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The Marriage Plot
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January 2012: "The Marriage Plot" Discussion
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Christine
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rated it 3 stars
Dec 28, 2011 09:26AM
I'm in! Just got it.
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What do you guys think so far? I'm obsessed. My favorite thing about Eugenides is that he writes characters that are realistic. I know people like Madeleine, Mitchell, and Leonard. That doesn't mean I like them or understand them, but Eugenides makes them accessible. And the writing is just so dang PRETTY that I can't stop devouring it.
I hated the book at first; I thought it sounded very pretentious. I was getting mad at how they were talking about all these concepts that I've never heard of or books I've never read. But by around page 50, I couldn't put it down. I really liked Leonard and Mitchell's characters. I wish the author would have taken more time to tell Leonard's story. I liked reading about him from Madeleine's perspective, but I needed more! Great book.
It was SO pretentious. I sort of took it as me being like Madeleine and thrown into this situation where all sorts of douchy 19-year-olds at an ivy league liberal arts school sat around in all black spewing big words that didn't mean anything - because she was lost at first too. Once she understood it, the book moved past it, thank god, because I could care less about semiotics (whatever the hell it is).
About to start this one with trepidation because I may be one of the only people out there that hated Middlesex...I never even finished it. I've made myself promise to give this a more serious go and if I enjoy it to go back and try Middlesex again. So here goes nothing.
Which perspective did everyone prefer: Madeline, Mitchell or Leonard? And why?
Jamie wrote: "About to start this one with trepidation because I may be one of the only people out there that hated Middlesex...I never even finished it. I've made myself promise to give this a more serious go a..."Tons of my friends did the same - while I loved Middlesex, I kept telling those who hated it to give this one a shot! I hope you like it!
OK, I'm a little more than halfway and I feel like I can discuss some now. :) I'm on board with hating the beginning and the discussion of semiotics. I did not care enough to look it up. But after a while I started thinking of semiotics as another supporting character. Madeline becomes obsessed with The Book (I can't remember the name and it's too hard to go back to find in on my Kindle); The Book becomes almost a third (fourth?) lover. She tells The Book all her feelings about Leonard and then rebounds into The Book when they break up. I liked that part.
After a while, I started to get the joke around how needlessly pretentious semiotics and its disciples are. Didn't we all know someone, or a group of students, just like that in college? Apparently, Eugenides was at Brown in 1983 when all this was going on, and gave a great interview on NPR about his experience in relation to the book: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/11/1409494...
I love Eugenides' representation of the "intellectual angst" and the us-against-them mentality of literature students rejecting the convention of the marriage plot. (Leave it to privileged ivy-league, liberal arts students could be filled with angst at -- what? Societal conventions as they are represented in literature? Down with Austen!!) I like how it mirror's Madeline's own internal struggle. To be the strong, independent career woman she thinks she should want to be (semiotics), or to be the nurturing caregiver that seems to be in her instincts (Romantic & Victorian literature).
Anyway, I'm not done yet, but I am interested to see which directions Madeline goes.
Also, I love Mitchell, I think he's my favorite character. Madeline is wishywashy, makes me crazy, and if I knew her IRL, I could probably only stay friends with her if I lived far away. Leonard is a basketcase and too smart for his own good. Mitchell is the only one who seems true to himself, faults and all.
I liked Madeleine the most because (aside from her appalling taste in men) she seemed the most reasonable of the three. Mitchell was always *ANGST*ing around with us *UNREQUITED LOVE* and *ANGST* and I kind of wanted to slap him silly and holler that he isn't actually in love with Madeleine, he's in love with the idea of her. Sheesh. Sure, Mad needs a slapping too, but that's because she got herself stuck in a codependent relationship with an unmedicated manic-depressive douchebag. I might have liked Leonard more if the book hadn't waited so long to get to his narrative. By the time he had a voice, I was entirely sure that he was more-or-less unredeemable, and nothing he said or did changed it. I understood him better, but never liked him.
One thing I wondered- when Leonard started up his new manic phase it was quite clear to me (the impartial outside reader with extra knowledge) that he was manic. Madeleine at that point said something about how the Leonard she fell in love with was back. I wasn't sure if that meant that she didn't recognize the mania yet and was only seeing that he was a smart caring person who actually gave a hoot about life and seemed to take care of himself physically OR if that meant she fell in love with Manic Leonard and only loved him when he was manic. Any thoughts?
Jamie wrote: "About to start this one with trepidation because I may be one of the only people out there that hated Middlesex...I never even finished it. I've made myself promise to give this a more serious go a..."I'm obsessed with Middlesex. It's one of my favorite books in the world. But I know a lot of people didn't love it at all, and some reviewers (NYT maybe?) said that The Marriage Plot was more like The Virgin Suicides in pretty prose than like the "clunky" Middlesex. I didn't like TVS half as much as Middlesex, and liked TMP much more than TVS but not as much as Middlesex. Who knows. Now I want to reread Middlesex and see if my memory of loving it is still accurate.
Amie wrote: "I liked Madeleine the most because (aside from her appalling taste in men) she seemed the most reasonable of the three. Mitchell was always *ANGST*ing around with us *UNREQUITED LOVE* and *ANGST* a..."I wish they would have introduced Leonard's narrative a lot earlier too, and at different stages. I would have liked to read his point of view when he first met Madeline, directly before his hospitalization and when he left Madeline. i think the last narrative would have been beautiful and it would have been great to hear his version of why he left madeline.
And I just finished this. I agree about the beginning being pretentious crap; I almost couldn't continue but you all convinced me to keep on trucking and I'm glad i did. I don't think I have a favorite character because they all annoyed me but I appreciate Eugenides ability to create such perfectly flawed (and pretentiously intellectual) characters. I felt like all three of them thought they were capable of controlling their lives based on their intellect and yet none of them truly could save themseleves from their inner demons. I really like that Mitchell wised up in the end but I'm mad that Madeleine still seemed so helplessly weak. I really did enjoy this book and I do intend on trying to read Middlesex again...too bad I gave away my copy :(
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