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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
Maybe I just don't get the cult of Eugenides, because I wasn't fond of his earlier work, Middlesex, either. His characters always just feel like characters to me, never like real people, and there are too many literary cliches both large and small in this book for me to genuinely enjoy it. In the end, I found both of its lead characters pretty insufferable people who acted not on internal consistency but based on what the plot needs them to do, which makes it hard to care much about who ends up with whom or their path in life. I felt I got nothing new or meaningful out of this book. Plenty of people disagree with me, though, so maybe it's me!
Oh no. I just wrote a really long review, and then my hand hit something, and it didn't save. I don't have the energy to write it again, so here is a summary:
* Why did Eugenides choose to write about such universally privileged people -- economic privilege, intellectual privilege, physical privilege. It makes the characters hard to relate to.
* Why should a character's economic status be such a barrier? Rich people have feelings too!
* Leonard is the one character who is not privileged, but for the most part he is kept at a distance. When we do hear things from his point of view, it's too late.
* Why was the book mostly told in flashback?
* I loved the end and how it ends messily. The characters don't necessarily learn anything or change, but that felt like how real life is. I think this may make the book very frustrating for some people, but it made the book for me.
* I actually think the character with the largest character arc is Mitchell. He learned something about himself throughout the course of the plot that the others didn't.
* Because the characters are hard to relate to, this book kinda feels like an intellectual exercise. I didn't really feel emotionally invested in the characters.
* I love a lot of the things that Madeleine loves. The book opens with Edith Wharton, and she is one of my faves! So -- because I am as pretentious and annoying as the characters in the book -- I took a certain shine to it.
* I just wrote a comment on someone's review and decided I should include it here: "Madeleine is a lame character. I think that's the point though -- She isn't Isabel Archer or a girl in an Austen book. She's just a girl graduating from college who makes stupid mistakes. I think Eugenides is trying to trick us into thinking that there will be a marriage plot (between Mitchell and Madeleine), but then totally subverts that. Because we don't live in Austen novels. Ugh, I used a pretentious English major word! Sorry."
* Why did Eugenides choose to write about such universally privileged people -- economic privilege, intellectual privilege, physical privilege. It makes the characters hard to relate to.
* Why should a character's economic status be such a barrier? Rich people have feelings too!
* Leonard is the one character who is not privileged, but for the most part he is kept at a distance. When we do hear things from his point of view, it's too late.
* Why was the book mostly told in flashback?
* I loved the end and how it ends messily. The characters don't necessarily learn anything or change, but that felt like how real life is. I think this may make the book very frustrating for some people, but it made the book for me.
* I actually think the character with the largest character arc is Mitchell. He learned something about himself throughout the course of the plot that the others didn't.
* Because the characters are hard to relate to, this book kinda feels like an intellectual exercise. I didn't really feel emotionally invested in the characters.
* I love a lot of the things that Madeleine loves. The book opens with Edith Wharton, and she is one of my faves! So -- because I am as pretentious and annoying as the characters in the book -- I took a certain shine to it.
* I just wrote a comment on someone's review and decided I should include it here: "Madeleine is a lame character. I think that's the point though -- She isn't Isabel Archer or a girl in an Austen book. She's just a girl graduating from college who makes stupid mistakes. I think Eugenides is trying to trick us into thinking that there will be a marriage plot (between Mitchell and Madeleine), but then totally subverts that. Because we don't live in Austen novels. Ugh, I used a pretentious English major word! Sorry."
The only good thing about this book was the fact that it ended. Bland language, limp humor, characters I wanted to strangle. It's the first Eugenides book I read and it DEFINITELY makes me want to avoid ever reading any more.
"Leonard wanted to sit at the counter. 'I need to be close to the pies,' he said. 'I need to see which one is talking to me.'"
"Madeleine had a theory that most semiotic theorists had been unpopular as children, often bullied or overlooked, and so had directed their lingering rage onto literature. they wanted to demote the author. They wanted a book, that hard-won trandscendant thing to be a text... They wanted the reader to be the main thing. Because they we're readers. Whereas Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder at writing a book than she did reading it."
"Madeleine had a theory that most semiotic theorists had been unpopular as children, often bullied or overlooked, and so had directed their lingering rage onto literature. they wanted to demote the author. They wanted a book, that hard-won trandscendant thing to be a text... They wanted the reader to be the main thing. Because they we're readers. Whereas Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder at writing a book than she did reading it."
This is an immensely readable book! I went in not knowing what really to expect and that made my experience even better - the story of 3 young and very flawed people just out of college was both tender and also relatable. Beautifully written and tugs at your heartstrings
You know when you get to a point in a book and you have that feeling that maybe you should just give up and move onto something else? I felt that pretty early on in this book - but I think I doubt myself when it comes to whatever "good writing" is, so I soldiered on. I thought that the constant discussion of authors and works I either was unfamiliar with or completely clueless about would bug me, but maybe that cluelessness allowed me to zip by all that with no annoyance? And I have to say - that was the right choice. It took a bit but once I warmed up to the characters I was hooked - I cared about them, I understood the dumb mistakes and crazy actions and confused feelings. And I like the ending made up of loose ends, just like real life. Recommended.
*College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity.*
*It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.*
*This was news. This was, in an inappropriate but real way, good news.*
*The experience of watching Leonard get better was like reading certain difficult books. It was like plowing through late James, or the pages about agrarian reform in Anna Karenina, until you suddenly got to a good part again, which kept on getting better and better until you were so enthralled that you were almost grateful for the previous dull stretch because it increased your eventual pleasure.*
*College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity.*
*It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.*
*This was news. This was, in an inappropriate but real way, good news.*
*The experience of watching Leonard get better was like reading certain difficult books. It was like plowing through late James, or the pages about agrarian reform in Anna Karenina, until you suddenly got to a good part again, which kept on getting better and better until you were so enthralled that you were almost grateful for the previous dull stretch because it increased your eventual pleasure.*
Madeline is writing her thesis about the marriage plot from Austen to James, at the same time falling romantically in love with perhaps not the right man for her. Eugenides's writing inside the head of a manic-depressive was incredibly done. I can see how the numerous literary references may turn some people off.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I stopped reading halfway through because I didn't like any of the characters and didn't care to see what happened to them.
Eugenides books are often those that I find myself unable to put down. I want to find out what happens, I want to see how the story unfolds and the characters develop. Books like this can be cerebrally engaging as well, but they are not always. I've found that addictive books, those we finish in a day or two, are often (but not always) those that read as guilty pleasures, and play on our emotions and tug on the heartstrings, but do not always engage the critical thinking parts of our minds.
The Marriage Plot does both these things. While there are certainly such emotionally moments in The Marriage Plot, the book is also filled with thought-provoking paragraphs and genuinely interesting information as we read about the thoughts and works of the characters in literature, religion and biology. The discussion of literature, especially Eugenides/Madeleine's thoughts on 'the marriage plot' theory, have been tumbling about my brain since I began the book. And this is probably my favorite part of reading a good, interesting and engaging book--they stay with you long after you've read the last page. Certainly, Eugenides' latest novel falls into this category for me, and will continue to occupy my mind for a long time to come.
(Some days we just don't feel as articulate as others. Please don't let my inarticulate review, if anyone should read this, turn you off of reading such a delightful and stimulating a book as this)
The Marriage Plot does both these things. While there are certainly such emotionally moments in The Marriage Plot, the book is also filled with thought-provoking paragraphs and genuinely interesting information as we read about the thoughts and works of the characters in literature, religion and biology. The discussion of literature, especially Eugenides/Madeleine's thoughts on 'the marriage plot' theory, have been tumbling about my brain since I began the book. And this is probably my favorite part of reading a good, interesting and engaging book--they stay with you long after you've read the last page. Certainly, Eugenides' latest novel falls into this category for me, and will continue to occupy my mind for a long time to come.
(Some days we just don't feel as articulate as others. Please don't let my inarticulate review, if anyone should read this, turn you off of reading such a delightful and stimulating a book as this)