Collection
Publication
Little, Brown and Company (1999), Edition: 1st, 453 pages
Description
In 1890s Boston, a 15-year-old upper-class girl is banished to a convent following an affair with a married doctor which left her pregnant. The girl is forced to surrender the child for adoption, but she subsequently goes to court to recuperate it, and eventually marries the doctor. A study in the mores and manners of the day.
User reviews
LibraryThing member lit_chick
Shreve tells a compelling story about forbidden love, and about the shame and dishonour levelled at a young woman who gives birth to a child out of wedlock in 1899. It was interesting to observe the Christian-driven, absolute moral indignation of society over childbirth out of wedlock while,
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simultaneously, it turned a blind eye to horrendous child poverty, abuse, and labour. Show Less
LibraryThing member davidabrams
Open the pages of Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve and you’ll think you’ve stepped into the world of Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin or any number of other turn-of-the-century women writers whose novels were set in refined, confining Victorian society.
Do not be fooled for an instant. Shreve’s
Oh sure, Fortune’s Rocks—much like Wharton’s The Age of Innocence—is filled with scenes that would startle modern readers with their conservatism. An exposed ankle in 1899 was akin to Julia Roberts flinging off her clothes and running out on the 50-yard line during the Super Bowl. It was just not good manners. Turn-of-the-century society was polite, discreet and above all sexless. At least on the surface. But beneath the corsets, my how those bosoms heaved with passion!
Edith Wharton certainly knew how to capture all that restrained eroticism. Kate Chopin (in The Awakening) founded a literary reputation with her tale of unbridled sexuality. And now, nearly a century later, Anita Shreve (author of The Pilot’s Wife) tries to follow in their buttoned-up bootsteps.
She fails miserably.
Fortune’s Rocks has all the appearance of a Wharton wannabe with scenes of oh-so-proper dinner parties, an independent-spirited heroine and a foul set of circumstances that would do Charles Dickens proud. What Shreve doesn’t realize is that there is no longer a market for this type of narrative. One of the reasons I find Wharton so engaging is because I knew she was trying to write her way out of the very culture she was describing. Novels like The Age of Innocence and Summer are good precisely because they are like time capsules of early 19th-century New York with all of its stiff, upper-class prejudices. Not to mention the fact that Wharton’s prose has a depth that resonates off the page.
By comparison, Shreve is splashing around in the shallow end of the wading pool.
To be fair, Shreve does show she’s done a lot of research into the manners and customs of the era. Her descriptions of dinner parties and afternoon teas and sensuous strolls along the beach are complete to the nth degree. They’re also very dull.
Fortune’s Rocks starts on what seems to be a promising first sentence:
"In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune’s Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire. Desire that slows the breath, that causes a preoccupied pause in the midst of uttering a sentence, that focuses the gaze absolutely on the progress of naked feet walking toward the water."
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Olympia Biddeford. She’s fifteen years old and, as she walks along the New Hampshire beach, "she has passed from being a girl, with a child’s pent-up and nearly frenzied need to sweep away the rooms and cobwebs of her winter, to being a woman."
Now, if you’ve enjoyed those two brief passages I’ve quoted, then I suggest you stop reading right now and go buy yourself a copy of this bodice-ripper. If, however, those cucumber sandwiches you ate at the ladies’ society tea are starting to rise in your gorge, then you’ll know what I mean when I say there is nothing to recommend this book.
The story, which at times reads like a feminized Lolita, tells how Olympia discovers her womanhood (at fifteen!) by seducing a married man twenty-six years her senior. The resulting adulterous scandal brings plenty of misfortune to those who live at Fortune’s Rocks, the seaside resort where Olympia lives. The rest of the novel is too maudlin for words. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead scenes and long stretches of stilted dialogue. For good measure—just to wake us from our torpor, I suppose—Shreve throws in a couple of grittily-detailed childbirth scenes which read like a cross between ER and a midwife’s handbook.
The whole book is written in a faux Victorian prose style, making the already unbearable unreadable.
Do not be fooled for an instant. Shreve’s
Show More
novel is a pale imitation of those Grande Dames of Literature.Oh sure, Fortune’s Rocks—much like Wharton’s The Age of Innocence—is filled with scenes that would startle modern readers with their conservatism. An exposed ankle in 1899 was akin to Julia Roberts flinging off her clothes and running out on the 50-yard line during the Super Bowl. It was just not good manners. Turn-of-the-century society was polite, discreet and above all sexless. At least on the surface. But beneath the corsets, my how those bosoms heaved with passion!
Edith Wharton certainly knew how to capture all that restrained eroticism. Kate Chopin (in The Awakening) founded a literary reputation with her tale of unbridled sexuality. And now, nearly a century later, Anita Shreve (author of The Pilot’s Wife) tries to follow in their buttoned-up bootsteps.
She fails miserably.
Fortune’s Rocks has all the appearance of a Wharton wannabe with scenes of oh-so-proper dinner parties, an independent-spirited heroine and a foul set of circumstances that would do Charles Dickens proud. What Shreve doesn’t realize is that there is no longer a market for this type of narrative. One of the reasons I find Wharton so engaging is because I knew she was trying to write her way out of the very culture she was describing. Novels like The Age of Innocence and Summer are good precisely because they are like time capsules of early 19th-century New York with all of its stiff, upper-class prejudices. Not to mention the fact that Wharton’s prose has a depth that resonates off the page.
By comparison, Shreve is splashing around in the shallow end of the wading pool.
To be fair, Shreve does show she’s done a lot of research into the manners and customs of the era. Her descriptions of dinner parties and afternoon teas and sensuous strolls along the beach are complete to the nth degree. They’re also very dull.
Fortune’s Rocks starts on what seems to be a promising first sentence:
"In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune’s Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire. Desire that slows the breath, that causes a preoccupied pause in the midst of uttering a sentence, that focuses the gaze absolutely on the progress of naked feet walking toward the water."
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Olympia Biddeford. She’s fifteen years old and, as she walks along the New Hampshire beach, "she has passed from being a girl, with a child’s pent-up and nearly frenzied need to sweep away the rooms and cobwebs of her winter, to being a woman."
Now, if you’ve enjoyed those two brief passages I’ve quoted, then I suggest you stop reading right now and go buy yourself a copy of this bodice-ripper. If, however, those cucumber sandwiches you ate at the ladies’ society tea are starting to rise in your gorge, then you’ll know what I mean when I say there is nothing to recommend this book.
The story, which at times reads like a feminized Lolita, tells how Olympia discovers her womanhood (at fifteen!) by seducing a married man twenty-six years her senior. The resulting adulterous scandal brings plenty of misfortune to those who live at Fortune’s Rocks, the seaside resort where Olympia lives. The rest of the novel is too maudlin for words. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead scenes and long stretches of stilted dialogue. For good measure—just to wake us from our torpor, I suppose—Shreve throws in a couple of grittily-detailed childbirth scenes which read like a cross between ER and a midwife’s handbook.
The whole book is written in a faux Victorian prose style, making the already unbearable unreadable.
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LibraryThing member love2rdinNH
Sllllooooowwwwow to start then way too quick in parts. I couldn't get into this love story at all, I just didn't buy it and I found it Disturbing. O. FINALLY makes a good decision towards the end of the book. However, I couldn't put it down because I needed to know what happened. I really liked the
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ending but a little too clean. We an all imagine wonderful things for all of them and I'm not sure we should. Show Less
LibraryThing member wareagle78
Shreve is truly a master. Her tale of a Victorian era adulterous relationship between a teenage girl-woman and a middle-aged physician is beautifully told. What is Shreve's strength? Well, her descriptions are wonderful. Precise, elegant, not a needed word unwritten but not a word extra either. I
But Shreve's strengths could just as easily be in writing of relationships. I could understand and even be drawn in to Olympia's relationship with her lover as well as with her father. Even when I intensely disliked her actions, I felt as if I fully understood and could share her pains and her exaltations.
Finally, Shreve's plot excelled. The story moved from the unexpected to the totally predictable and back again.
I enjoyed the book far more than I expected.
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could see, hear and smell the locale of Fortune's Rocks and the former convent. In fact, I'm carrying in my mind visions of the mother's room and Olympia's spare redecoration of the house even now.But Shreve's strengths could just as easily be in writing of relationships. I could understand and even be drawn in to Olympia's relationship with her lover as well as with her father. Even when I intensely disliked her actions, I felt as if I fully understood and could share her pains and her exaltations.
Finally, Shreve's plot excelled. The story moved from the unexpected to the totally predictable and back again.
I enjoyed the book far more than I expected.
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LibraryThing member readingwithtea
I had to give this two ratings – one for each half! I had no patience whatsoever with the first half, which is the tale of how an affair develops between a fifteen-year-old girl and a married forty-one-year-old doctor/political author, at the exclusive summer resort of wealthy families around the
Everything I read at the moment seems to have philandering husbands and difficult pregnancies, which is annoying, and this was no different. I found John to be boring, opportunistic and certainly not worth throwing one’s future away on. Olivia is a neatly-developed character, but there is apparently only so much to be done with a 15-year-old, precocious, cosseted only child.
I am enjoying Anita Shreve’s settings on the wild eastern coast of North America – not an area that I know at all – so I will be continuing to hunt down her books around BookMooch and second-hand bookshops.
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turn of the twentieth century. The second half, in which Olivia deals with the aftermath of the affair, is much more interesting and also has a high quality of writing.Everything I read at the moment seems to have philandering husbands and difficult pregnancies, which is annoying, and this was no different. I found John to be boring, opportunistic and certainly not worth throwing one’s future away on. Olivia is a neatly-developed character, but there is apparently only so much to be done with a 15-year-old, precocious, cosseted only child.
I am enjoying Anita Shreve’s settings on the wild eastern coast of North America – not an area that I know at all – so I will be continuing to hunt down her books around BookMooch and second-hand bookshops.
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LibraryThing member Reema
Similar to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov both novels had the same theme of forbidden love, 15 years old girl who falls for a 40 years old educated man, the only difference was Lolita was based on desperate domination, obsession and self destruction while Fortune’s Rocks was more of a love/tragic
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story with a different ending. Although both novels were well written i was more satisfied with Fortune’s Rocks, with Lolita i had this love/hate feelings but i did enjoy reading them both. In Fortune’s Rock the writer beautifully describes the scenes set in the 1900’s, Olympia character was well developed and lovable i truly felt for her however i wish Dr John Haskell’s showed more of his personality there was no depth in his character but you still do see the soft and emotional side of him. Overall it was an enjoyable reading experience. Show Less
LibraryThing member ljpower
Another very good read from Anita Shreve. She always delivers a story that makes you think about society in different ways. The question of morality is prevalent and the judgment by "society" of what is appropriate and what is not. Obvious "sins" are not considered as such and the victims are
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usually the innocent. I always look forward to reading Shreve's books for her ability make me think about an issue or situation. Show Less
LibraryThing member buffalogirl
Cheesy, trite, dumbed-down writing. Had the book sitting at my house for years before reading it because I knew it would be fluffy and mindless, and not in a good way...Historically and culturally inacurate, tries to make issues about classs and gender that make the plot even dumber that it would'v
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e been without. The characters were so two-dimesional, they make Agatha Christie's look well developed.... Show Less
LibraryThing member elsyd
Some may see this as "Chick Fiction" but I thought it was quite outstanding. Great characters and while Haskell was perhaps somewhat weak, it was a great love story!
LibraryThing member bnbookgirl
A young woman at the turn of the century, on a rocky beach in New Hampshire, starts her disastrous passage to love and adulthood. She needs to come to terms with herself and reinvent her broken life. A look at the erotic life of women and class prejudices during this time period.
LibraryThing member amandacb
While this is touted as a "love story," I actually enjoyed the exterior descriptions more; for instance, the descriptions of the beaches, the houses, and the towns were thoroughly done. I found the female protagonist to be unlikeable and unsympathetic, so therefore I could never fully buy into the
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story. Show Less
LibraryThing member colleenflynn
I love anita shreve as an author. I have not been disappointed with any off her books.
LibraryThing member karensaville
A wealthy family leave the heat of the city for their summer house on the beach. Visitors come and go and the young daughter falls for one of them a middle aged essayist. This is a coming of age book set in a time when girls did not have many freedoms. It has a wonderful sense of 'place' and I have
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wanted to see and visit the beach ever since. this was the first Anita Shreve book I read and I have gone on to read them all. Show Less
LibraryThing member oldstick
An interesting attempt to get the reader into the period which results in the description and action being more memorable than the characters. I liked the book but found it less enjoyable than others by the same author.
LibraryThing member dalzan
Set in America in the 1800’s. Olympia is approx. 15 years old and is spending the Summer in Fortune’s Rocks. She falls in love with a family friend, a married Doctor who has three children. They have a steamy, secret affair. There is outrage when the affair is discovered, especially when
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Olympia admits that she is pregnant. She is sent away to have the baby, which is taken from her at birth. Years later, she returns to Fortune’s Rocks to find the Dr, her son, and establish a home for unmarried mothers. Show Less
LibraryThing member aelizabethj
Holy Moly.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book, and I feel that really helped draw me into the story. It seems to be divided into almost a play, with three parts... the romance, the fallout, and the future. At times, I found myself over-invested in the last act of the It is SO HARD for me to hear about children being taken from their mothers, and then while I sympathized with Olympia so so much, I don't know if I could have taken Pierre from his foster parents either. Ughhhh my heart This was an emotional roller coaster of a book, and once I actually sat down with the intent to just have a quiet afternoon full of reading, it sucked me in and I couldn't put it down.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book, and I feel that really helped draw me into the story. It seems to be divided into almost a play, with three parts... the romance, the fallout, and the future. At times, I found myself over-invested in the last act of the
Show More
novel, and kept trying to think about how I would handle the same situation. Show Less
LibraryThing member VirtualWord
While it started off a bit slow for me, by the end I was so thoroughly involved in the tale I wanted another hundred pages or so. Shreve's tale of forbidden love and its consequences was so touchingly rendered I found myself nearly weeping through portions of it. Shreve managed to make me
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experience many different emotions throughout this novel from outrage to distress to empathy she played my heartstrings like the maestro she is. Show Less
LibraryThing member jlapac
Anita Shreve has become one of my favorite authors. She
captures the feelings of new love so accurately that it was
almost painful; the sensation of being in complete control
until you realize unexpectedly that your whole life is out
of control. The descriptions of a young wealthy girl who
engages in a
up for her rights and what she wants with compassion and
feeling for others is extraordinary.
captures the feelings of new love so accurately that it was
almost painful; the sensation of being in complete control
until you realize unexpectedly that your whole life is out
of control. The descriptions of a young wealthy girl who
engages in a
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completely unsuitable lover and then standsup for her rights and what she wants with compassion and
feeling for others is extraordinary.
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LibraryThing member Juleswf
My favorite Anita Shreve book, the one that made me a fan.
LibraryThing member nancynova
The time is the turn of the last century, the setting a rocky New Hampshire coastline resort area nicknamed "Fortune's Rocks." Olympia Biddeford, age 15, is walking the beach, feeling the first stirrings of her womanhood. The strong-willed daughter of an upstanding Boston couple, she soon "learns
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of desire" as she begins a passionate affair with a married writer, John Haskell, three times her age. From the moment they meet (he is a visiting friend of her father's), they experience a sexual sparkAOlympia feels "liquid" in his presence. Soon, they fall into sinful trysting. Shreve (The Pilot's Wife) serves up these opening events with breathless immediacy. Once the plot gets a chance to developAOlympia gets pregnant, gives up child, fights to get child backAit settles down considerably, turning into a modernized The Scarlet Letter, a tale of a woman attaining feminist independence by living outside her period's societal mores. Show Less
LibraryThing member moonshineandrosefire
Olympia Biddeford is the only child of a prominent Boston couple. She is a precocious, well-educated young woman - alive with her own radical opinions and flush with the initial stirrings of maturity. On a beach in New Hampshire at the turn of the twentieth century - at a spot known as Fortune's
Olympia, herself, is thoroughly captivated by this man - by his thinking, his stature, and his drive to do right - even as she is overwhelmed for the first time by an irresistible sexual desire. She and the doctor - a married man, a father of four, and someone who is nearly three times her age - come together in an unthinkable, torturous, yet hopelessly passionate affair. So, Olympia casts aside any sense of propriety and self-preservation, plunging forward into a disastrous relationship that will ultimately have cataclysmic results. And the price of straying in such an unforgiving era is incredibly steep.
As Olympia is cast out of the only world she has ever known, she suffers the consequences of her choices. This is a profound and poignant story about unwise love and the choices which can transform a life. It is also the story of a remarkable young woman - her determination to reinvent herself and mend her broken life - and claim the one thing she finds she cannot live without.
I must say that I have always enjoyed reading anything by Anita Shreve - in my opinion, she is an absolutely wonderful author - and this book was no exception. Despite having read this book twice before, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. To me, this was a story that poignantly showed just how someone's choices can affect so many more people than just that one person; everyone suffers from the consequences of someone's personal choices - just like the ripples on a pond. Anyway, I would definitely give this book an A+!
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Rocks - she spends her summers with her family at their vacation home. This particular summer will undoubtedly be a life-changing one for her; marked by the arrival of John Haskell - a doctor and a friend of her father's, whose new book about the plight of mill-town laborers has caused a sensation among those in well-to-do Society.Olympia, herself, is thoroughly captivated by this man - by his thinking, his stature, and his drive to do right - even as she is overwhelmed for the first time by an irresistible sexual desire. She and the doctor - a married man, a father of four, and someone who is nearly three times her age - come together in an unthinkable, torturous, yet hopelessly passionate affair. So, Olympia casts aside any sense of propriety and self-preservation, plunging forward into a disastrous relationship that will ultimately have cataclysmic results. And the price of straying in such an unforgiving era is incredibly steep.
As Olympia is cast out of the only world she has ever known, she suffers the consequences of her choices. This is a profound and poignant story about unwise love and the choices which can transform a life. It is also the story of a remarkable young woman - her determination to reinvent herself and mend her broken life - and claim the one thing she finds she cannot live without.
I must say that I have always enjoyed reading anything by Anita Shreve - in my opinion, she is an absolutely wonderful author - and this book was no exception. Despite having read this book twice before, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. To me, this was a story that poignantly showed just how someone's choices can affect so many more people than just that one person; everyone suffers from the consequences of someone's personal choices - just like the ripples on a pond. Anyway, I would definitely give this book an A+!
Show Less
LibraryThing member phyllis.shepherd
Just too familiar a plot, and I didn't feel like reading that story again.
LibraryThing member pidgeon92
A well-written book with a not terribly sympathtic heroine. Excellent ending.
LibraryThing member ElizabethCromb
a bit too much detail on clothing styles at the turn of the 19th-20th century to hold my interest. Story line was ok but not rivetting.
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1999-12-02
Physical description
453 p.; 9 inches
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |
ISBN
0316781010 / 9780316781015
Similar in this library
Run by Ann Patchett
Pages
453