Even at The Christian Science Monitor, opening the book packages that pour in every day is a dirty business. I used to come home with my shirt smudged black till I found a solution. But now, no matter how many times I remind my colleagues that I'm wearing a "manly smock," they insist on calling it an "apron."Enjoying a novel by Anita Shreve puts me in a similarly defensive mood. I realize this raises a couchful of insecurities that can't be resolved in a book review, but it goes to the heart of Shreve's popularity with some readers - and her rejection by others. During the past 14 years, she's created a fan base that sends each of her novels to the bestseller list, first in hardback, then in paperback. Oprah helped, of course, by selecting "The Pilot's Wife" in 1998 for her massive club, but that coveted seal also reinforced Shreve's reputation as a "women's novelist."To the extent that that's a put-down, it's unfortunate because what's remarkable about her best work is the way she hovers so tantalizingly between serious history and syrupy romance - between the portrayal of making textiles in New Hampshire and heaving breasts in red satin. Both lines of inquiry are fascinating, of course, but no one manages to straddle them as successfully as Shreve. Admittedly, there are missteps now and then, but usually, as in her new novel, she gets it just right."All He Ever Wanted" begins with fire in ice - a cataclysm that consumes a hotel on a freezing winter night. This disaster is a perfect metaphor for the passion ignited that evening in the heart of Nicholas Van Tassel, a cold professor of rhetoric at an undistinguished New England college. Tassel begins his memoir here, the first time he saw Etna Bliss, staring at the flames they had both barely escaped. In a moment, he falls desperately in love, escorts her safely home, and dedicates his life to possessing her.He's a creepy narrator, and the circumstances of this memoir - a confession to his son while traveling by train to his sister's funeral - only heighten the macabre atmosphere. He speaks in a stilted, formal manner, infected with the pretensions of academia, but he's visited by painful moments of self-consciousness that make him confess how pompous and ridiculous he is. The effect, so well engineered by Shreve, is strangely engaging, eliciting feelings of revulsion and sympathy as Nicholas describes a life consumed by jealousy.His obsession with Miss Bliss - he can't help making puns on her name or apologizing for his sophomoric wordplay - inspires all the usual stratagems of romance: He calls on her, brings her lovely gifts, and asks her for walks."I wanted to lay down my new cloak so that her feet might not be sullied by the dirty snow, but of course I could not - not only for the seeming excess of the gesture, which might frighten away any sane women, but also for the sheer impracticality of doing so at continuous intervals." Talk about a wild and crazy guy!Alarmed by his strange-fitting happiness, Nicholas nevertheless behaves in every way like the besotted gentleman he is: "I shed, in those few months, the dull persona of the professor in favor of the more impassioned demeanor of the suitor." Throughout their very formal courtship, Etna is always polite and eager to get away from her suffocating aunt and uncle, but at some level, Nicholas suspects that she does not love him. That suspicion grows stronger when Etna says, "I do not love you."Nicholas is pained by her candor, but remains convinced that she will learn to love him. And in the meantime, he points out with cool calculation, he's offering the only probable escape from a life of spinsterhood and financial dependence on her relatives.This could hardly have been an unusual bargain at the time, and Shreve explores the emotional costs on both sides with real sympathy and historical precision.Nicholas is a pompous bore, to be sure, but he's also devoted to his new wife. He provides a lovely home, and he encourages her freedom to pursue various interests. For her part, Etna raises two happy children and supports her husband's professional ambitions, but her affection for him never deepens. She remains committed to maintaining a room of her own and a degree of emotional and physical distance that continues to scratch his heart.Meanwhile, Nicholas finds his passions similarly thwarted at the college. Through her portrayal of this modest liberal arts school, Shreve includes a wonderful background plot about the transformation of American higher education: the jarring rise of athletics, the shift toward professional degrees, and the corrosive influence of wealthy patrons. It's just the sort of substantive historical context that always runs beneath Shreve's romantic thrills.Driven by domestic and professional ambitions, Nicholas takes a series of small steps that eventually lead to some giant moral lapses, and finally a monstrous plot of deception to win back his wife and ascend to the dean's office. In the tradition of a classic fable, he gets all he ever wanted - and everything he deserves.Shreve takes some real risks here, not only by focusing on the villain but by speaking through him, forcing a long-suffering woman, the center of several of her most successful novels, to remain obscured and distant. It's another indication of the breadth of her talent, and another reason to keep her from being trapped in the kitchen.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0417/p1...
All He Ever Wanted begins with a hotel fire in the early 1900’s. The narrator of the story is recounting his past while en route to his sister’s funeral. Bachelor Nicholas Van Tassel is a stuffy professor at a snotty boys' school who is inside the hotel when the blaze begins but leaves unscathed. During this tragedy where twenty people perish in a fiery death he meets the woman of his dreams Etna Bliss.Etna’s “handsome” face, her lovely waist and her other womanly attributes haunt his every thought. Even her name, Bliss, brings lusty thoughts to his mind and starts my skin to crawling. His infatuation is all consuming and before long he pursues her with all of the gusto of a starving dog drooling over a choice bit of meat. She eventually agrees to a date where he learns, a bit to his dismay, that she has a brain as well as fine breasts and is surprisingly literate. They read stories together and seem to get along well enough but when he makes a move or turns the conversation towards the personal she immediately gives him the cold shoulder. I should add that Nicholas is described as the most un-athletic man on earth with a slight paunch and a balding pate. The sexual attraction seems entirely one-sided and a bit creepy. At this point I would’ve put the book aside unfinished as I found Nicholas Van Tassel boring beyond belief and far too pompous for his own good. However, since I was listening to this in its unabridged format and I was stuck in traffic I continued to torture myself with Nicholas Van Tassel’s words (expertly read by a narrator who reads in a purposely haughty way).Despite the fact that Etna does not return his feelings of undying love he insists that they marry and, oddly enough, she agrees. Thus begins their awkward life together. During their years of marriage they parent two children which, thankfully, we are spared the oogey details of their sterile love making. Thank you Mr. Van Tassel for speedily skipping by those bits and saving me a few shudders! They seem to get along decently enough as they plod along through their days. Nicholas gives Etna a nice life and the freedom to do whatever she wishes but sadly the love Nicholas aches for is never returned by Etna. Nicholas, the poor love starved sap, is grateful just to have her as his wife and doesn’t complain about her complete lack of affection towards him. But things begin to change when he discovers that Etna has been hiding things from him. This is where the book finally picked up and actually engaged my full attention.At this point Nicholas almost becomes a sympathetic character though he is still remains a thoroughly unpleasant fellow. He is riddled with insecurities and although he has been married to a woman he cherished for years he will never be a happy or successful man. His world begins to spiral out of control as he simultaneously discovers Etna’s been keeping secrets and learns the position he’s been longing to have at the University may be forever out of his reach.Nicholas’s festering jealously and over-reaction to Etna’s secret -- which was odd but not nearly as devastatingly earth-shattering as I’d anticipated -- ruins any smidgen of pity I may have felt for him just a few chapters earlier. Author Shreve successfully paints an unpleasant picture of a thoroughly unpleasant man caught up in a situation of his own making. Reading Nicolas Van Tassel’s vitriolic comments and actions for pages on end was a depressing experience that I won’t be repeating any time soon.
What do You think about All He Ever Wanted (2005)?
I loved it. I found myself savoring the vocabulary, the descriptions, the history, and the characters. I was always slowing down my reading just to contemplate and enjoy. All he ever wanted was the woman he saw and wanted to marry. She did not love him, and she made that clear to him. She accepted his proposal as long he would accept that she would not love him. Can a marriage work that is not based on love? The characters and their motivations were beautifully described, and I enjoyed contemplating their lives and decisions.My husband's grandmother would have been a contemporary of the main character, and so I enjoyed thinking of his life compared to the life I imagined that she lived.
—Elaine
The book has stayed with me. for 2 wks now. but my reaction is what a waste of a life, not one but four. Reminds me how dishonesty and creep into succeeding generations. Writing style is a little stuffy Victorian, but appropriate for the setting. loves and marries a women who tells him she does not love him. I am struck of a how difficult it would be to live in a loveless marriage. How sad it would be not to be able to take one into your confidence. I guess it has struck me how one single bad choice, one bad obsessive choice, can change a whole life.
—Adela
I've found that Anita Shreve tends to write dispicable characters. This book is no different. There is not one redeeming quality in any of the characters in this book...from the manipulative and obsessive Nicholas to the self-involved and duplicitous Philip, I just hated them all. I was acutally disappointed that he didn't find her swinging from the chandelier in the cottage. That would have made the story somewhat interesting. I managed to fight my way through finishing this book but don't think I'll be picking up any more of Ms. Shreve's books anytime soon.
—Debbie
