You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
rebadee 's review for:
The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
I had a long wait to read this book. Most books would not live up to such expectations, but The Marriage Plot met and exceeded my hopes. It is not the expansive family history of Eugenides' [b:Middlesex|2187|Middlesex|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727862s/2187.jpg|1352495], or the in-depth character study of Franzen's [b:Freedom|7905092|Freedom|Jonathan Franzen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316729686s/7905092.jpg|9585796], rather The Marriage Plot is a story of love, or more accurately three loves, and the effects upon the lover and the loved. At first, I was disappointed by the narrow gaze of the narrative, but then remembered my own feelings in the years immediately after college graduation, and how my whole world boiled down to my romantic relationships. That Eugenides' was able to revive these feelings so accurately highlights his superpower as a writer: the ability to create a mood in a reader with just a few lines of text. There are also the characteristic Eugenides' traits: references to Detroit, Greek heritage, the early 1980s, upper middle class adolescent longing; but at no point do you think, "Well, I've read this story before." While the lenses are familiar, the circumstances are new, and the narratives arc in ways that are more inevitable than predictable.
Eugenides is skilled at writing about the desire to know and be known by the 'other' whether it is the sisters in [b:The Virgin Suicides|10956|The Virgin Suicides|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1319032910s/10956.jpg|812415] or the 'Obscure Object' in [b:Middlesex|2187|Middlesex|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727862s/2187.jpg|1352495]. In The Marriage Plot, he hones this skill and reveals the subtleties of that desire. As the book winds to its end, the reader begins to see that this desire has much more to do with the characters' longing for and gradual understanding of the self than it does the 'other.' And with that realization, the path towards acceptance and closure begins.
The element of this book that I found most interesting, the one that drew me to it initially and kept me waiting to read it, was the promise of a character based on the late David Foster Wallace. Jeffrey Eugenides may not have been a close friend of Wallace, but they were in the same writerly class, lumped together by timing and upbringing (both Midwesterners who went East to college in the late 70s/ early 80s). It is clear that Wallace made an impression on Eugenides, and his Wallace-like character portrays that. The reader gets a better glimpse of this person's effect on the main narrators than how they affect him. With a number of Wallace influenced books written by friends and acquaintances since his death, we know that he is a person who people long to understand. It is difficult to find closure when someone you love or admire or envy (in varied combinations) dies. Perhaps these impressions are a part of coming to terms with an enormous loss. Fortunately for us, the readers, they also make for very compelling books.
Eugenides is skilled at writing about the desire to know and be known by the 'other' whether it is the sisters in [b:The Virgin Suicides|10956|The Virgin Suicides|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1319032910s/10956.jpg|812415] or the 'Obscure Object' in [b:Middlesex|2187|Middlesex|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727862s/2187.jpg|1352495]. In The Marriage Plot, he hones this skill and reveals the subtleties of that desire. As the book winds to its end, the reader begins to see that this desire has much more to do with the characters' longing for and gradual understanding of the self than it does the 'other.' And with that realization, the path towards acceptance and closure begins.
The element of this book that I found most interesting, the one that drew me to it initially and kept me waiting to read it, was the promise of a character based on the late David Foster Wallace. Jeffrey Eugenides may not have been a close friend of Wallace, but they were in the same writerly class, lumped together by timing and upbringing (both Midwesterners who went East to college in the late 70s/ early 80s). It is clear that Wallace made an impression on Eugenides, and his Wallace-like character portrays that. The reader gets a better glimpse of this person's effect on the main narrators than how they affect him. With a number of Wallace influenced books written by friends and acquaintances since his death, we know that he is a person who people long to understand. It is difficult to find closure when someone you love or admire or envy (in varied combinations) dies. Perhaps these impressions are a part of coming to terms with an enormous loss. Fortunately for us, the readers, they also make for very compelling books.