research assistant, without whom his years of work on auto-immune diseases may come to a screeching halt just as he is about to make a significant break-through. Marrying his daughter to his assistant would be to his advantage, but his goal isn’t to get rid of the responsibility for Kate as Baptista’s was. In fact, Dr. Battista expects his daughter to stay at home after the marriage and continue to run HIS household, which will then simply include an extra person—a son-in-law.
Aside from a relative’s joke about thinking that 15-year-old Bunny, the younger sister, might be married before Kate, there is none of that “older sister must be married first” motif found in the original. Bunny doesn't have a flock of suitors, but there is a "Spanish tutor" whose intentions are not entirely academic. Shakespeare’s love of disguises and mistaken identity is conspicuously absent. The groom does show up for the wedding late, and dressed in flip-flops, baggy shorts and a dirty T-shirt, and in the only quote I recognized from the play, announces "She is marrying me, not my clothes."
Perhaps the biggest difference between Tyler’s version and Shakespeare’s is Kate herself. She starts out fairly domesticated, if a bit shrewish, and she isn’t going to accept that Man-is-the-Master nonsense. Pyotr tries it just once: “Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys.” To which Kate replies “I am wife and I say no” and that’s the end of that! She also has her own rather remarkable twist on the Shrew’s final speech, which in this case is a ringing defense of men in general, but has none of that “place your hands below your husband’s foot, In token of {your} duty, if he please” stuff. I’d almost say that it is Pyotr who is tamed, but that isn’t fair to him. At the end of this delightful tale, we are left with the impression that Kate and Pyotr are truly suited to one another, and that all is well that ends this well. show less
Kate Battista is 29 years old, keeping house for her father and much younger sister, and working, more or less by default, as a teacher’s assistant in a pre-school. She was “invited” to leave college after show more telling a science professor that his explanation of a fundamental principle was half-assed. Although she could have re-applied after taking a semester off, she hasn’t bothered, not being particularly motivated to any career path. She isn’t crazy about her job and is often “on probation” for one thing or another, but the kids like her. She isn’t exactly devoted to her family, although she willingly follows and enforces her father’s household rules, some of which are mighty peculiar. She’s a bit ill-tempered and fairly anti-social.
Suddenly, it begins to become clear to her that her father and his research assistant, a Russian microbiologist whose visa is expiring, are hatching a plot to keep Pyotr in the country by that old tried-and-true method of marrying him to a American. Kate, that is. Both men initially assume she’ll be fine with this idea, and her father especially is bewildered to learn that she isn’t about it. At all. Such a simple request, really. Nothing much has to change. Pyotr will move in with them, Kate can carry on her life as before; things just have to look good for the Immigration people, that’s all.
It’s been a long time since I read [The Taming of the Shrew], but Tyler’s plot seems much less complicated than Shakespeare’s, and it leaves out all the framing and almost all the subplots, although there are frequent nods to the play.
While Pyotr isn’t actively looking for a wife, and money isn’t what he needs, marrying Kate would be an advantage to him. He needs a green card to stay on in America. Dr. Battista needs his research assistant, without whom his years of work on auto-immune diseases may come to a screeching halt just as he is about to make a significant break-through. Marrying his daughter to his assistant would be to his advantage, but his goal isn’t to get rid of the responsibility for Kate as Baptista’s was. In fact, Dr. Battista expects his daughter to stay at home after the marriage and continue to run HIS household, which will then simply include an extra person—a son-in-law.
Aside from a relative’s joke about thinking that 15-year-old Bunny, the younger sister, might be married before Kate, there is none of that “older sister must be married first” motif found in the original. Bunny doesn't have a flock of suitors, but there is a "Spanish tutor" whose intentions are not entirely academic. Shakespeare’s love of disguises and mistaken identity is conspicuously absent. The groom does show up for the wedding late, and dressed in flip-flops, baggy shorts and a dirty T-shirt, and in the only quote I recognized from the play, announces "She is marrying me, not my clothes."
Perhaps the biggest difference between Tyler’s version and Shakespeare’s is Kate herself. She starts out fairly domesticated, if a bit shrewish, and she isn’t going to accept that Man-is-the-Master nonsense. Pyotr tries it just once: “Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys.” To which Kate replies “I am wife and I say no” and that’s the end of that! She also has her own rather remarkable twist on the Shrew’s final speech, which in this case is a ringing defense of men in general, but has none of that “place your hands below your husband’s foot, In token of {your} duty, if he please” stuff. I’d almost say that it is Pyotr who is tamed, but that isn’t fair to him. At the end of this delightful tale, we are left with the impression that Kate and Pyotr are truly suited to one another, and that all is well that ends this well. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.What an unalloyed pleasure! I was hesitant on the whole rewriting-Shakespeare concept--I'm not a purist, and Will himself borrowed plots aplenty in his day--but I enjoy a good surprise, and how surprising can a rewritten Shakespeare play be? Plenty, apparently. And Tyler takes the story a step beyond where others might have stopped, and that brought a tear to my eye, so well done.
The writing itself seemed effortless, which is the very best and most difficult kind of writing to achieve. All the characters were either likable or interesting or both. It was relatively short, but exactly the right length.
4 1/2 stars, but Goodreads doesn't allow for that, so I have to round down in this case as 5 stars have to be my very favourites.
The writing itself seemed effortless, which is the very best and most difficult kind of writing to achieve. All the characters were either likable or interesting or both. It was relatively short, but exactly the right length.
4 1/2 stars, but Goodreads doesn't allow for that, so I have to round down in this case as 5 stars have to be my very favourites.
Twenty-something Kate Battista still lives at home with her widowed father, a Johns Hopkins research scientist, and her 15-year-old sister, Bunny. Kate is a teaching assistant at a local preschool, where she is loved by the children but barely tolerated by the parents and school administrators for her lack of diplomacy, tact, and restraint. Kate's father is about to lose his talented research assistant, Pyotr, and he has begun to act strangely. Pyotr's visa is about to expire and he'll have to leave the country. Unless, of course, he marries a U.S. citizen and gets a green card...
The plot of The Taming of the Shrew would be difficult to translate to a 21st century North American or European setting. Anne Tyler made it look easy. The show more Pulitzer winner demonstrates an equal talent for chick lit. It's a fun, light-hearted read that had me giggling throughout. Tyler's characteristic Baltimore setting puts her own stamp on this Shakespeare retelling. It's a solid entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare project.
This review is based on an electronic advance reader copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley. show less
The plot of The Taming of the Shrew would be difficult to translate to a 21st century North American or European setting. Anne Tyler made it look easy. The show more Pulitzer winner demonstrates an equal talent for chick lit. It's a fun, light-hearted read that had me giggling throughout. Tyler's characteristic Baltimore setting puts her own stamp on this Shakespeare retelling. It's a solid entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare project.
This review is based on an electronic advance reader copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley. show less
In this contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”, Kate Battista is less shrew than just someone who doesn’t quite fit into everyday society. Twenty-nine years old, she keeps house for her father and brings up her fifteen year old airhead sister, Bunny. Thrown out of college for telling a professor his description of photosynthesis was half-assed, she works as a classroom aid at a preschool, where the kids love her but the parents and teachers not so much. She is forthright with her opinions, never mean but just sort of missing the social niceties. Her father is a typical absent minded scientist who is near to a big breakthrough on autoimmune diseases, but he has a problem: his brilliant assistant is show more about at the end of his work visa and will soon have to leave the country. His idea, of course, is for Kate-who he tells bluntly isn’t going to find a husband on her own anyway- to marry the assistant, Pyotr. Needless to say, this doesn’t go over well. Pyotr does his best to ingratiate himself to Kate, but English is a second language for him and despite being here for three years, American society baffles him. Like Kate, he has no filters and tells people what he thinks. Kate, Pyotr, and Dr. Battista all seem a bit Aspergean in their lack of social skills.
Thankfully, this isn’t a rom/com but an examination of men and women, social conventions, and how people are valued by others. It is light in tone but with a hard edge running under the surface. There were a few surprises, but the best one was Bunny, who turns out to be not the airhead she acts like. This was a light, enjoyable read, and I was surprised to find that Tyler not only moved the story to modern day, but changed the tale to fit modern day women. Not Tyler’s best work by far, but nice. show less
Thankfully, this isn’t a rom/com but an examination of men and women, social conventions, and how people are valued by others. It is light in tone but with a hard edge running under the surface. There were a few surprises, but the best one was Bunny, who turns out to be not the airhead she acts like. This was a light, enjoyable read, and I was surprised to find that Tyler not only moved the story to modern day, but changed the tale to fit modern day women. Not Tyler’s best work by far, but nice. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.It takes courage for an author to take on the project of rewriting Shakespeare, but Tyler gamely has a go at “The Taming of the Shrew.” (Other take-offs include Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate" and the 1999 film "10 Things I Hate About You.")
How can a re-writer avoid comparisons to Shakespeare? One way is updating of course, but another is to eschew all but the bare bones of the plot, which Tyler does here. The original story depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, who is portrayed as a headstrong, obdurate “shrew.” Suitors of her more “desirable” younger sister Bianca want to get Katherina married off, since Bianca cannot be married before her older sister. Petruchio, who is not from Padua but is an adventurer from show more Verona, is looking for a wealthy bride. When Katherina’s father offers a lot of money to anyone who marries her, Petruchio decides he is the man to conquer Katherina and teach her to “obey” her husband.
It should be noted that Shakespeare’s England was a patriarchal society. Most women had no choice but to conform to societal roles in order to survive. (Indeed, in Tyler’s 21st Century rendition, Kate still finds that she is suddenly more “acceptable” to everyone at work when she announces her engagement to be married: “All at once they were interested in what she had to say.”) As for Petruchio, he had the idea that he should train his new bride the way a falconer trains a haggard, “a type of falcon that cannot be trained,” a common idea of a husband’s “duty” at the time. On their wedding day, Petruchio arrives late, ill-dressed, and undisposed to allow the tired and hungry Katherina to partake in the wedding feast. He proudly boasts:
“Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ‘tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till she stoop, she must not be full-gorg’d,
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call . . . “
He eventually wears Katherine down, and she indeed becomes an obedient wife. How does Tyler make this plot acceptable to modern audiences?
For one thing, Tyler’s Kate, 29, is not “shrewish” at all. Although her boss at work feels the need to counsel her continually on “tack, restraint, and diplomacy,” to me, she just seems “authentic.” Indeed, it is Kate’s 15-year-old sister “Bunny” who is mostly unbearable; Kate is much more sympathetic. Petruchio becomes Pyotr Shcherbakov, a 28-year-old microbiologist assisting Kate’s brilliant but addlepated father Louis, who is desperate for Pyotr to stay on and help him with his research into autoimmune disorders. Pyotr’s visa will expire in two months, and the only way Pyotr can stay on with Johns Hopkins is if he marries an American.
Louis is determined that Kate save his work by marrying Pyotr. It will only be cosmetic, he insists. She is deeply hurt by his scheme: "He must think she was of no value; she was nothing but a bargaining chip in his single-minded quest for a scientific miracle," she ruminates. Nevertheless, she has always gone along with her father’s requests, and she agrees. As insulting and unsavory as it all may be, remaining a nursemaid to her father and her truculent disobedient sister isn’t so appealing either.
Nevertheless, Kate isn’t going to be “tamed” in the way anyone thinks. When, following their marriage, Pyotr says, ““Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys,” Katherine replies “I am wife and I say no.” She also gives a twist on Katherine’s famous monologue at the end of Shakespeare’s play, which is a defense of men. In The Taming of the Shrew, Kate declares:
"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou li'st warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt."
In Tyler’s version, first Bunny accuses Kate of being a disgusting zombie for backing down, marrying Pyotr, and even sticking up for him. Kate responds that it is hard to be a man:
“Have you ever thought about that? Anything that’s bothering them, men think they have to hide it. They think they should seem in charge, in control; they don’t dare show their true feelings. No matter if they’re hurting or desperate or stricken with grief, if they’re heartsick or they’re homesick or some huge dark guilt is hanging over them or they’re about to fail big-time at something - ‘Oh, I’m okay,’ they say. ‘Everything’s just fine.’ They’re a whole lot less free than women are, when you think about it.”
An Epilogue eleven years later lets us know just how the couple has fared.
Discussion: Tyler employs a great deal of wry humor in her story. I loved this passage in which Kate’s father explains her late mother’s depression:
“Your mother thought we should have weekends. Vacations, even! She didn’t understand. . .. She disliked being alone; can you imagine? … More than once, she told me she didn’t see any point to life.”
Kate clamped her arms across her chest.
“I told her, ‘Well, of course you don’t, dearest. I can’t in good conscience say that there is any point. Did you ever believe there was?’ This didn’t seem to comfort her, though.”
“‘Really,’ Kate said. She reached for her wineglass and took a large swig.”
I also enjoyed the way Pyotr grew on Kate. I’m not sure I ever understood Pyotr very well, however; his character seemed mostly a prop to illuminate the nature of the others, and the strange way American habits seem to foreign immigrants.
Evaluation: This short retelling retains just enough of the original plot to be recognizable, but only barely. It is an entertaining in and of itself as a humorous look at families, the modern workplace, and male/female relationships. show less
How can a re-writer avoid comparisons to Shakespeare? One way is updating of course, but another is to eschew all but the bare bones of the plot, which Tyler does here. The original story depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, who is portrayed as a headstrong, obdurate “shrew.” Suitors of her more “desirable” younger sister Bianca want to get Katherina married off, since Bianca cannot be married before her older sister. Petruchio, who is not from Padua but is an adventurer from show more Verona, is looking for a wealthy bride. When Katherina’s father offers a lot of money to anyone who marries her, Petruchio decides he is the man to conquer Katherina and teach her to “obey” her husband.
It should be noted that Shakespeare’s England was a patriarchal society. Most women had no choice but to conform to societal roles in order to survive. (Indeed, in Tyler’s 21st Century rendition, Kate still finds that she is suddenly more “acceptable” to everyone at work when she announces her engagement to be married: “All at once they were interested in what she had to say.”) As for Petruchio, he had the idea that he should train his new bride the way a falconer trains a haggard, “a type of falcon that cannot be trained,” a common idea of a husband’s “duty” at the time. On their wedding day, Petruchio arrives late, ill-dressed, and undisposed to allow the tired and hungry Katherina to partake in the wedding feast. He proudly boasts:
“Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ‘tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till she stoop, she must not be full-gorg’d,
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call . . . “
He eventually wears Katherine down, and she indeed becomes an obedient wife. How does Tyler make this plot acceptable to modern audiences?
For one thing, Tyler’s Kate, 29, is not “shrewish” at all. Although her boss at work feels the need to counsel her continually on “tack, restraint, and diplomacy,” to me, she just seems “authentic.” Indeed, it is Kate’s 15-year-old sister “Bunny” who is mostly unbearable; Kate is much more sympathetic. Petruchio becomes Pyotr Shcherbakov, a 28-year-old microbiologist assisting Kate’s brilliant but addlepated father Louis, who is desperate for Pyotr to stay on and help him with his research into autoimmune disorders. Pyotr’s visa will expire in two months, and the only way Pyotr can stay on with Johns Hopkins is if he marries an American.
Louis is determined that Kate save his work by marrying Pyotr. It will only be cosmetic, he insists. She is deeply hurt by his scheme: "He must think she was of no value; she was nothing but a bargaining chip in his single-minded quest for a scientific miracle," she ruminates. Nevertheless, she has always gone along with her father’s requests, and she agrees. As insulting and unsavory as it all may be, remaining a nursemaid to her father and her truculent disobedient sister isn’t so appealing either.
Nevertheless, Kate isn’t going to be “tamed” in the way anyone thinks. When, following their marriage, Pyotr says, ““Hand me keys, Katherine. I am husband and I say hand me keys,” Katherine replies “I am wife and I say no.” She also gives a twist on Katherine’s famous monologue at the end of Shakespeare’s play, which is a defense of men. In The Taming of the Shrew, Kate declares:
"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou li'st warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt."
In Tyler’s version, first Bunny accuses Kate of being a disgusting zombie for backing down, marrying Pyotr, and even sticking up for him. Kate responds that it is hard to be a man:
“Have you ever thought about that? Anything that’s bothering them, men think they have to hide it. They think they should seem in charge, in control; they don’t dare show their true feelings. No matter if they’re hurting or desperate or stricken with grief, if they’re heartsick or they’re homesick or some huge dark guilt is hanging over them or they’re about to fail big-time at something - ‘Oh, I’m okay,’ they say. ‘Everything’s just fine.’ They’re a whole lot less free than women are, when you think about it.”
An Epilogue eleven years later lets us know just how the couple has fared.
Discussion: Tyler employs a great deal of wry humor in her story. I loved this passage in which Kate’s father explains her late mother’s depression:
“Your mother thought we should have weekends. Vacations, even! She didn’t understand. . .. She disliked being alone; can you imagine? … More than once, she told me she didn’t see any point to life.”
Kate clamped her arms across her chest.
“I told her, ‘Well, of course you don’t, dearest. I can’t in good conscience say that there is any point. Did you ever believe there was?’ This didn’t seem to comfort her, though.”
“‘Really,’ Kate said. She reached for her wineglass and took a large swig.”
I also enjoyed the way Pyotr grew on Kate. I’m not sure I ever understood Pyotr very well, however; his character seemed mostly a prop to illuminate the nature of the others, and the strange way American habits seem to foreign immigrants.
Evaluation: This short retelling retains just enough of the original plot to be recognizable, but only barely. It is an entertaining in and of itself as a humorous look at families, the modern workplace, and male/female relationships. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Members
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4,052 works; 108 members
Author Information
62+ Works 56,020 Members
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 25, 1941. She graduated from Duke University at the age of 19 and completed graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked as a librarian and bibliographer. Her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964. Her other works show more include Saint Maybe, Back When We Were Grownups, Digging to America, Noah's Compass, The Beginner's Goodbye, A Spool of Blue Thread, and Vinegar Girl. She has won several awards including the PEN Faulkner Award in 1983 for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the 1985 National Book Critics Circle Award for The Accidental Tourist, and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons. The Accidental Tourist was adapted into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt and Geena Davis. In 2018 her title, Clock Dance, made the bestsellers list. (Bowker Author Biography) Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Back When We Were Grownups" is her 15th novel; her 11th, "Breathing Lessons", won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. (Publisher Provided) show less
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Awards and Honors
Distinctions
The Guardian Book of the Day (2016-06-09)
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Was inspired by
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Vinegar Girl
- Original publication date
- 2016-06-21
- People/Characters
- Katherine "Kate" Battista; Bunny Battista; Louis Battista; Pyotr Shcherbakov; Adam Barnes; Edward Mintz (show all 10); Mrs. Murphy; Mrs. Liu; Mrs. Chauncey; Mrs. Darling
- Important places
- Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- First words
- Kate Battista was gardening out back when she heard the telephone ring in the kitchen.
- Quotations
- "Not all scientists prefer blondes."
(The unsatisfying thing about practicing restraint was that nobody knew you were practicing it.)
The thought didn't disturb her. She had used this room up, she felt. She had used this life up.
But she was pleased, in spite of herself. She knew what he was trying to say. ¶ It crossed her mind that if her mother had known too—if she had been able to read the signals—the lives of all four of them might have been ... (show all)much happier. ¶ For the first time, it occurred to her that she herself was getting better at reading signals. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It was true they were standing in a door, but they were both in the one door side by side and very close together, neither one in front or behind, and they were holding hands and smiling.
- Original language
- English US
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 1,966
- Popularity
- 10,669
- Reviews
- 238
- Rating
- (3.48)
- Languages
- 13 — Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 47
- ASINs
- 11
