Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780316782265
ISBN number: 0316782262
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: 2003-05
Publishing house: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: April 15, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 808660
Studio: Little, Brown and Company
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Product Description:
A man escaping from a hotel fire sees a woman standing beneath a tree.He approaches her and sets in motion a series of events that will change his life forever.Years later, traveling from New England to Florida by train, he reflects back on his obsession with this unknown and ultimately unknowable woman-his courtship of her, his marriage to her, and the unforgivable act that ripped their family apart. Spanning three decades from 1899 to 1933, all he ever wanted gives us a tale of marriage, betrayal, and the search for redemption.It has the unmatched attention to details of character, place, and emotion that have made Anita Shreve one of America's best-loved and bestselling novelists.
Amazon.com Review:
Anita Shreve's All He Ever Wanted reads like Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own told from the perspective of the husband. The wife gains a measure of freedom, but how does the repressive, abandoned husband feel about that freedom? Set in the early 1900s in the fictional New England college town of Thrupp, and narrated by the pompous Nicholas Van Tassel, All He Ever Wanted is at once an academic satire, a period novel, and a tale of suspense. Shreve's ability to nimbly hop through genres brings a liveliness to this story of love gone depressingly wrong. Van Tassel is an undistinguished professor of rhetoric at Thrupp College and a confirmed bachelour when he meets--in no less flamy a scenario than a hotel fire--the arresting Miss Etna Bliss. Immediately smitten, he woos and wins her. At least, he persuades her to become his wife. But Van Tassel hasn't really won her. Etna keeps her secrets and her feelings to herself. The extent of her withholding only becomes clear after a couple of kids and a decade or so of marriage. Then we find out that she's been creating a secret haven for herself all along. Van Tassel is in turn revealed--through his own priggish, puffed-up sentences--as something of a monster. The book is cleverly done; watching Etna through Van Tassel's eyes is like looking at beautiful bird from a hungry cat's point of view. But Van Tassel's voice might be too well written; he's pedantic and dull and snarky all at once, and by the end we find that we, like Etna, can't bear his company a minute longer. --Claire Dederer
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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So it was a total passionate read, that's good enough for me. I like the idea of a book written from the perspective of a man who, for all intents and purposes, is the villain. It's a fascinating view point, though the section of letters between wife and almost-lover were incredible and revealing. It's exciting, sexy, and properly depressing. Definitely worth a read.
Rated by buyers 
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Professor Nicholas Van Tassel, now in his later years is traveling on a train heading from New England to Florida to attend his sister's funeral. On the trip, he writes his memoirs, beginning in 1899, when he rescued Etna Bliss and her niece in a hotel fire. Through his writings, you'll discover how his love for her turned into an obsession and the price he was willing to pay to be with her.
With all the books I need to read, I opted for the audio download of this book. The narrator, Dennis Boutsikaris, was as asset to the story. He sounded just as I'd imagine Nicholas Van Tassel would.
Rated by buyers 
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In this story of a passable but ultimatly doomed marriage, the narrator-husband reflects on his years of obsession with Etna Bliss, a woman who never fully loved him. Their two children and comfortable lifestyle in a New England academic community are not able to replace for her the devotion she once felt to a lost love. The pedantic, self-involved professor never seems to understand his wife's need for distance, and we watch in horror as he loses his way, his morality, the respect of their daughter, and ultimately, his wife. Shreve gets the vanity and insular quality of an academic community just right. What's more, she raises and teases the question of personal freedom within marriage, and leaves the matter tantalizingly unresolved.
Rated by buyers 
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I don't think you could set out to write something this dull and boring with more unlikeable characters. Enough said.
Rated by buyers -
I'm halfway through the book and came here to read reviews. Amazon displays the Publishing houses Weekly review at the top of the page, which tells of what I assume is a most critical scene in the book (Clara and Phillip). Shame on amazon for revealing this key part of the story by allowing this review to be listed here. I'm very disappointed to have seen that spoiler.
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