Nov 26 2008
Book Review: All He Ever Wanted
“My desire for this unknown woman was so immediate and keen and inappropriate that it quite startled me; and I have often wondered if that punishing desire, that sense of fire within the body, that craven need to touch the skin, was not simply the result of the heightened circumstances of the fire itself. Would I have been so ravished had I seen Etna Bliss across the dining room, or turned and noted her standing behind me on a street corner? I answer myself, as I inevitably do, with the knowledge that it would not have mattered in what place or on what date I first saw the woman–my reaction would have been just as swift and as terrifying.”
As Professor Nicholas Van Tassel writes of his first glimpse of his future wife–the only woman, he will admit later, he ever loved–note the use of the words “punishing,” “craven,” “fire,” and “terrifying” in such short proximity and the gothic nature of All He Ever Wanted will perhaps become immediately apparent. Van Tassel is a man who is not a little insecure, in addition to being conservative, even for men typical of his time–he opposes adding physical education to the college curriculum, for instance–in a marriage where both parties have settled for less than they have hoped, but for something to which they both agreed. There are secrets in the marriage, however–though not the secrets the reader may suspect–and, as in many cases, the secrets do not remain secret forever.
Anita Shreve is simply gifted at character and voice, not only here, but in other books I’ve read. Her sense of time and place–in this story around 1900–always feels comfortable. And in All He Ever Wanted, which I imagine was not intended as a gothic mystery, she nonetheless proves herself as a writer who could give a lesson or two to those who think they have that genre nailed.
