Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Title: The Marriage Plot
Place Published: New York, USA
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Grioux
Year Published: 2011
No. of Pages: 406
Price: Php 720.00
Place Bought: Fully Booked Rockwell
The Long and Winding Tale of three Graduates (a.k.a. The Bizarre Love Triangle)
In this follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides explores the 19th century “marriage plot” and how it fits in to a contemporary love story. Unfortunately, I haven’t read many works by Jane Austen, George Eliot, and other English novelists who are the purveyors of this literary trope. This, coupled with my lack of knowledge on theology, philosophy, and literary criticism, among other subjects, made finishing the novel a chore, despite plenty memorable lines and flashes of brilliance.
The Marriage Plot follows the story of Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead, and Mitchell Grammaticus as they graduate from college and join the real world. Hanna is an English Major who is writing about the marriage plot for her thesis, thus, the title of the novel. Leonard—charismatic, handsome, and intelligent—is her classmate in Semiotics, whileMitchell, Madeleine’s good friend, is taking up religious studies. The trio are also in a love triangle, with Madeleine and Leonard in a relationship, and Mitchell in love with Madeleine.
The story gets more complicated. Leonard is actually a manic-depressive who gets hospitalized right before graduation day. Despite this, Madeleine supports him. Soon the two start living at a biology laboratory complex in Cape Cod, where Leonard finds work as a lab assistant. Meanwhile, Mitchell tries to forget about Madeleine by travelling around the world, with a focus on religious pilgrimage. The story progresses by shifting first person perspectives between the three protagonists.
Depressing, Wordy, and Definitely Not Chick Lit
Let me start off by saying that I had mixed feelings when I started reading this novel. I love Eugenides’s first novel The Virgin Suicides, but find his second novel Middlesex too burdensome. For me, The Marriage Plot feels more like the latter. Perhaps my poor vocabulary’s to blame, but I kept referring to the dictionary for words, sometimes several of them in a single paragraph, throughout my read. This really disrupted the reading experience for me. I also had difficulty understanding various literary and religious references made in the novel.
Another thing I didn’t like was how depressing the novel was. There was no consolation whatsoever, even at the end of it all. Every time something good looked like it was going to happen, something even worse would follow. While I don’t dislike depressing stories per se, this novel goes overboard, in over 400 pages of excruciating detail. If it's any consolation, I found Mitchel’s point of view the most interesting and enjoyable.
This might be a matter of taste, but I’m someone who reads for pleasure, and not with the intention of literary criticism. I think the more literary-minded reader would love this novel, with its challenging the very notion of marriage and love. So in case you were thinking this is chick lit...think again!
My Rating:
Title: The Marriage Plot
Place Published: New York, USA
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Grioux
Year Published: 2011
No. of Pages: 406
Price: Php 720.00
Place Bought: Fully Booked Rockwell
The Long and Winding Tale of three Graduates (a.k.a. The Bizarre Love Triangle)
In this follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides explores the 19th century “marriage plot” and how it fits in to a contemporary love story. Unfortunately, I haven’t read many works by Jane Austen, George Eliot, and other English novelists who are the purveyors of this literary trope. This, coupled with my lack of knowledge on theology, philosophy, and literary criticism, among other subjects, made finishing the novel a chore, despite plenty memorable lines and flashes of brilliance.
The Marriage Plot follows the story of Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead, and Mitchell Grammaticus as they graduate from college and join the real world. Hanna is an English Major who is writing about the marriage plot for her thesis, thus, the title of the novel. Leonard—charismatic, handsome, and intelligent—is her classmate in Semiotics, whileMitchell, Madeleine’s good friend, is taking up religious studies. The trio are also in a love triangle, with Madeleine and Leonard in a relationship, and Mitchell in love with Madeleine.
The story gets more complicated. Leonard is actually a manic-depressive who gets hospitalized right before graduation day. Despite this, Madeleine supports him. Soon the two start living at a biology laboratory complex in Cape Cod, where Leonard finds work as a lab assistant. Meanwhile, Mitchell tries to forget about Madeleine by travelling around the world, with a focus on religious pilgrimage. The story progresses by shifting first person perspectives between the three protagonists.
Jeffrey Eugenides on The Marriage Plot
Depressing, Wordy, and Definitely Not Chick Lit
Let me start off by saying that I had mixed feelings when I started reading this novel. I love Eugenides’s first novel The Virgin Suicides, but find his second novel Middlesex too burdensome. For me, The Marriage Plot feels more like the latter. Perhaps my poor vocabulary’s to blame, but I kept referring to the dictionary for words, sometimes several of them in a single paragraph, throughout my read. This really disrupted the reading experience for me. I also had difficulty understanding various literary and religious references made in the novel.
Another thing I didn’t like was how depressing the novel was. There was no consolation whatsoever, even at the end of it all. Every time something good looked like it was going to happen, something even worse would follow. While I don’t dislike depressing stories per se, this novel goes overboard, in over 400 pages of excruciating detail. If it's any consolation, I found Mitchel’s point of view the most interesting and enjoyable.
This might be a matter of taste, but I’m someone who reads for pleasure, and not with the intention of literary criticism. I think the more literary-minded reader would love this novel, with its challenging the very notion of marriage and love. So in case you were thinking this is chick lit...think again!
My Rating:
Hi, Verne! So happy to see you blogging!
ReplyDeleteI didn't love this one, either, though I adored his other two novels. I found that I couldn't relate anymore. Maybe it's age.:) Oh, but I loved all the books mentioned. Even blogged about it.:) http://fantaghiro23.blogspot.com/2012/01/marriage-plot-by-jeffrey-eugenides.html?q=the+marriage+plot
Hope to see you at the ReaderCon, by the way! And at the Poptastik Pinoy!
Hi, Honey! Congratulations on being the first reader to comment on my blog.
DeleteInteresting that you didn't love the book even though you love all the books mentioned in it. Maybe it's the story or the way it was written.
See you soon! :)