Expectations vs. Reality

In Allegra Goodman’s novel, The Cookbook Collector, many characters have high hopes for things that do not end up turning out as they expected.  A major example within the novel is the technology bubble.  People valued tech companies, like Veritech, for their “stupendous expectations” (45).  The tech companies’ stocks kept on rising, because people thought that they would never stop going up.  Instead, those companies’ stocks ended up bottoming out shortly after people started heavily investing in them, making them essentially worthless.  Investors, including employees of those tech companies, lost everything they invested in those companies.

            The Bach sisters each had great expectations of their own, and both of their plights left them with a sense of disillusionment with the world.  Emily had anticipated a long, happy life with her boyfriend, Jonathan.  However, Jonathan was a passenger aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11^th, 2001 and he passed away.  She thought that her life was “gone” (338).  After her hopes had been crushed, Emily’s sense of disillusionment with Jonathan sank in after she heard of him stealing Alex’s idea for electronic fingerprinting:  “Emily thought, Jonathan, how could you betray me?” (351).  Emily genuinely hated Jonathan by the end of the novel because he destroyed her hopes and because broke her trust.  Emily’s disappointment mirrored Jess’s towards the middle of the novel.  Jess had always thought of Leon as being a true crusader for the trees.  That aspect of him was what Jess admired about him; he fully committed himself to saving the trees.  As Jess started getting more involved with George, and thus less involved with Leon, she realized that Leon might not be the hero she thought he was.  Eventually, her disenchantment manifests itself when she climbs down from the tree.  She thinks that Leon views her “coolly” (313), and that is when she decides to stay with George.

            George had a more positive experience when reality did not meet his expectations.  George himself had hoped that his bookstore would one day break even, instead of losing money.  However, unlike the Bach sisters, George is indifferent when his dreams are never realized.  George never seemed to mind that the bookstore was not making money; he simply continued running the store and collecting books.