The Last Time They Met - Anita Shreve

This is the incredibly sad and moving story of a poet named Thomas, who falls in love with a girl named Linda when they are both 17 years old. Years later when Thomas is much older he will win a prize for a book of poems he has written called 'Magdalene'...

"But not before he has known the unforgiving light of the equator, a love that exists only in his imagination, and the enduring struggle to capture in words the infinite possibilities of a life not lived"

I don't think I can put into words yet how sad and full of the loss of love this book has made me feel. The unexpected twist at the end after reading about the life of Thomas and Linda is as shockingly unexpected and quick as the devastating circumstances it describes. In fact it takes only a page for the world to come crashing down and for the realisation to dawn - so much so that as hard as you try you can't understand it at first. It is a strange thing to read a story, to believe in what the writer is leading you to be true; where the actual story being told is of no real relevance to the characters or their circumstances. There is only the sadness of realisation that nothing is real, and that the story being told is simply one possibility imagined by a man who has loved and lost, created using the only tools he has: his words.

I have read a couple of reviews about this book since reading it and none have I found which I feel conveys the message of human frailty that I think Shreve might be trying to demonstrate. They focus on structure, time-line, the 'plot', mechanics, what happens to the characters etc. But for me, the inherent sense of sadness I feel for Thomas, for the life he wanted, the life he could have had but which was denied to him is overwhelming, and remains long after I have turned the final cover, and replaced the story back onto the bookshelf.

For S, x

Strange Fits of Passion - Anita Shreve

Human nature is a very strange thing isn't it? I was always aware of this; it's by no means a new concept. But I think I only really became aware of it while reading this book. I picked this up off my mother shelf whilst I was visiting at Christmas, read the blurb on the back and obviously thought it would be worth a read because I brought it home with me. Now, that in itself is odd in the first place...

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The blurb on the back quite distinctly says that this story is about a marriage in which the husband has "a tendency towards alcohol and violent abuse". In other words, he's an uncontrollable bully who beats his wife to a pulp. What makes us pick up these kinds of stories and think they're something we'd want to read? Curiosity? Intrigue? To raise awareness? Arrogance that we could work out what was really going on and form the correct judgement on those who are the subject? Or is it simply that, like the towns-people within the story, we want to know what happened? Wanting to see what the story was about with the same sense of morbid fascination we get when passing a car accident on the motorway? It's very odd. We are all very odd. And it kind of makes me feel ashamed that I even picked it up in the first place.

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Obviously, we all want to read this kind of stuff otherwise books like this wouldn't be published. But they are. And not just this one either. Hoards of them. Similar stories from all other the place but all with the same morbid curiosity at the heart of the reason for being read. What do the women who have actually been in this kind of situation feel when they read stories like this? Relief that there are other out there who have suffered too? Vindicated in knowing that these books at the very least get the subject out into the open thus reducing the stigma? Anger at having their pain and suffering mass-marketed for profit? Do they even read them?

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Who knows. Maybe none, or all, of the above. All I know is that reading this book did not sit well with me at all. I read it relatively quickly - not because it was so gripping and I couldn't put it down, but because I wanted to get it over with. Or maybe it was gripping? Shreve does a good job of telling the story and laying it out in the format of a series of interviews, but I can't say that this story brought anything new to the violence in marriage debate. In the end it was the wife who suffered most even after she finally rid herself of her abusive husband after her story is publicly told through the eyes of an ambitious fellow journalist. It was all very depressing although I'm sure, a perfectly accurate description of how things were in the 70's. Are things better for women in today's society where abusive relationships are concerned? I truly hope so. In reality perhaps only the women who have been through this can ever offer a true opinion on that question. Shreve has chosen a very clever setting for the plot - amidst the ambiguity and poetic licence employed by journalists when reporting a story. Maureen and Harrold (the wife and husband) are journalists themselves. This all adds to the indistinct nature of the events and in fact, at the end you are left with the tiniest idea that Maureen herself may not have been as truthful as you thought she was.

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I wouldn't recommend it as a read. It's dark and suffocating and depressive, which I understand is probably the whole point of it. I just can't bring myself to feel comfortable knowing that I'm reading this kind of story for "pleasure" when it's about such a horrifying subject. Knowing that there are women (and men) out there going through this for real while I'm holed up in a comfy armchair in my living room leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At least when I read Alice Sebold's Lucky I felt good for her. It was her own story and she wanted to tell it. She was able to take control and there was hope at the end for her. After reading Strange Fits of Passion all I feel is helpless and powerless to do anything to help any of them. I can't help but wonder if any of the money made from the sale of this story went to any women's refuge centre's? I know it's not my right to pass judgement on whether that was the case or not - I'm just thinking out loud is all. I would like to think that it's what I would have done had I have written or published a story like this.

The Pilot's Wife - Anita Shreve

After reading Fortunes Rocks and loving so much I felt compelled to read some of Shreve's other novels to see if they were just as good. And since The Pilot's Wife is probably one of the most well known of her works (thanks to Oprah) it seemed like a good place to start. And as it turns out, it's a pretty good book too: athough I didn't enjoy it as much as Fotunes Rocks and it is written in a slightly different style. It's a great story in how you don't always know someone as well as you like to think you do - especially those that you love.

Kathyrn is married to Jack who is a pilot with Vision Airlines. Together they have a daughter; Matigan, and the family run their routine around Jack's flight schedule since he is away a few days at a time. As in Fortunes Rocks, the ages of the Kathryn and Jack are different since there is a fifteen year age gap between them, although you'll have to see for yourself whether this is significant to the story or not. Kathryn and Jack live in what she considers to be a normal marriage, and she views their decline in intimacy as the result of his long periods away and the natural ebb and flow of a marriage in it's 10th year.

But when Jack's plane goes down in the Atlantic just off the coast of Ireland leaving no survivors, Kathryn and Mattie's world comes crashing down around around them amidst much media speculation on why the plane exploded and crashed. As Kathryn tries to deal with the emotion surrounding her husbands death she is faced with accusations that he may have been a terrorist and may have used the plane to commit suicide: taking all 103 innocent passengers with him. But while she tries to unravel the mystery, convinced that she knew Jack well enough to know he would never do something like that, she uncovers and even greater secret he has kept from her. A secret that shatters the memories of their life together much more than an exploding plane ever could.

Once again Shreve does a great job with the writing. She leads you through the story but still leaves you to figure out what isn't being said just as much as what is. Kathryn and Jack's relationship is significant in the way they are with each other, although I don't think I managed to fully appreciate the intensity of their relationship. You get the idea of Jack being the central pivot in everything, who wields a power they are all unaware of. You also end up feeling sorry for Kathryn although she manages to rally herself and survive okay on her own. There is a suggestion that Jack didn't really love Kathryn as much as she thought; that it was his relationship with his daughter that keeps him in the marriage. And when Kathryn travels to London and comes face to face with Jack's other life, you can feel the love and trust that she held for him slipping away through her hands which Shreve manages to write beautifully. Her subsequent breakdown at the knowledge is handled with care but Kathryn is a real heroine and does the right thing by Mattie. You know in the end that she'll be okay - eventually. Another great story which is brillantly and sesitively written. Shreve explores boundries of what a character might do when truly faced with their worst reality.

Fortune's Rocks - Anita Shreve

I have found another favourite book. Not for a long time now have I found a book that I knew would stay with me until I am old and grey. But Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve is definitely one of those books. I picked it up in a charity shop last month without knowing anything about the author or even if she had previously written anything. As it turns out she has written 13 novels now, two of which have been made into movies. In fact I remember seeing The Weight of Water a few years back although I admit i didn't much get it at the time and can remember little of it now.

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The story opens with 15 year-old Olympia Biddeford taking a walk down to the shoreline on the first day of arrival at her family's summer home at Fortunes' Rocks and this is the point where she begins to step over the threshold from girl to young woman. Indeed, during these first few moments we are not the only ones to realise this, as the moment is also captured by the male bathers at the sea and also by Olympia's doting, if not somewhat utilitarian father, Phillip Biddeford. During a weekend gathering at the cottage hosted by her father Olympia meets John Haskell, a 41 year-old essayist, physicist and campaigner for the poor along with his wife Catherine and their four children. And thus this meeting sets in motion a passionate affair between the two which dramatically changes the lives of everyone. When their affair is discovered by a disgruntled poet (introducing Cote, a deliciously sly and fetid character) whose work was rejected by Olympia's father, the two are found out and for a few years neither knows of the others whereabouts. Olympia is whisked back to the family home in Boston in shame, but a few months later gives birth to the couple's child but is taken away against Olympia's wishes and placed in an orphanage. Circumstances finally lead Olympia on a mission to retrieve her child where many issues of class and status are raised. The ending leads to the cementation of Olympia as one of the most memorable heroine's I've come across since Jane Eyre.
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The way Shreve writes this novel is amazing to me. Her prose (the only word for her writing) has a relaxing, almost languid quality to it, like a dream. I must admit that when I first started to read, I found the text a little hard going so different is it. But once you settle into it reading Fortune's Rocks is like watching a story unfold through a glass tube or water. You are led along the story and in the way the author intends, but the area around the immediate is slightly blurred and hazy so that, even though you can make out the shapes and colours, it's how you interpret and imagine them that makes the story yours. With Shreve's writing it is just as much about what is implied rather than what is spelled out. In fact, there is relatively little dialogue throughout the book, with Shreve seemingly intending that actions and feelings be the predominate focus with much of the passion being narrated in the past tense. A clever way to proceed since one can not ever do justice to the topic of all-encompassing love simply with words. In fact the dream-like prose and it's mistiness lends an air of sad inevitability to Olympia and John's fate. And again, the only time we get any continuous dialogue is during the coutroom scenes when Olympia is trying to win back her child. The change in prose serves to highlight the autere nature of the courts and how they are only concerned with facts rather than emotions.
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The setting of the story at the edge of the sea has no small influence on the way the story reads and also has some bearing on the characters themselves. The constant ebb and flow of the tide seems to highlight the plight of John and Olympia. Their wish is for things and time to stand-still, so that they might always be together. But like the sea, nothing remains constant and things will inevitably change. John and his wife will move into their new cottage further down the beach, and Olympia and he will no longer be able to snatch time with each other. If you can imagine what it's like to be near the sea; the noise of the ocean, the cleansing smell of the air, the breeze - it seems to have a sad melody in it's transient state, highlighted again by the holiday makers it sees each year, who then go back to their real lives fore the winter. John and Olympia meet by the sea that summer, but by the end of the season they are gone from each other, caught in the act of love by Zachariah Cote. Indeed, the only other time they are together again in the book is when the two go back to Fortune's Rocks under very different circumstances.

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The summer house that the Biddeford's own also bears some significance in the story I think, although since finishing the book and searching a few websites I find that the house is apparently used in some of Shreve's other novels. Before being converted the house was a nunnery, complete with chapel which had to be deconsecrated before being bought by Olympia's father. At one point in the book Haskell says to Olympia that "most of a love affair is in the mind", which certainly is true of them both since time and circumstances can not allow them to have many physical moments together. This echoes somewhat the lives of the nuns who lived in the house and where married to God - their love for him also being largly in the mind.

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Lastly, Olympia's mother and father are also very intriguing characters. Phillip Biddeford is intellectual, educated and travelled. Having been disenchanted with the current schooling system in America he has taken responsibly for Olympia's education and thus removed her from the influences and friendships of people her own age - an act which goes much of the way in contributing to Olympia's personality and her subsequent relationship with Haskell. Olympia's mother Rosamund, is one of those characters which flits about in the background and seems inconsequential to the story. However, is just this removal as a significant female role model that also aids Olympia along her path and into the arms of Haskell. In fact we know very little about Olympia's mother other than that she is a woman afflicted with vague and unspecific ailments, and she that she is most partial to hues of blue. The reasons for this are alluded to in the story although we get a hint later when Rosamund, thinking that Olympia has gotten herself a 'young beau', briefly tells of a time when she met a boy as a teenager, who had remarkably blonde eyelashes (take this to mean blue eyes), and that one day whilst walking to the beach he said something to her. What he said she never knew since at that moment her father found them out and she never saw him again. We can't help but think that the loss of love is the ailment that afflicts Olympia's mother although Shreve never directly indicates this.

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Needless to say this book left a big impression on me. I don't really think that anything I can say can fully do justice to how good this book is and the beautiful way in which Shreve writes and creates characters. I will leave by saying that, if I ever manage to write that novel I am promising to do, then this is the kind of prose and quality I am aiming for. If I even achieve half of what Shreve has managed, I will be happy :)