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Thanks Jeffrey. Sometimes I think am I the only one seeing something, or in this case, not seeing something, so it was good to hear your thoughts.
Totally agree. I suppose at 35 I am too old to care what the self-absorbed, college-aged characters felt.
'Self-absorbed' is the perfect term to describe these three. I found it hard to sympathize with them, especially Madeline. I felt that Mitchell was admiral in his quest for knowledge and experience, and Leonard flaws were obviously, to some degree, his parents' fault. But Madeline... I'm just not sure how I feel about her, I wanted to like her so much more!
Madeline was a blank slate that was never really drawn as a proper character in my opinion. Even her 'opus' which reflects the title of the book- we barely got a glimpse of it and it did not seem to me to have any real 'meat' on it that we could cling to as readers. I was also not convinced that she would have been accepted by these two colleges at the end-- what had she done really but take care of Leonard and subsume her whole identity into Leonard's and sit around crying Lover's Discourse? I don't see where he showed us that she had truly started applying herself to the extent that these admissions to these programs would have even been possible!
I agree with Ana, Madeline never went anywhere as a character. It wasn't that I disliked her, but never really liked her either. I couldn't figure out what Leonard and Mitchell saw in her.
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Patty
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Feb 26, 2012 09:32AM
Thanks Jeffrey. Sometimes I think am I the only one seeing something, or in this case, not seeing something, so it was good to hear your thoughts.
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Totally agree. I suppose at 35 I am too old to care what the self-absorbed, college-aged characters felt.
'Self-absorbed' is the perfect term to describe these three. I found it hard to sympathize with them, especially Madeline. I felt that Mitchell was admiral in his quest for knowledge and experience, and Leonard flaws were obviously, to some degree, his parents' fault. But Madeline... I'm just not sure how I feel about her, I wanted to like her so much more!
Madeline was a blank slate that was never really drawn as a proper character in my opinion. Even her 'opus' which reflects the title of the book- we barely got a glimpse of it and it did not seem to me to have any real 'meat' on it that we could cling to as readers. I was also not convinced that she would have been accepted by these two colleges at the end-- what had she done really but take care of Leonard and subsume her whole identity into Leonard's and sit around crying Lover's Discourse? I don't see where he showed us that she had truly started applying herself to the extent that these admissions to these programs would have even been possible!
I agree with Ana, Madeline never went anywhere as a character. It wasn't that I disliked her, but never really liked her either. I couldn't figure out what Leonard and Mitchell saw in her.
