Publication
Macmillan USA (2012)
Original publication date
2011-10-11 (1e édition originale américaine, Straus and Giroux)
3013-01-03 (1e traduction et édition française, Editions de l'Olivier)
Collections
Genres
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2013)
Audie Award (Finalist — 2012)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2011)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist — 2012)
The Economist Best Books (2011.12)
Indies Choice Book Award (Winner — Adult Fiction — 2012)
Salon Book Award (Fiction — 2011)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Fiction — 2012)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2011)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2011)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2011)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2011)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction — 2011)
The A.V. Club best books (2011)
Description
Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while at the same time an old friend of hers resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel, tells the story of three college students attending Brown during the early eighties. There's a love triangle of sorts, anchored by Madeline, a reserved English major who chose her course of study because she loves to read, only to find that writers such as Austen,
The boy without eyebrows spoke up first. "Um, let's see. I'm finding it hard to introduce myself, actually, because the whole idea of social introductions is so problematized. Like, if I tell you my name is Thurston Meems and that I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, will you know who I am?"...When it was the turn of the boy next to Madeline, he said in a quiet voice that...his parents had named him Leonard, that it had always seemed pretty handy to have a name, especially when you were being called to dinner, and that if anyone wanted to call him Leonard he would answer to it.
The focus of the book is on the relationships that ebb and flow between the three, but each character is given the chance to tell their own stories with the point of view moving between them, sometimes circling back to revisit events from a different angle. Of the three, Leonard is the flashiest. Brilliant, charismatic and mentally ill, he takes up all of the space in whichever room he is in. He comes from a less affluent home on the west coast.
If you grew up in a house where you weren't loved, you didn't know there was an alternative. If you grew up with emotionally stunted parents, who were unhappy in their marriage and prone to visit that unhappiness on their children, you didn't know they were doing this. It was just your life...If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't know you weren't lucky until you got older. And then it was all you ever thought about.
Mitchell and Madeline are both naturally reserved and so take less space in company than Leonard, but are no less intense when they are telling their own stories. Mitchell is not sure what he wants to do with his life. He's been urged to consider divinity school by a professor, but he's ambivalent. He decides to spend a year traveling with a friend. He and Madeline aren't close anymore, but he hasn't entirely gotten rid of the idea of her. And Madeline's a mess. She graduates without a plan and takes a while to find what she wants to do.
The Marriage Plot is beautifully written. Eugenides leaves a decade between each novel and it is time well spent. There isn't a dud scene or an infelicitous phrase in the entire book.
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James and Eliot are distinctly uncool. She's not the kind of girl to embrace partying and she spends much of her time during her freshman year with Mitchell, a skinny, curly-haired boy who has fallen in love with her but, whether through sensitivity or insecurity, never makes his move. Then Madeline tries to join the cutting edge of scholarship by taking Semiotics 211, where she meets Leonard.The boy without eyebrows spoke up first. "Um, let's see. I'm finding it hard to introduce myself, actually, because the whole idea of social introductions is so problematized. Like, if I tell you my name is Thurston Meems and that I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, will you know who I am?"...When it was the turn of the boy next to Madeline, he said in a quiet voice that...his parents had named him Leonard, that it had always seemed pretty handy to have a name, especially when you were being called to dinner, and that if anyone wanted to call him Leonard he would answer to it.
The focus of the book is on the relationships that ebb and flow between the three, but each character is given the chance to tell their own stories with the point of view moving between them, sometimes circling back to revisit events from a different angle. Of the three, Leonard is the flashiest. Brilliant, charismatic and mentally ill, he takes up all of the space in whichever room he is in. He comes from a less affluent home on the west coast.
If you grew up in a house where you weren't loved, you didn't know there was an alternative. If you grew up with emotionally stunted parents, who were unhappy in their marriage and prone to visit that unhappiness on their children, you didn't know they were doing this. It was just your life...If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't know you weren't lucky until you got older. And then it was all you ever thought about.
Mitchell and Madeline are both naturally reserved and so take less space in company than Leonard, but are no less intense when they are telling their own stories. Mitchell is not sure what he wants to do with his life. He's been urged to consider divinity school by a professor, but he's ambivalent. He decides to spend a year traveling with a friend. He and Madeline aren't close anymore, but he hasn't entirely gotten rid of the idea of her. And Madeline's a mess. She graduates without a plan and takes a while to find what she wants to do.
The Marriage Plot is beautifully written. Eugenides leaves a decade between each novel and it is time well spent. There isn't a dud scene or an infelicitous phrase in the entire book.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
Jeffrey Eugenides newest novel is set in the early 1980s and opens at Brown University in Rhode Island. Madeleine Hanna, an English major with a flair for the romantic, is writing her senior thesis on the marriage plot – unaware that her life will soon evolve into a more complicated version of
The novel follows these three characters in parallel and intersecting narratives as they navigate college, graduation, sexual freedom, feminism, mental illness, love, divorce, and finally maturity.
The Marriage Plot is all about the journey of its characters. Filled with humor, sadness, and an honest look at growing to adulthood during the 1980s, the novel drew me in completely. I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1982, and so much of Eugenides observations of college life during that time period rang true to me. In many ways, Eugenides’ novel reminds me of another book I read earlier this year: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Both authors provide a perspective of middle-class America and depict deeply flawed, fully developed characters. That said, I slightly preferred The Marriage Plot – it is funnier, less cynical, and more optimistic than Franzen’s tome.
All of the characters in The Marriage Plot are struggling with their own demons. Leonard’s battle with bi-polar disorder is brilliantly drawn. He is a tragic character. Mitchell struggles with his own identity as a man, as well as how his life fits within the greater scheme of the universe and God. He was, perhaps, my favorite character in the book. Madeleine holds a romanticized view of life and has a hard time letting go of the typical female desire to “fix” the one she loves. Her growth, from idealistic college student to a woman who begins to finally recognize her worth as an individual, is triumphant.
Ultimately the book is a deep and satisfying novel about romantic love reflected against our societal mores and history. Eugenides brilliantly uses literary references and draws parallels between Madeleine’s senior theses and the books she reads to help the reader gain further understanding of the characters and their relationships with each other.
The Marriage Plot is a character-driven, literary novel which will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction. Also readers who survived college and its aftermath during the early 1980s in the United States will find a lot to love about Eugenides’ latest effort. I found the novel to be an intellectually stimulating, greatly satisfying reading which I can highly recommend.
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her thesis. As Madeleine navigates the complex literary world of the 80s, trying to unravel the meaning behind the idea of semiotics, she meets Leonard Bankhead. Leonard is charming, erotic…and bi-polar (a fact which eludes Madeleine early on, but gradually becomes a factor in their relationship). Mitchell Grammaticus has been secretly in love with Madeleine for a long time. He is also deeply entrenched in religious studies and decides, after graduation, to travel with his friend Larry to Europe and then to India where he confronts the larger questions of life and love.The novel follows these three characters in parallel and intersecting narratives as they navigate college, graduation, sexual freedom, feminism, mental illness, love, divorce, and finally maturity.
The Marriage Plot is all about the journey of its characters. Filled with humor, sadness, and an honest look at growing to adulthood during the 1980s, the novel drew me in completely. I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1982, and so much of Eugenides observations of college life during that time period rang true to me. In many ways, Eugenides’ novel reminds me of another book I read earlier this year: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Both authors provide a perspective of middle-class America and depict deeply flawed, fully developed characters. That said, I slightly preferred The Marriage Plot – it is funnier, less cynical, and more optimistic than Franzen’s tome.
All of the characters in The Marriage Plot are struggling with their own demons. Leonard’s battle with bi-polar disorder is brilliantly drawn. He is a tragic character. Mitchell struggles with his own identity as a man, as well as how his life fits within the greater scheme of the universe and God. He was, perhaps, my favorite character in the book. Madeleine holds a romanticized view of life and has a hard time letting go of the typical female desire to “fix” the one she loves. Her growth, from idealistic college student to a woman who begins to finally recognize her worth as an individual, is triumphant.
Ultimately the book is a deep and satisfying novel about romantic love reflected against our societal mores and history. Eugenides brilliantly uses literary references and draws parallels between Madeleine’s senior theses and the books she reads to help the reader gain further understanding of the characters and their relationships with each other.
The Marriage Plot is a character-driven, literary novel which will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction. Also readers who survived college and its aftermath during the early 1980s in the United States will find a lot to love about Eugenides’ latest effort. I found the novel to be an intellectually stimulating, greatly satisfying reading which I can highly recommend.
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LibraryThing member bookworm12
When I read summaries of The Marriage Plot it doesn’t sound that interesting to me. Three Ivy League college kids in the ‘80s graduate and try to figure out what to do with their lives. First there’s Madeleine, a clever girl, except when it comes to love. Then there’s Leonard, the
So here’s the things about the summary, it doesn’t capture anything about why the book is good. It misses all of the nuances when you smack a “troubled twenty-somethings” label on it or reduce it to another love triangle book. Sure, there’s a love triangle, but the reason it is interesting is because it’s not really about the love or the triangle, it’s about the people caught up in it and what they’re thinking about life in general, not just love. You’re doing the book a huge disservice if you try to put a simple label on something so complicated. Imagine calling Middlesex a coming-of-age story and thinking that covered it!
The book rotates between all three characters’ lives. I particularly loved Mitchell's parts, where he's traveling and trying to figure out what he believes. I’ve found that when I travel on my own I learn a lot about myself. You have so much more time for internal dialogue and you’re put in situations outside of your comfort zone that test you in different ways. His experiences rang true for me. I also loved reading about Madeleine’s literary pursuits. Eugenides manages to weave dozens of references to classic books and to make those century old plots relevant in the story.
I didn’t love this one as much as Middlesex, but I loved so many aspects of it. I also love reading a book that gives me something to chew on. There were a few parts that became repetitive or lagged a bit, but the amount of literary eye candy I got was enough to balance it out for me. After just reading Middlemarch and The Portrait of a Lady this year, I loved reading a book that paralleled those in some ways.
The book doesn’t have the same epic scale or sense of humor as Middlesex, but it also doesn’t have the same disconnected aloof style of The Virgin Suicides. It feels like a book written by an author who may have found his groove. He can capture characters beautifully and lay them out in a way that is both interesting and accessible. In The Marriage Plot he has created a world that is easy to connect to, but also gives you so much to ponder. His story is about trying to figure out who you are, both in relation to other people and to the world at large. It’s about the unexpected paths your life can take and the people who you didn’t know would one day be important. I know that I’ll be reading whatever he writes next, even if it takes another decade.
"She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it."
“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.”
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passionate, but troubled man she falls for. Finally we have Mitchell, the intellectual who struggles with the question of faith and his unrequited love for Madeleine. It just doesn’t sound to original. Then I remember who the author is: Jeffrey Eugenides, who wrote Middlesex, which I loved! Suddenly the book is a must read and I know that however simple the plot sounds on the surface, they’ll be a whole different level of depth reached by the end. I’m so glad I Brenna at Literary Musings sent her copy my way!!!So here’s the things about the summary, it doesn’t capture anything about why the book is good. It misses all of the nuances when you smack a “troubled twenty-somethings” label on it or reduce it to another love triangle book. Sure, there’s a love triangle, but the reason it is interesting is because it’s not really about the love or the triangle, it’s about the people caught up in it and what they’re thinking about life in general, not just love. You’re doing the book a huge disservice if you try to put a simple label on something so complicated. Imagine calling Middlesex a coming-of-age story and thinking that covered it!
The book rotates between all three characters’ lives. I particularly loved Mitchell's parts, where he's traveling and trying to figure out what he believes. I’ve found that when I travel on my own I learn a lot about myself. You have so much more time for internal dialogue and you’re put in situations outside of your comfort zone that test you in different ways. His experiences rang true for me. I also loved reading about Madeleine’s literary pursuits. Eugenides manages to weave dozens of references to classic books and to make those century old plots relevant in the story.
I didn’t love this one as much as Middlesex, but I loved so many aspects of it. I also love reading a book that gives me something to chew on. There were a few parts that became repetitive or lagged a bit, but the amount of literary eye candy I got was enough to balance it out for me. After just reading Middlemarch and The Portrait of a Lady this year, I loved reading a book that paralleled those in some ways.
The book doesn’t have the same epic scale or sense of humor as Middlesex, but it also doesn’t have the same disconnected aloof style of The Virgin Suicides. It feels like a book written by an author who may have found his groove. He can capture characters beautifully and lay them out in a way that is both interesting and accessible. In The Marriage Plot he has created a world that is easy to connect to, but also gives you so much to ponder. His story is about trying to figure out who you are, both in relation to other people and to the world at large. It’s about the unexpected paths your life can take and the people who you didn’t know would one day be important. I know that I’ll be reading whatever he writes next, even if it takes another decade.
"She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it."
“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.”
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LibraryThing member santhony
I read Jeffrey Eugenides’s award winning novel Middlesex and enjoyed it immensely. Soon after, I read The Virgin Suicides and actually preferred the movie, so this was something of a tie breaker. Though not up to the level of Middlesex, I found this novel to be quite entertaining and enjoyable;
The novel opens in 1984 with the pending graduation of Madeleine Hanna, a senior English major at Brown University, her family and relationships. The title refers to a style and period of Victorian English literature in which the successful marriage of the protagonists is the central plot (Austen, Bronte, Eliot, etc.). In addition to Madeleine, the story includes her manic-depressive boyfriend Leonard and Mitchell, who is secretly in love with Madeleine. The book follows these three in their immediate post collegiate years.
Many reviewers have noted an abundance of literary references, to the extent that they were unable to follow the flow of the narrative. While there is certainly a great deal of English literature on display in this novel, and a certain amount of pretentious dialogue in connection therewith, what else would one expect from a novel dealing with an Ivy League English major? While I sport a graduate degree, I am by no means an English major, and I found the narrative to be easily within my grasp. I don’t pretend to understand many of the references, but such understanding is not in any way necessary to follow and even fully appreciate the narrative. In fact, some of the more ridiculous dialogue by some of the characters, while perhaps meant to serious and meaningful, I found to be almost comical.
From scanning the reviews, the chief complaint by those that do not endorse the book is that it is not up to the level of his earlier novel, Middlesex. I cannot argue with that assessment, however it is not likely that Mr. Eugenides will ever equal that Pulitzer Prize winning effort. Just as Charles Frazier will be forever saddled with trying to match the critical acclaim accorded his magnificent novel, Cold Mountain, Middlesex will always be used to measure Eugenides’s future work; which is a shame, because this is a very good, well written and entertaining effort. It deals honestly and educationally with the disease of manic depression and its impact on those around the sufferer. It is clear that Mr. Eugenides has either suffered from the disease or spent much time in researching and speaking with those that have. The descriptions of the disease offered by Leonard are stark, brutally frank and heartrending.
Finally, it is almost amusing to see some reviewers assign this novel a one star rating. While there is no accounting for personal preference, I find it difficult to believe that this novel is on anyone’s serious list of the very worst books they’ve ever read. If that is the case, they have been very fortunate in their reading careers. In summation, while this book may not measure up to Middlesex, in my opinion it is a fine novel nevertheless, and well worth the time invested in reading it.
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enough so, that I’ll likely read more Eugenides in the future.The novel opens in 1984 with the pending graduation of Madeleine Hanna, a senior English major at Brown University, her family and relationships. The title refers to a style and period of Victorian English literature in which the successful marriage of the protagonists is the central plot (Austen, Bronte, Eliot, etc.). In addition to Madeleine, the story includes her manic-depressive boyfriend Leonard and Mitchell, who is secretly in love with Madeleine. The book follows these three in their immediate post collegiate years.
Many reviewers have noted an abundance of literary references, to the extent that they were unable to follow the flow of the narrative. While there is certainly a great deal of English literature on display in this novel, and a certain amount of pretentious dialogue in connection therewith, what else would one expect from a novel dealing with an Ivy League English major? While I sport a graduate degree, I am by no means an English major, and I found the narrative to be easily within my grasp. I don’t pretend to understand many of the references, but such understanding is not in any way necessary to follow and even fully appreciate the narrative. In fact, some of the more ridiculous dialogue by some of the characters, while perhaps meant to serious and meaningful, I found to be almost comical.
From scanning the reviews, the chief complaint by those that do not endorse the book is that it is not up to the level of his earlier novel, Middlesex. I cannot argue with that assessment, however it is not likely that Mr. Eugenides will ever equal that Pulitzer Prize winning effort. Just as Charles Frazier will be forever saddled with trying to match the critical acclaim accorded his magnificent novel, Cold Mountain, Middlesex will always be used to measure Eugenides’s future work; which is a shame, because this is a very good, well written and entertaining effort. It deals honestly and educationally with the disease of manic depression and its impact on those around the sufferer. It is clear that Mr. Eugenides has either suffered from the disease or spent much time in researching and speaking with those that have. The descriptions of the disease offered by Leonard are stark, brutally frank and heartrending.
Finally, it is almost amusing to see some reviewers assign this novel a one star rating. While there is no accounting for personal preference, I find it difficult to believe that this novel is on anyone’s serious list of the very worst books they’ve ever read. If that is the case, they have been very fortunate in their reading careers. In summation, while this book may not measure up to Middlesex, in my opinion it is a fine novel nevertheless, and well worth the time invested in reading it.
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LibraryThing member Watty
Turgid, vapid, relentlessly dull. It's quite an achievement to have created so many characters I couldn't have cared less about. Yes, it's clever, but clever isn't enough. Yes, the ending subverts expectations, but by then you're so tired of these endlessly whiny characters that you just
Also, there's a sex scene towards the end which uses, with an apparent straight face, the expression 'her you-know-what'. It took heroic amounts of self-restraint for me not to simply hurl it through the nearest open window.
Ah, well. We live and learn, I suppose.
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shrug.Also, there's a sex scene towards the end which uses, with an apparent straight face, the expression 'her you-know-what'. It took heroic amounts of self-restraint for me not to simply hurl it through the nearest open window.
Ah, well. We live and learn, I suppose.
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LibraryThing member AramisSciant
A very smart book that combines a present-day reworking of a Victorian novel plot with some elements of post-modern literature. The three main characters in the central triangle are all interesting and very well developed. I particularly liked Mitchell's character but found Madeleine hard to
In short, I truly liked it very much but Middlesex is still my favorite novel of his.
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understand/empathize with. It has fantastic, beautiful moments and other moments that just broke my heart for how beautiful and sincere and raw they were and the ending note worked really well in my opinion. A little enlightenment and understanding is just what these people needed. In short, I truly liked it very much but Middlesex is still my favorite novel of his.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
A frustrating book - and a massive letdown after Middlesex. When Eugenides turns it on - a flirtatious conversation about becoming an adjective (people would go around saying, "That was so Bankheadian"), or a stint at an Indian hospital - he's heartwarming, thoughtful and witty. However, the first
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third of the book is spent mostly in an Ivy League semiotics class, which I would find incredibly dull to sit through in real life, let alone read about. In the end, I only really cared about one of the three main characters, which isn't ideal. Show Less
LibraryThing member Grabbag
I absolutely could not stand this horribly pretentious novel. It felt like Eugenides was just spouting off the title of every philosophy tome, religious studies text, and Classic English novel that he ever read. He name-drops authors and philosophers like Perez Hilton drops celebrity names; and we
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all know how annoying that is. Show Less
LibraryThing member Helena81
Hmmm, this one's a hard one to review. There are things that I think are genius about this book, others that irritated me. I wasn't as concerned as others about the academic references; I didn't feel they drowned the reader and I felt the theory references helped portray Madeline's initial sense of
There are a couple of mistakes that really irritated me. First, Lawrenceville didn't take girl students until 1987, so there's no way Madeline could have graduated from there in 1978. Second, near the beginning of the book when Alton calls Madeline to finalize plans for the day of graduation, he mentions how her sister's (Alwyn) graduation day from Williams was very busy. Later on in the book we hear that Alwyn dropped out of college after a year and never graduated.
(I also found Prettybrook to mirror Princeton a little too closely--a battlefield with a tree dating from the battle that recently died from blight, a paper called the "P--- Packet," a college town in central NJ beginning with P, near Lawrenceville...)
Nevertheless, the mistakes, while irritating, didn't diminish my overall enjoyment of the book. It wasn't as all-enveloping and well-crafted as Middlesex, but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless.
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being overwhelmed by her semiotics course (and the use of Barthes as her own guide to her early relationshiip with Leonard I thought was clever). I thought the portrayal of Leonard's character was spectacular; I felt as close as possible to being inside the skull of someone with manic depression. I also enjoyed Madeline's character too. I believed and was absorbed in the highs and lows of her post-college year. Mitchell's story I drifted in and out of enjoyment with, although I never found it boring as some reviewers did. I know, however, that Mitchell was somewhat autobiographical for Eugenides (from Detroit, graduated Brown early 80s, worked in Calcutta for Mother Theresa, Greek-American...), so perhaps for him Mitchell was the story's beating heart. The title is apt and, as is made clear by Madeline's senior thesis/ article, references Victorian literature's obsession with the marriage and courtship of its characters. I found Eugenides' satire on this theme compelling and fun. There are a couple of mistakes that really irritated me. First, Lawrenceville didn't take girl students until 1987, so there's no way Madeline could have graduated from there in 1978. Second, near the beginning of the book when Alton calls Madeline to finalize plans for the day of graduation, he mentions how her sister's (Alwyn) graduation day from Williams was very busy. Later on in the book we hear that Alwyn dropped out of college after a year and never graduated.
(I also found Prettybrook to mirror Princeton a little too closely--a battlefield with a tree dating from the battle that recently died from blight, a paper called the "P--- Packet," a college town in central NJ beginning with P, near Lawrenceville...)
Nevertheless, the mistakes, while irritating, didn't diminish my overall enjoyment of the book. It wasn't as all-enveloping and well-crafted as Middlesex, but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless.
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LibraryThing member CatheOlson
This book tells the story of Madeline and Mitchell the year after they graduate from college--alternating between each of their stories. Mitchell is in love with Madeline, who just wants him as a friend. He takes a trip though Europe and then India but never stops thinking about her. Madeline, on
The writing was good but the book was often slow with too many references and descriptions of the books each of them were reading . . . I enjoyed the book well enough, but didn't LOVE it as I did Eugenides' other books: Middlesex and Virgin Suicides.
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the other hand, is in love with a manic-depressive man, and her life does not exactly go as planned. The writing was good but the book was often slow with too many references and descriptions of the books each of them were reading . . . I enjoyed the book well enough, but didn't LOVE it as I did Eugenides' other books: Middlesex and Virgin Suicides.
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LibraryThing member melydia
An early-80s love triangle among college seniors made slightly more interesting by throwing in a severe case of bipolar disorder. Actually, that part of it really resonated with me: as a bipolar sufferer myself (though with far milder symptoms), I can sympathize with Leonard's troubles. As the wife
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of a man with OCD, I can sympathize with Madeleine's dilemmas. Mitchell's experiences with religion and poverty did not cover any new ground, and his selfishness with regard to Madeleine was tiresome. This isn't a book you read for the plot, because there isn't a whole lot: you read it for the characters. If the characters are compelling, you want to know more about them. For me, this book was mostly a way to pass the time. The ending was kind of unsatisfying, but I don't know how else it could have ended. Show Less
LibraryThing member kiwiflying
I had high hopes for this The Marriage Plot. This is only Jeffery Eugenides third book, which in my opinion is a crime. Someone this good should put out a book more often. His two prior novels developed not only cult followings, a movie starring Kirsten Dunst and directed/written by Sofia Coppola,
Eugenides even came to speak about the book right up the street from me, unable to go due to school (it always gets in the way doesn't it?) I called Politics & Prose, my then local bookstore, so that I could secure at least an autographed copy. If you told me that I would dislike the novel so much that I would freely over the book to anyone who would want to accept it, only to be denied so I'd have to keep it, I would have slapped you for the indignity of your suggestion. But that's what happened and here's why.
You have three characters Leonard - the eccentric, Madeline - the good girl, and Mitchell - the guy who goes crazy religious in order to find himself. Here's the good, bad and the ugly. The good: Leonard I genuinely liked and related to him as a character. I cared the most about him and had strong bond with him. And I deeply admire what he did at the end, while I know others I've talked to think he was just being a coward. The bad: Madeline. She comes off as a whiner, and then as someone who only stays with Leonard to prove to herself she could do it despite what others and her parents say. I genuinely disliked everything about Madeline. She seemed just to be with Leonard as an act of delayed rebellion, and strung Mitchell along as a way to get attention she seemed to always need. The ugly: Mitchell's whole storyline. It was hard to read, and even harder to like. It was just plain boring. When you find yourself wondering what a character is even doing in a book you know you're in trouble.
My biggest pet peeve about the whole story was how Leonard's bipolar disorder was portrayed. I lost almost all my respect and trust in Eugenides in how he handled Leonard's disorder. Yes, he got some things right - the weight gain, the tremors, and the overall frustration. The idea that you're good now and you can safely come off your meds. It's scary how right he got those points. But there is no metallic taste associated with taking lithium. That's where Eugenides lost me, it carried on and then became clear that maybe for his research he skimmed some wikipedia articles on bipolar and it's associated drugs and ailments. But it was clear he has never experienced or known someone close to him who has experienced bipolar disorder, and since it was such a central part of the book it ruined the whole damn thing.
By the end I was pissed I had been duped into reading something so inaccurately and dramatically written. I realize Eugenides wasn't writing non-fiction here, though some suggest this is based on his experiences at Brown University, but if one of your central issues is bipolar disorder do yourself a favor and do some serious research. What was written came off fake, melodramatic and boring. I can't say I would ever recommend this book, and if anyone wants a signed edition just let me know. I dislike ti that much.
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and they both garnered much critical praise. So, it was not me just being overly optimistic when I thought this book would hit it out of the park. Eugenides even came to speak about the book right up the street from me, unable to go due to school (it always gets in the way doesn't it?) I called Politics & Prose, my then local bookstore, so that I could secure at least an autographed copy. If you told me that I would dislike the novel so much that I would freely over the book to anyone who would want to accept it, only to be denied so I'd have to keep it, I would have slapped you for the indignity of your suggestion. But that's what happened and here's why.
You have three characters Leonard - the eccentric, Madeline - the good girl, and Mitchell - the guy who goes crazy religious in order to find himself. Here's the good, bad and the ugly. The good: Leonard I genuinely liked and related to him as a character. I cared the most about him and had strong bond with him. And I deeply admire what he did at the end, while I know others I've talked to think he was just being a coward. The bad: Madeline. She comes off as a whiner, and then as someone who only stays with Leonard to prove to herself she could do it despite what others and her parents say. I genuinely disliked everything about Madeline. She seemed just to be with Leonard as an act of delayed rebellion, and strung Mitchell along as a way to get attention she seemed to always need. The ugly: Mitchell's whole storyline. It was hard to read, and even harder to like. It was just plain boring. When you find yourself wondering what a character is even doing in a book you know you're in trouble.
My biggest pet peeve about the whole story was how Leonard's bipolar disorder was portrayed. I lost almost all my respect and trust in Eugenides in how he handled Leonard's disorder. Yes, he got some things right - the weight gain, the tremors, and the overall frustration. The idea that you're good now and you can safely come off your meds. It's scary how right he got those points. But there is no metallic taste associated with taking lithium. That's where Eugenides lost me, it carried on and then became clear that maybe for his research he skimmed some wikipedia articles on bipolar and it's associated drugs and ailments. But it was clear he has never experienced or known someone close to him who has experienced bipolar disorder, and since it was such a central part of the book it ruined the whole damn thing.
By the end I was pissed I had been duped into reading something so inaccurately and dramatically written. I realize Eugenides wasn't writing non-fiction here, though some suggest this is based on his experiences at Brown University, but if one of your central issues is bipolar disorder do yourself a favor and do some serious research. What was written came off fake, melodramatic and boring. I can't say I would ever recommend this book, and if anyone wants a signed edition just let me know. I dislike ti that much.
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LibraryThing member dczapka
Jeffrey Eugenides will always be one of those authors whose books I will buy immediately upon release. The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex were, to my mind, masterful pieces of literature. So once his typical decade-long silence was completed and The Marriage Plot was unleashed, I couldn't wait to
The novel itself is, as its title suggests, disarmingly simple in its presentation. Madeleine, the young, idealistic, upper-middle class white girl at the center of everything, is on the verge of graduating from Brown University, and is torn by her love for the erudite but esoteric Leonard and her (let's just call it interesting) friendship with Mitchell, who naturally wants their relationship to be something more. The novel's blurb pretends that the novel will be filled with intrigue over who Madeleine chooses, but the truth is that it becomes fairly obvious that Eugenides is more interested by the relationship between Leonard and Madeleine (and how it fits into the old "marriage plot" paradigm), with Mitchell on the outskirts trying to edge his way in.
As is typical with all of Eugenides' works, the characters drive the story, and even though by the end most readers will conclude that most of them have been pretty simplistically drawn and realized (particularly Leonard, who gets an almost insulting resolution to his character arc), they are realistic enough and enthralling enough that we care deeply about the three main cogs in this machine. Couple that with Eugenides' enviable style--consistently thoughtful yet compulsively readable and relatable--and you find a novel that's very hard to put down, and that's not a bad thing.
The problem is that it all comes crashing down at the end. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, as I neared the novel's conclusion, I kept getting drawn out of the story by my awareness of how close I was to the end, and how alarmed I was that there appeared to be threads that remained unresolved. The last four pages of the book, specifically, were exceptionally maddening because the 400+ pages that came before seemed so patient and so thoughtfully constructed, and I couldn't fathom how or why he decided to rush the ending. Did he not know where he wanted things to go? I can't believe that, because the last page ties things up in the most obvious bow possible. (Many have praised this final page as a stroke of genius--to me, it was hackneyed and rather cheap.) I left the novel wishing for more, but not in a good way. Perhaps if The Marriage Plot was 450 pages, it would have been something close to a masterpiece. At its current length, however, it feels lacking and more than a bit disappointing. I look forward in 2023 to stronger work from a writer I strongly respect.
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devour it. But by the time it was over, I found myself in a position I'm rarely in after reading Eugenides: disappointed.The novel itself is, as its title suggests, disarmingly simple in its presentation. Madeleine, the young, idealistic, upper-middle class white girl at the center of everything, is on the verge of graduating from Brown University, and is torn by her love for the erudite but esoteric Leonard and her (let's just call it interesting) friendship with Mitchell, who naturally wants their relationship to be something more. The novel's blurb pretends that the novel will be filled with intrigue over who Madeleine chooses, but the truth is that it becomes fairly obvious that Eugenides is more interested by the relationship between Leonard and Madeleine (and how it fits into the old "marriage plot" paradigm), with Mitchell on the outskirts trying to edge his way in.
As is typical with all of Eugenides' works, the characters drive the story, and even though by the end most readers will conclude that most of them have been pretty simplistically drawn and realized (particularly Leonard, who gets an almost insulting resolution to his character arc), they are realistic enough and enthralling enough that we care deeply about the three main cogs in this machine. Couple that with Eugenides' enviable style--consistently thoughtful yet compulsively readable and relatable--and you find a novel that's very hard to put down, and that's not a bad thing.
The problem is that it all comes crashing down at the end. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, as I neared the novel's conclusion, I kept getting drawn out of the story by my awareness of how close I was to the end, and how alarmed I was that there appeared to be threads that remained unresolved. The last four pages of the book, specifically, were exceptionally maddening because the 400+ pages that came before seemed so patient and so thoughtfully constructed, and I couldn't fathom how or why he decided to rush the ending. Did he not know where he wanted things to go? I can't believe that, because the last page ties things up in the most obvious bow possible. (Many have praised this final page as a stroke of genius--to me, it was hackneyed and rather cheap.) I left the novel wishing for more, but not in a good way. Perhaps if The Marriage Plot was 450 pages, it would have been something close to a masterpiece. At its current length, however, it feels lacking and more than a bit disappointing. I look forward in 2023 to stronger work from a writer I strongly respect.
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LibraryThing member Evalangui
Madeleine is supposed to be book crazy, but other than the classics that define her as a victorianist (a personality trait that was SAID to be central to her personality, as expressed by the wallpaper but that instead seems tacked on to the spoiled girl she really is and acts as most of the time,
Mitchel and Leonard, oth, get developed as characters. Mitchel gets his spiritual journey (during which HE actually does read books with which me makes a connection.) Leonard's illness was fairly interesting from his point of view, and got quite disturbing from Mad´s, who is half in denial, half in abasement, as if SHE is good enough, he will somehow get better and when he doesn't, of course she resents him for it.
Even though she takes a role of caretaker to her boyfriend, Mad is basically just reacting to his actions the whole time. The very ending, which I sort of like, is presented in a paternalistic manner that wants any grace or elegance, not to mention philosophical value. Once again, Mad makes a stupid mistake, a man comes to the rescue and makes the RIGHT choice for her. She readily agrees because they always know best! To be honest, I liked both Leonard and Mitchel till I remembered that they both fell in love with a girl that relates to them in this way and they felt it was a positive thing to have her be in a position of lesser power and dependence* (Leonard crossed a number of lines for me there.)
This was so embarrassingly pathetically male I actually had to leave the room:
Madeleine liked his new muscles. And that wasn’t all. One night, she pressed her lips to Leonard’s ear and said, as if it were news, “You are so big!” And it was true. Mr. Gumby was long gone. Leonard’s girth filled Madeleine up in a way that felt not only satisfying, but breathtaking. Every millimeter of movement, in or out, was perceptible along her inner sheath. She wanted him all the time. She’d never thought much about other boys’ penises, or noticed much about them, really. But Leonard’s was highly particular to her, almost a third presence in the bed. She found herself sometimes judiciously weighing it in her hand. Did it all come down to the physical, in the end? Is that what love was? Life was so unfair. Madeleine felt sorry for all the men who weren’t Leonard. WOW. So... I guess mania produces penis enlargement, somebody should let all those poor other men know!
* Mitchel, even though he means to 'liberate' her is very patriachal in that he makes that choice for her and not for himself (I don't want to date a girl not in love with me is a reasonable thing, expressing it as he's fulfilling her NEED instead of his, being magnanimous...)
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waiting to be asked and rescued.) she never seems to have a strong connection to any books (excepting the Barthes, yes, but that seems to be about her experience of love with Leonard than about the book itself.) So the book mad protagonist I was promised wasn't there, her thesis wasn't there, her proclaimed feminist wasn't there (guys have to ASK HER OUT, what.) She is an ideal more than a person, never completely fleshed out beyond her description and are there descriptions! Mad is always calm and soft spoken and logical (except when she marries a guy who is clearly acting crazy at 22, without jobs or prospects or anything resembling sense.) Mitchel and Leonard, oth, get developed as characters. Mitchel gets his spiritual journey (during which HE actually does read books with which me makes a connection.) Leonard's illness was fairly interesting from his point of view, and got quite disturbing from Mad´s, who is half in denial, half in abasement, as if SHE is good enough, he will somehow get better and when he doesn't, of course she resents him for it.
Even though she takes a role of caretaker to her boyfriend, Mad is basically just reacting to his actions the whole time. The very ending, which I sort of like, is presented in a paternalistic manner that wants any grace or elegance, not to mention philosophical value. Once again, Mad makes a stupid mistake, a man comes to the rescue and makes the RIGHT choice for her. She readily agrees because they always know best! To be honest, I liked both Leonard and Mitchel till I remembered that they both fell in love with a girl that relates to them in this way and they felt it was a positive thing to have her be in a position of lesser power and dependence* (Leonard crossed a number of lines for me there.)
This was so embarrassingly pathetically male I actually had to leave the room:
Madeleine liked his new muscles. And that wasn’t all. One night, she pressed her lips to Leonard’s ear and said, as if it were news, “You are so big!” And it was true. Mr. Gumby was long gone. Leonard’s girth filled Madeleine up in a way that felt not only satisfying, but breathtaking. Every millimeter of movement, in or out, was perceptible along her inner sheath. She wanted him all the time. She’d never thought much about other boys’ penises, or noticed much about them, really. But Leonard’s was highly particular to her, almost a third presence in the bed. She found herself sometimes judiciously weighing it in her hand. Did it all come down to the physical, in the end? Is that what love was? Life was so unfair. Madeleine felt sorry for all the men who weren’t Leonard. WOW. So... I guess mania produces penis enlargement, somebody should let all those poor other men know!
* Mitchel, even though he means to 'liberate' her is very patriachal in that he makes that choice for her and not for himself (I don't want to date a girl not in love with me is a reasonable thing, expressing it as he's fulfilling her NEED instead of his, being magnanimous...)
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LibraryThing member mojomomma
Madeleine, east coast Ivy League girl, And her unlikely love triangle. Tiresome characters in search of a plot which finally begins to be vaguely interesting two thirds of the way through the book. An excellent handbook on how NOT to make decisions.
LibraryThing member shazjhb
Did not enjoy this coming of age book. The characters were flat and not likeable. I have enjoyed his other books but this book was disappointing.
LibraryThing member SamSattler
Considering what author Jeffrey Eugenides has accomplished (including a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) in his relatively brief career, it is sometimes difficult to remember that he has written only three novels. The Marriage Plot is, in fact, the author’s first novel in roughly ten years. Much
The novel begins in the early 1980s, just as Madeleine Hanna, a Brown University student who is besotted by the works of writers like Jane Austen, George Eliot and Henry James, makes a decision that will set the course of her life for at least the rest of the decade. It is graduation day, and Madeleine is about to meet her parents for the ceremony marking her achievement. Then she learns that her former lover, the ultra-charismatic Leonard Bankhead, is being held for treatment in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital. Madeleine, though she does not spend much time thinking about it, stands at a crossroad. Does she abandon Leonard, graduate with the rest of her class, and move on with the rest of her life - or does she rush to his side and rededicate herself to their strange relationship?
Her decision to rush to the hospital will prove to be critical not only to the futures of Madeline and Leonard, but also to the third leg of their almost four-year-old “love” triangle, Mitchell Grammaticus, the religious studies major who has convinced himself that Madeleine is destined to be his wife, not Leonard’s. Despite the fact that Leonard is largely oblivious of his existence, and that Madeleine treats him almost as an afterthought, Mitchell is impressively persistent in believing that she will eventually choose him over Leonard.
The Marriage Plot is Jeffrey Eugenides’s exploration of the plotline used in all those Victorian novels that began with “the suitors, the proposals, the misunderstandings – but after the wedding ceremony they kept on going. These novels followed their spirited, intelligent heroines…into their disappointing married lives, and it was here that the marriage plot reached its greatest artistic expression” (pages 22-23). While Eugenides does follow the form, some readers will wonder how effectively he does so.
Eugenides presents the evolving relationships between Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell by allowing each of his characters to speak, even to occasionally retelling events originally witnessed from one character’s point-of-view from the perspective of another character involved in the incident. This technique, combined with long, alternating chapters told from the first person perspective of each of the three, allows the author to develop his protagonists fully. Surprisingly, even with all of that, the characters, especially Mitchell, do not impress as being particularly believable ones.
The Marriage Plot, as are both of the author’s previous works, is interesting, but readers should decide for themselves whether this one measures up to the hype it has received. The novel is worth a look, if just to be able to understand what others are saying about it – and why.
Rated at: 4.0
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like both of his previous novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex (the prizewinner), this one is a rather dark look at characters struggling to find their place in life before it is too late. And, as in those previous novels, none of the main characters in The Marriage Plot have an easy time of it.The novel begins in the early 1980s, just as Madeleine Hanna, a Brown University student who is besotted by the works of writers like Jane Austen, George Eliot and Henry James, makes a decision that will set the course of her life for at least the rest of the decade. It is graduation day, and Madeleine is about to meet her parents for the ceremony marking her achievement. Then she learns that her former lover, the ultra-charismatic Leonard Bankhead, is being held for treatment in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital. Madeleine, though she does not spend much time thinking about it, stands at a crossroad. Does she abandon Leonard, graduate with the rest of her class, and move on with the rest of her life - or does she rush to his side and rededicate herself to their strange relationship?
Her decision to rush to the hospital will prove to be critical not only to the futures of Madeline and Leonard, but also to the third leg of their almost four-year-old “love” triangle, Mitchell Grammaticus, the religious studies major who has convinced himself that Madeleine is destined to be his wife, not Leonard’s. Despite the fact that Leonard is largely oblivious of his existence, and that Madeleine treats him almost as an afterthought, Mitchell is impressively persistent in believing that she will eventually choose him over Leonard.
The Marriage Plot is Jeffrey Eugenides’s exploration of the plotline used in all those Victorian novels that began with “the suitors, the proposals, the misunderstandings – but after the wedding ceremony they kept on going. These novels followed their spirited, intelligent heroines…into their disappointing married lives, and it was here that the marriage plot reached its greatest artistic expression” (pages 22-23). While Eugenides does follow the form, some readers will wonder how effectively he does so.
Eugenides presents the evolving relationships between Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell by allowing each of his characters to speak, even to occasionally retelling events originally witnessed from one character’s point-of-view from the perspective of another character involved in the incident. This technique, combined with long, alternating chapters told from the first person perspective of each of the three, allows the author to develop his protagonists fully. Surprisingly, even with all of that, the characters, especially Mitchell, do not impress as being particularly believable ones.
The Marriage Plot, as are both of the author’s previous works, is interesting, but readers should decide for themselves whether this one measures up to the hype it has received. The novel is worth a look, if just to be able to understand what others are saying about it – and why.
Rated at: 4.0
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LibraryThing member Helenliz
I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I suspect it may be cleverer than I am, but there again it may just be ridiculous. The marriage plot of the title features as a thesis written by Madeline, our heroine. The reference is to certain regency & Victorian novels in which the plot line follows a
This follows the trial of 3 college students, graduating in the class of 82. Madeline is pure regency romance potential - good family, money (but not showy) will brought up. Mitchell is of Greek extraction, less well off and the nice guy. Leonard is from an even more damaged upbringing, and has manic depression. It is plainly clear fairly early on that Madeline is with the wrong chap. She's with him for a host of reasons, but the outsider can see it's not a happily ever after scenario we're dealing with here.
I suppose I can see what he's doing, the literary references abound from the era of the romantic novel and by calling those to mind he's illustrating how modern this is. but, at essence, it still a romance, and there is little that can be said to be new in terms of love. I felt this tried a little to hard to be cutting edge, it felt, at times, that it was being explicit for effect rather than because it advanced the story any. Did i enjoy it? Probably too strong a word. Did it drag me along with it? Yes, those 13 disks went by very quickly. Would I read it again? Probably not.
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young lady faced with a variety of choices in her life, mostly related to a choice of suitor and whether to accept or reject. The author maintains that in a post feminist world the marriage plot no longer has the power it once had - the choice of marriage or spinsterhood are no longer the only two choices open to women - but that it still has a hold over us in an emotional or romantic sense. We still believe there is a soul mate out there. This follows the trial of 3 college students, graduating in the class of 82. Madeline is pure regency romance potential - good family, money (but not showy) will brought up. Mitchell is of Greek extraction, less well off and the nice guy. Leonard is from an even more damaged upbringing, and has manic depression. It is plainly clear fairly early on that Madeline is with the wrong chap. She's with him for a host of reasons, but the outsider can see it's not a happily ever after scenario we're dealing with here.
I suppose I can see what he's doing, the literary references abound from the era of the romantic novel and by calling those to mind he's illustrating how modern this is. but, at essence, it still a romance, and there is little that can be said to be new in terms of love. I felt this tried a little to hard to be cutting edge, it felt, at times, that it was being explicit for effect rather than because it advanced the story any. Did i enjoy it? Probably too strong a word. Did it drag me along with it? Yes, those 13 disks went by very quickly. Would I read it again? Probably not.
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LibraryThing member jmoncton
If you have read very many Victorian novels then you know that the books almost always feature a 'marriage plot'. Whether it is a happily ever after ending like Jane Eyre or a tragic ending like Tess of the D'Urbevilles, the bulk of the book revolves around love triangles and the scheming that
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takes place in drawing rooms and parlors when Miss X is not a suitable match for Mr. Y even when they both love each other. But in the 21st century what is the criteria for suitability? It's no longer how many pounds a year someone is about to inherit or whether the family is (gasp) in trade. Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot addresses the love triangle with today's social values. The book starts with the 3 points of the triangle, Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell, all struggling with their senior year at Brown University trying to finish their graduation requirements and deciding what to do in the following year - and for the rest of their lives. I loved the first part of this book. The whole college dating scene was funny and the book really captured that special feeling from senior year - pushing hard for the ultimate prize, a college diploma, but without knowing what comes next. After graduation, Madeleine and Leonard live in Cape Cod where Leonard has a genetics internship while Mitchell wanders through Europe and India, searching for his spiritual self. Much of the story focuses on Leonard's struggle with manic depression and the toll it places on his work as well as the relationship with Madeleine. The 2nd part of the book was well written but not that enjoyable. I felt it meandered and at the finish I wasn't sure if Eugenides was comparing an illness like bipolar disease to the social stigma of not being 'marriageable'. Still an enjoyable novel, but I was left feeling it lacked a solid conclusion. Show Less
LibraryThing member Y2Ash
I have been trying to read The Marriage Plot for awhile now. Part of me showed reluctance because the synopsis from the book jacket wasn't very promising to me. I am not the biggest fan of love stories, unless they're done extremely well and I hate love triangles. They are such an annoying plot
It was surprising that I was able to finish the book so fast. I wished now it wasn't over. The Marriage Plot takes place between May 1982-September 1983, with a few non sequitor flashbacks in between. It's told from three perspectives: Madeleine Hanna, the WASP "heroine," who was an English major in college, writing her senior thesis on those old Victorians (Jane Austen, George Eliot, etc) and "the marriage plot" that contribute to their works success.
Leonard Bankhead: the future boyfriend, then ex, the boyfriend and eventual husband, then "ex" of Madeleine's. He is highly intellectual Biology major but he is also hindered by his manic-depression. Then there's Mitchell Grammatics, the Religious Studies who is hopelessly in love with Madeleine but it is only one sided. In a way to get over his painful unrequited love, he travels the world with his secretly homosexual roommate Larry.
You could see my reluctance? It sounds like Pretty in Pink or Reality Sucks. However, I was pleasantly surprised on how great and realistic The Marriage Plot was. The early 1980's economy, just like now, is waning and many college students were wandering aimless, looking for jobs, plague with self-doubt. Eugenides showed particular care of being with someone with manic-depressive disorder especially when not a lot was known about the illness.
I felt bad for Madeleine. She honestly try to make it work and she really didn't want to give up until Leonard forced her hand. I felt bad for Leonard too. He wanted to be normal and I do believe he actually loved Madeleine. I think a part of him knew that he could be better but the road would be long and arduous and he wanted to spare her.
This is one of the rare times I actually saw "soul searching" work out someone and it worked out for Mitchell. The character gained some insights and had some epiphanies regarding his relationship with Madeleine. It was as if he grew up and realized there are no happy endings in real life, just endings.
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device to show conflict. Mostly it was because I had a pile a library books that had to go back.It was surprising that I was able to finish the book so fast. I wished now it wasn't over. The Marriage Plot takes place between May 1982-September 1983, with a few non sequitor flashbacks in between. It's told from three perspectives: Madeleine Hanna, the WASP "heroine," who was an English major in college, writing her senior thesis on those old Victorians (Jane Austen, George Eliot, etc) and "the marriage plot" that contribute to their works success.
Leonard Bankhead: the future boyfriend, then ex, the boyfriend and eventual husband, then "ex" of Madeleine's. He is highly intellectual Biology major but he is also hindered by his manic-depression. Then there's Mitchell Grammatics, the Religious Studies who is hopelessly in love with Madeleine but it is only one sided. In a way to get over his painful unrequited love, he travels the world with his secretly homosexual roommate Larry.
You could see my reluctance? It sounds like Pretty in Pink or Reality Sucks. However, I was pleasantly surprised on how great and realistic The Marriage Plot was. The early 1980's economy, just like now, is waning and many college students were wandering aimless, looking for jobs, plague with self-doubt. Eugenides showed particular care of being with someone with manic-depressive disorder especially when not a lot was known about the illness.
I felt bad for Madeleine. She honestly try to make it work and she really didn't want to give up until Leonard forced her hand. I felt bad for Leonard too. He wanted to be normal and I do believe he actually loved Madeleine. I think a part of him knew that he could be better but the road would be long and arduous and he wanted to spare her.
This is one of the rare times I actually saw "soul searching" work out someone and it worked out for Mitchell. The character gained some insights and had some epiphanies regarding his relationship with Madeleine. It was as if he grew up and realized there are no happy endings in real life, just endings.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
A discussion of this book with my wife leads me to believe that I am the only person in the world who didn't know - 'plot' spoiler - that one of the three main characters is a manic-depressive headkerchief wearing philosopher/scientist who chews chewing tobacco and is both found irresistible by
That's probably for the best, since the girl in question is somehow i) catnip for unconventional intellectuals, ii) more or less a sorority girl, and iii) meant to be fascinated by post-structuralist theory and Victorian novels, despite showing no glimmers of intelligence during the 400 pages of this novel. 'Leonard' is better off without her. As is 'Mitchell,' who is possibly the other half of DFW's personality (concerned with sincerity and religion). He is also the only person you could possibly care about in this book. I don't mean that they're all unpleasant, because I love novels in which all the characters are unpleasant. They're just anodyne.
As for structure, the novel flips between 'perspectives,' but since there's no difference between the styles for each section, that ends up meaning not much more than you read the same stories two or three times for no obvious reason. That's another reason you can't care about the characters: they don't exist.
Again, that wouldn't be a problem if the book wasn't trying to be a self-conscious, plot-based, character heavy Victorian novel for the 21st century. But it is. This is a nice idea, but TMP is a failure when judged as such. It lacks all the virtues of the Victorian novel (breadth, plot, intelligent approach to social issues, strong and individual narrative voice).
In the first chapter (another virtue of the Victorians that's missing: reasonable length chapters), Madeline describes how much she likes Jonathan Culler's 'On Deconstruction,' particularly compared to Derrida. There's an obvious mistake here (Culler's best book, by far, is 'Structuralist Poetics'), but it's an apt metaphor for this novel. Eugenides is Culler to Foster Wallace's Derrida. If you really want to know what DFW was trying to do, without reading him, you can get it out of this book, i.e., how do you write literature/live unironically after post-structuralism? Like Derrida's philosophy, DFW's work was (deeply) flawed, but valiant. Like Culler's work, Eugenides' is simplified. Unlike Culler's, it's excruciatingly poorly executed. Stay away, and if you really need a realist/naturalist response to recent post-post-modern works, re-read Freedom again. At least Franzen wrote that aging rocker's rant in the middle to entertain you while he was giving the Franzen character a *HOT* girlfriend.
PS: To those who claim that this novel is pretentious or elitist or highbrow, I can only say, compared to what? The Trader Joe's catalog? If you can't tell the difference between Derrida and Dickens, you shouldn't be reading books at all.
* Defining characteristics of a Big White American Male Author of Big Books, I'm starting to think, is that He can't create female characters who are *in any way* interesting, unless you count them being *HOT*. Which I do not.
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women and also looks like sasquatch, i.e., one of the three major characters is David Foster Wallace. For the first two thirds of the book I was excited to see what Jeffrey would make DFW do; what weird Freudian links could I draw as this Big White American Male Author of Big Books* wrote about another BWAMABB? Well, let's just say that DFW doesn't get the girl. That's probably for the best, since the girl in question is somehow i) catnip for unconventional intellectuals, ii) more or less a sorority girl, and iii) meant to be fascinated by post-structuralist theory and Victorian novels, despite showing no glimmers of intelligence during the 400 pages of this novel. 'Leonard' is better off without her. As is 'Mitchell,' who is possibly the other half of DFW's personality (concerned with sincerity and religion). He is also the only person you could possibly care about in this book. I don't mean that they're all unpleasant, because I love novels in which all the characters are unpleasant. They're just anodyne.
As for structure, the novel flips between 'perspectives,' but since there's no difference between the styles for each section, that ends up meaning not much more than you read the same stories two or three times for no obvious reason. That's another reason you can't care about the characters: they don't exist.
Again, that wouldn't be a problem if the book wasn't trying to be a self-conscious, plot-based, character heavy Victorian novel for the 21st century. But it is. This is a nice idea, but TMP is a failure when judged as such. It lacks all the virtues of the Victorian novel (breadth, plot, intelligent approach to social issues, strong and individual narrative voice).
In the first chapter (another virtue of the Victorians that's missing: reasonable length chapters), Madeline describes how much she likes Jonathan Culler's 'On Deconstruction,' particularly compared to Derrida. There's an obvious mistake here (Culler's best book, by far, is 'Structuralist Poetics'), but it's an apt metaphor for this novel. Eugenides is Culler to Foster Wallace's Derrida. If you really want to know what DFW was trying to do, without reading him, you can get it out of this book, i.e., how do you write literature/live unironically after post-structuralism? Like Derrida's philosophy, DFW's work was (deeply) flawed, but valiant. Like Culler's work, Eugenides' is simplified. Unlike Culler's, it's excruciatingly poorly executed. Stay away, and if you really need a realist/naturalist response to recent post-post-modern works, re-read Freedom again. At least Franzen wrote that aging rocker's rant in the middle to entertain you while he was giving the Franzen character a *HOT* girlfriend.
PS: To those who claim that this novel is pretentious or elitist or highbrow, I can only say, compared to what? The Trader Joe's catalog? If you can't tell the difference between Derrida and Dickens, you shouldn't be reading books at all.
* Defining characteristics of a Big White American Male Author of Big Books, I'm starting to think, is that He can't create female characters who are *in any way* interesting, unless you count them being *HOT*. Which I do not.
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LibraryThing member Berly
[The Marriage Plot] by Jeffrey Eugenides. I am not well acquainted with semiotics nor some of the authors referenced, so those discussions fell flat for me, and I found the characters to be pompous and inconsiderate, as only twenty-somethings can be. Madeleine, also felt pathetic as a leading lady
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and I much preferred the two male characters. So, what really drew me? One of the characters struggles with bipolar disease and the portrayal of the disease and the damage it inflicts on the individual and those around was tragically, beautifully rendered. And on the lighter side, the characters in this book attend college at much the same time I did, so all the time and place references felt very familiar and fun. The marriage plot refers to Madeleine's college thesis and to the love triangle. Which boy will Madeleine wind up with? A good but not amazing read. Show Less
LibraryThing member amandacb
I was an English major and I found this book to be way too pedantic. I can only imagine how non-English majors felt. Eugenides focused entirely too much on stuffing as many tropes and allusions onto every page and as a result, the characters suffered. The female protagonist is entirely unlikeable
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and I lost interest quite quickly. Show Less
LibraryThing member alpin
This much-anticipated novel by the author of “The Virgin Suicides” and the Pulitzer-winning “Middlesex” again tackles young people coming of age. This time it's a triangle of Ivy League graduates, two men – a spiritual seeker and a charismatic manic depressive – and a woman who lives a
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modern-day version of “the marriage plot” she's studying in Victorian novels. Slow getting started, although the send-up of academic pretentiousness is fun, it picks up steam after graduation as the characters struggle to find grown-up lives. Pitch-perfect at times, plodding at others, ultimately successful but doesn't live up to the hype. Show Less
LibraryThing member kholliday
Jane Austen would be proud. Some have dismissed this novel for lacking the epic scope and strangeness of "Middlesex" but personally I prefer this novel for its mastery of a tigher, smaller world that Eugenides never fails to make compelling in a real page-turner. He captures so well that post-Ivy
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League college life where one has so much more book knowledge than life wisdom, adds a compelling romantic triangle and a modern resolution to the marriage plot. If you love books about books, this is a read for you. I love when I read a last page and think that's exactly how this book should end. It ties, it compels, it entertains. I start a lot more books than I ever finish these days but this was not among them. Add Eugenides to Austen, Proust and Flaubert in genius of the insular interior in all its exquisite detail. Show Less
Media reviews
The novel isn’t really concerned with matrimony or the stories we tell about it, and the title, the opening glance at Madeleine’s library and the intermittent talk of books come across as attempts to impose an exogenous meaning. The novel isn’t really about love either, except secondarily.
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It’s about what Eugenides’s books are always about, no matter how they differ: the drama of coming of age. Show Less
No one’s more adept at channeling teenage angst than Jeffrey Eugenides. Not even J. D. Salinger.
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9781250013163
Physical description
513 p.; 4.2 inches
Pages
513