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Summary: Anita Shreve does it again!
Review: Anita Shreve somehow manages to write each successive novel in its own unique voice. Set in the early 20th century, a man reflects on his fierce love and marriage to a woman who never loved him, his ruthless desire to reach his career goals, and the drama that ensues. Very engaging read, beautifully written.
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Summary: The story of a prisoner, told by the self-absorbed warden
Review: Typically the story of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage is told from that woman's viewpoint. In this book, the story is told by the one holding the woman prisoner, caging her from freedom.Professor Nicholas Van Tassel is a pompous, self-absorbed man. Not very likable. He falls for Etna Bliss in the aftermath of a hotel fire and is besotted. He courts her and though she obviously lacks reciprocity of passion and admiration for him, he manages to convince her to marry him.
What's fascinating about Van Tassel is that to his peers, he is merely an annoyance - a mediocre colleague with a distorted illusion of his own importance. But, beneath his professional facade, he's brilliantly manipulative. He seems to almost always get his way and truly believes he deserves that which he seeks - a marriage and family with a woman who does not love him; a prestigous position at the University.
Though the story is told by Van Tassel, it's truly Etna's story. I found myself yearning for poor Etna to gain her freedom. The reader has little sympathy for Van Tassel, doesn't root for him to achieve his goals. He's cheated before... and he does it again and again to get what he wants, at costs to others.
Upon getting acquainted with Van Tassel, the reader knows there can be no happy ending if the man attains all he wants.
I found the story to be unique in taking the viewpoint of the antagonist with no expectations on the reader to have sympathy for the man. Ms. Shreve showed the reader what goes on inside the mind of a person who loves selfishly, greedily. The writing style, with its prim flourish and pomp, is truly Van Tassel's voice and gives a feeling of the era.
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Summary: Pretty Good
Review: I had really high expectations of this book, and while it was a good read, it didn't really match what I had expected. I read the whole book, but when I got to the last page I was ready to be done with it.
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Summary: The narrator is key!!!
Review: I am dismayed by the number of people who wrote reviews saying they were irritated by the "stuffiness" of Nicholaas Van Tassel as a narrator and that Etna should have narrated the story. In this novel, Shreve has very deliberately employed a thoroughly dislikable narrator who becomes more and more disagreeable as the story proceeds. Writing from the perspective of an unlikable character is difficult, and Shreve accomplishes it admirably. This device also actively engages the reader by putting us in the position of not knowing how much we can trust what the narrator is telling us -- compare to Nick Carraway or Humbert Humbert. Had Etna narrated the story, it would have dwindled to a somewhat interesting plot that would have been much flatter and less lively. Shreve always incorporates that element of the psychological which raises her novels above many other plot-driven messes that are being churned out these days. I'm already looking forward to the next novel!!
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Summary: American literature, 100 years later
Review: This book is unique: a modern-day popular novel posing as a piece of turn-of-the-century American literature. Reading this, I felt like I was reading an assignment for one of my college American Lit classes.
As well as being engrossing and gripping, this book shows what happens when someone with a pretty weak moral fiber gets married (in this case, that would be both Nicholas and Etna). There are constant mentions of Nicholas' visits to prostitutes, and I won't ruin it for you by telling what Etna does. This story is a good reminder of how bad things can happen when you marry for the wrong reasons, and when there is not a mutual and equal love on both sides.
I loved this book, and I highly recommend it. Enjoy!
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Summary: A Lifelong, Emotionally Fatal Obsession
Review: One moment in a person's life can bring about a seemingly simple event which will inevitably change everything about that person's future. Maybe the changes will be welcomed and cherished. Maybe they will be full of regret and despair. Or maybe it will be a life filled with moments of both, making the memories bittersweet. Professor Nicholas Van Tassel of Thrupp College has experienced just such an event. Up to that particular moment in his life, he didn't realize he was missing anything. However, when a fire in a hotel restaurant propels Van Tassel out into the cold, he happens to look up and see a striking woman standing across the street. An instant obsession forms on his part and for him she will become the thing he must have, no matter what it will cost him. The narration of this story actually takes place sixty-four years after it begins in December 1899. Van Tassel is traveling to his sister's funeral and is afforded much time to ponder the events which have unfolded since he met Etna Bliss, the woman who would be the cause of his greatest joy...and grief. Circumstances have brought him to a point where he feels it necessary to provide an explanation to his son. This he will do via a journal that chronicles the years shared with Etna and the emotions brought on by them (sprinkled with a bit of hindsight commentary and other present-day notations). Van Tassel's writing will serve more than just the intended purpose. It will also offer him the opportunity to purge his soul of his lifelong obsession. Anita Shreve's account of one man's fixation on fully possessing a woman he can never truly know, understand or be loved by is fraught with passion, perfidy and pain. It is told in the first person, so even the reader is never privy to what happens in the mind of Etna Bliss. This can become frustrating at times when introduced to a mysterious incident in Etna's past, which so wholly affects her present and future life with Van Tassel. The reader experiences a need to know which remains unfulfilled except for the explanation formed only in the imagination of Van Tassel based on his own similar, yet more desperate, need to know. An overconfident reader will not enjoy the book based on a preconceived idea that the outcome is obvious. One should refrain from making assumptions based on what seems like blatant foreshadowing and simply absorb the story as it is being written by Professor Van Tassel. Some of the strived-for emotional reactions will be missed otherwise. Read without supposition, All He Ever Wanted will do more than provide a short escape from reality into the world of fiction. It will bring about the reader's own quest for what might have been had that one moment in their own life been handled just a little bit differently...or never have happened at all.
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Summary: Couldn't get through it
Review: I'm a big fan of Anita Shreve. In fact, I usually clear a few nights on my calendar when she releases a new book, because I know I won't be able to put it down.
Imagine my surprise when the opposite happened this time. I've forced myself through 100 pages, but each one has been a struggle. I dread picking it up. I figured it had to get interesting at some point, but it doesn't.
The story progresses at a snail's pace, but I think the lack of character development is the true shortcoming of the book. The reader really only gets to know Nicholas, whose stilted narration leaves him neither likable nor sympathetic. Is anyone surprised when Etna says she can never love him? Unfortunately, since everything is so focused on him, we can't even get close to another character. As a result, the story feels like it has no focus or direction.
Shreve usually does a wonderful job weaving a tale, keeping a trick up her sleeve until the very end, and shocking her readers with a twist they never saw coming. Somewhere, there must be something interesting in this book, but I haven't been able to find a trace of it amid all Nicholas's blathering.
Bottom line: after 100 pages, I expect to be at least remotely interested in the story, but there's just nothing there. Truly disappointing.
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Summary: All He Ever Wanted
Review: I found this book compelling, not least because its protagonist is so unattractive. Shreve shows him first as dull and pedantic, then gradually turns up the heat until she has created a monster. Yet our hearts break for this man who wants only one thing, then allows his obsessive passion to overwhelm his moral sense and destroy what he most cherishes. Shreve's books are always insightful, and her storytelling gifts are superb. This is not one of her very best, but it's more than good enough!
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Summary: Deeply unsatisfying
Review: As a longtime reader of Anita Shreve's novels, I am used to the less-than-happy ending. It is not the generous amount of unhappiness that disappointed me about this novel, but the fact that not one character was ever satisfied in any real, worthwhile way - no resolution of any kind was made among the subjects. Nicholas, the narrator, was thoroughly annoying and frustrating. The title of the book says it all - it was all about what HE wanted and he sacrificed many lives because of it, and in the end, didn't seem to have learned anything about his selfish nature and didn't seem particularly repentant. My heart went out to Etna, whom the reader never really even knows. This is not one of Shreve's finer outings.
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Summary: All She She Ever Wanted
Review: I enjoyed this book as I really like Anita Shreve. I continually wondered, however, what Etna was feeling, and what "she wanted." Perhaps this will be Anita Shreve's next book. Somewhere I read that this will be a great book club book and I agree. There is so much to talk about.
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