The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Weight of Water
Book Review: Complex and compelling interwoven stories.
Summary: 5 Stars
In this disturbing pair of tales, Anita Shreve shows her gift for building and sustaining suspense. If that were all she had to offer, the book would still be a good read. But her real strength lies in her ability to show the puzzling, often maddening, duality of the human heart. Whether we admit it or not, most of us live--or try to live--in a state of balance between our baser urges and our more civilized selves. Jean's and Maren's stories show how easily that delicate balance can be disrupted. Shreve shows how a misinterpretation here, a slight falsehood there, a chilling suspicion, an impulsive disloyalty, a moment's hesitation, can upset the equilibrium, sometimes beyond repair. Jean, as narrator, and Maren, via written account, offer two distinct and varied voices. Born to different times and cultures, they share a gift for clear-minded observation and a reasonable tone that serves to accentuate by contrast the insensibility of what is to come. As Shreve builds our rapport with these deep-feeling women, she is, at the same time, delineating the slow, subtle deconstruction of their circumstances and the way little choices--the kind that torment ever after--can generate drastic consequences. And therein lies the horror.
No one in her right mind sets out to court disaster but who among us hasn't experienced moments of doubt or jealousy regardless of their justification? What struck me throughout this haunting book was the understandable progression Shreve laid out for both stories. She made the consequences seem preventable and inevitable at the same time--a terrifying concept.
Initially, I was put off by the combining of the two accounts without benefit of line break or label. But once I understood the style, it presented no obstacle. The context was clear enough and the juxtaposition heightened the parallels between the two stories.
If I were to suggest a change, it would be a slightly longer denoument that addressed not only the parallels but the differences as well. Guilt vs. innocence. Accident vs. intention. Punishment vs. escape.
Shreve's style--and her ability to speak so convincingly in several voices--is lovely and lyrical, sophisticated and yet solid. The descriptions of life in Norway, the immigrant accounts, and the passages relating to the islands and the storm are vividly and believably drawn. On an emotional level, Shreve managed to convey the diminished affect of someone--two someones--crushed by grief, guilt, and resignation without letting the story itself go flat, an impossible task in the hands of a lesser talent.
If there is a cautionary aspect to these interwoven tales, it is that the little choices count. I am far less frightened by extraordinary tales and supernatural villains than I am by the more believable stories of ordinary people who are confronted with the fault lines of their own fallen nature.
Book Review: Confusing
Summary: 2 Stars
This book would have been much better if she would have concentrated on the original mystery, rather than trying to intertwine two plots. The axe murder was much more interesting than the soapopera theme involving uninteresting, unlikeable characters, most of whom I would have like to have seen go overboard. It seemed like I would just get interested in the mystery when she would throw in a paragragh back on the boat. This was frustrating and very confusing. I believe this writer is greatly over-rated.Book Review: Contrasting torments
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a carefully crafted and technically excellent book that will appeal to fans of widely varying genres: literary fiction, historical fiction, romance... I was given this book some time ago as a gift by someone who knew my penchant for historical fiction; I must admit to not having read the rest of Anita Shreve's novels, so I don't know how typical or atypical this book is of her work. "The Weight of Water" is told in first person by two women: Jean, the insecure wife of a washed-up alcoholic poet, and Maren, an unhappy bride with secrets ranging from the obscene to the deadly. It is perhaps a backhanded compliment to Shreve's writing skills that she managed to make Maren the more sympathetic character, at least for this reader. This is a highly situational novel that actually tells the separate stories of two dull and shaky marriages: that of Jean and Thomas Janes in our time, and that of Norwegian immigrants Maren and John Hontvedt in the 1870s. The gap of time between the two tales is bridged by Jean's discovery of Maren's handwritten notes explaining what really happened the night of a vicious 1873 axe murder on Smuttynose Island, a murder that Jean, as a photojournalist, is visiting the island to report on.
Maren's story is interspersed with Jean's: the two women speak for themselves and while Jean injects a mass of historical detail into the overall story, she never paraphrases Maren's words. Maren's story is one of love and loss: Jean's, one of insecurity and jealousy. Maren shows us what led to her loveless marriage to John Hontvedt, her anguish at the thought of emigrating from Norway, her disappointment at her first glimpse of her new home, and just what a detestable shrew her spinster sister Karen really was.
Jean also shows us a catalogue of her own disappointments, all of which seem to have been brought to the forefront by the trip to Smuttynose. Jean and Thomas and their daughter Billie have sailed there on a boat belonging to Thomas' brother-in-law Rich, who brings along his girlfriend, the seductive and well-spoken Adaline. In fact it is Adaline's attractiveness that seems to accentuate all of Jean's feelings of inadequacy: she's instantly jealous, afraid Thomas and Adaline are having sex when she's not around. At the same time she's disappointed by the boredom that characterizes their marriage, a boredom that may be to blame for Thomas' artistic burnout and that she both feels guilty for, and resents Thomas for feeling.
The difference between the two women, in my mind, was that where Maren was led to madness by the buildup of a series of tangible pressures - her uprooting from Norway, her 5 years living in a foreign wilderness, her forbidden passions and perhaps most of all her infuriating sister - Jean mostly just comes across as paranoid and whiny. But we don't have to like a book's characters to enjoy the stories they tell, and this is a good read.
Book Review: Could be a literary classic...
Summary: 5 Stars
I, too, was disenchanted by "The Pilot's Wife." Despite the Oprah-hype, I decided to give "Water" a chance, and I amso glad that I did! (By the way, here is an example of how
being one of Oprah's "chosen" can have negative consequences for an author. I was resentful of the build-
up and let-down for a book I consider second-rate soap opera.)
But "Water" is a dazzling display of literary talent. Now I want to read more. The skillful weaving of two stories...from history to present...is a delight. It makes it a real page-turner. I will get the sequel, as mentioned in another review. Can't wait!
Book Review: Couldn't put it down!
Summary: 4 Stars
Engrossing! From the minute I picked this book up I couldn't put it down. It was enmeshed in the lives and the times. It certainly wasn't a "light" read - but, I found it to be fulfilling.