Fortune's Rocks

By Anita Shreve

She can see the lawn, too close, the chapel that will shortly be made over into a dormitory. The rocky ledge. The sea. She turns the knobs, focusing. There is the fishing boat, a man in oilskins pulling in a pot. In the distance, hardly visible, she sees another boat and behind that the Isles of Shoals, merely a hazy suggestion. Beyond the islands, there is France. And then there are the stars. And farther still, there are the lost years and a history written upon the bones.

I first read this book long ago, when I was a young mother and remember enjoying it. But in my recent re-reading I saw new themes, new messages which perhaps have been brought in close to me through the lens acquired by age and experience. In this final scene of Shreve’s heart rending love story, the protagonist, Olympia, is peering through the telescope which figures heavily in the story line. The telescope, a gift for her fifteenth birthday, carries with it the symbolic power to bring in close what would otherwise be out of sight. A coming of age symbolism for a young girl entering into the awakening of her intuition. While in the story it becomes a device of undoing in the wrong hands, I see it also as a symbol for bringing into focus the complicated matters of the heart which normally go unseen.

Raised in a proper New England family at the turn of the twentieth century, Olympia Biddeford, at fifteen, is coming of age in the polite company of her family and their tight social circle at their summer retreat, at Fortune’s Rocks. She, from the very opening of the book, resists the convention into which she was born, and which threatens, already, to shrink something she feels emerging in her soul. As her story unfolds, I found myself experiencing the same confusion Olympia must have felt about her growing relationships with an older man. Was it love? Or was it misguided steps into a womanhood unfolding before her far too quickly?

This is a personal story of a young woman’s choices and journey. But it is also a global story which captures the painful realities of living with propriety and expectations. It shows us the limited choices available to woman which, while depicted in the early twentieth century, unfortunately ring true today. Systems created by men and working against the rights and freedoms of women. And it shows us the ripple effect of pain such systems inflict and perpetuate. It’s the story of a young woman whose choices have been construed by others as mistakes and who acts courageously in the face of judgment and criticism. It reminded me that life is fluid, that no single choice defines us, and that mercy is also a choice, a gift we can give to ourselves.