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corinnel88 's review for:
The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Maybe I like this book so much because I was an English major myself, with my own romantic notions of love and marriage. Or because I appreciate the author's deft pacing and character descriptions. Or because he knows how to have fun with words.
Whatever the reason, I'm surprised so few reviewers here get the subtext of what Eugenides was doing with The Marriage Plot. It's about taking the old formulas and putting them into the 20th century, with 20th century problems. It's about poking a little fun at the issues of class, wealth, position, intellectual thought and higher education in the Reagan years - issues which weren't all that different 100 years earlier. It's about matters of love, relationships, marriage and kids. The WHOLE BOOK is the Marriage Plot.
Think of it this way: if we slapped Jane Austen's name on the spine, changed all the 20th century references to 19th century ones, maybe slightly altered a few subplots (some unnamed mental illness as opposed to manic depression), readers would think they'd just read a newly discovered Austen novel. The only giveaway would be the ending.
For that very reason, I think this book is ingenious. Some of the time jumps are a little clunky, some of the prose, ehh. But I love a writer who plays with form on a deeper level. It makes me want to go back to college just so I could write a paper comparing The Marriage Plot to Bronte or Austen.
Whatever the reason, I'm surprised so few reviewers here get the subtext of what Eugenides was doing with The Marriage Plot. It's about taking the old formulas and putting them into the 20th century, with 20th century problems. It's about poking a little fun at the issues of class, wealth, position, intellectual thought and higher education in the Reagan years - issues which weren't all that different 100 years earlier. It's about matters of love, relationships, marriage and kids. The WHOLE BOOK is the Marriage Plot.
Think of it this way: if we slapped Jane Austen's name on the spine, changed all the 20th century references to 19th century ones, maybe slightly altered a few subplots (some unnamed mental illness as opposed to manic depression), readers would think they'd just read a newly discovered Austen novel. The only giveaway would be the ending.
For that very reason, I think this book is ingenious. Some of the time jumps are a little clunky, some of the prose, ehh. But I love a writer who plays with form on a deeper level. It makes me want to go back to college just so I could write a paper comparing The Marriage Plot to Bronte or Austen.