I discovered Jeffrey Eugenides’ ‘The Marriage Plot’ through Nymeth’s fascinating review. I couldn’t resist getting the book after reading the review. I haven’t read any of Eugenides’ novels before. He has written just three – one novel every decade for the past three decades. He seems to be someone like Donna Tartt in that respect. So, as soon I received ‘The Marriage Plot’ by mail, I started reading it. It is rare that I read a book as soon as I get it – normally the new book sits on my shelf for a few weeks or for a few months and sometimes for a few years, before I get to it. I wait for a book to age like wine and sometimes if it doesn’t age well, I don’t pick it up. But I didn’t wait for that to happen this time. I ripped open the package, took the book and started reading. I finished reading it in the middle of the night yesterday. Here is what I think.
What I think
The first thing that got me interested in Eugenides’ book was the premise – the story takes place in a university, there are three students whose lives the story describes, there is lot of stuff in the book about literature and literary theory and religion and the meaning of life. Who can resist this premise? 🙂
The second thing was the cover. I wanted this edition :
But I got this :
I thought – “Why I am always getting the wrong end of the stick? Why am I always getting the edition with the wrong title or the one with the wrong cover? Why me all the time?” The golden ring between the title and the name of the author was nothing special. Then I looked at the cover again. And then it suddenly hit me! Wow! Isn’t that magic! There was something in that cover after all 🙂 And it was awesome! Can you find what that is? If you can’t, then look at the ring carefully again. If you still can’t, read the next paragraph.
It is a Möbius Strip 🙂 It is a ring kind of structure, with an interesting twist. In a regular ring, there are two surfaces, one on the inside and another on the outside. In a Möbius Strip, there is only one surface. So, if you travel on the outside of the Möbius Strip, you end up on the inside after sometime and if you continue travelling you come back outside. That is cool, isn’t it? Is Eugenides saying that marriage is like a journey on a Möbius Strip? Isn’t that going to be awesome 🙂
The brief summary of the story can be described like this – Madeleine, the English major, falls in love with Leonard, the Biology major. Leonard loves her back. Mitchell, the Religious Studies major, is in love with Madeleine. He has had his opportunities in the past to impress Madeleine, but he misses them. Graduation day arrives at university and a major crisis looms in Madeleine’s and Leonard’s lives. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for Mitchell, the crisis brings Madeleine and Leonard closer. They move in together while Leonard does research. Mitchell meanwhile still hopes that Madeleine will fall in love with him. But he doesn’t do anything to bring that about, but leaves on a trip to Europe and India. But things move unexpectedly. The lives of Madeleine and Leonard change in a fundamental way and not for the better. Do Madeleine and Leonard manage to love and support each other through the big crises which stalk their lives? Is Mitchell’s love for Madeleine returned by her? For answers to these questions, you have to read the book 🙂
I loved the first part of the book which goes till 127 pages. It is set in a university and describes how the main characters meet each other and fall in love with each other. There is a lot of stuff on Victorian literature, literary theory, Derrida, deconstruction, Semiotics, Eco, Barthes, the search for the Meaning of Life, Religion and other such stuff which will blow one mind. At one point, I wanted to highlight six consecutive pages, type them out on my computer and send it to my favourite friends. That was how much I liked the first part. The first part met all my expectations and even exceeded them. But when I crossed the Rubicon after the first part, the pace of the book slackened, the story meandered on and I wasn’t sure where it was going. The literary discussions and the philosophical discussions were missing, the book slipped into narration mode and that wasn’t as interesting to me, because this wasn’t really a plot-driven novel. When I was halfway through the book, I felt that the book had slipped from brilliant to a little better than average. When I was three-fourths into the book, it had slipped further down to average or even a little bit below that. Fortunately, there were flashes of brilliance, even in the parts which I thought were average. My highlighting pen was working overtime even during these parts.
A part of the description of the book read like this :
Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of teh Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.
This description raised my expectations sky-high and the first part of the book was awesome because it satisfied them. Or even exceeded my expectations. But as they say, it is nearly impossible to meet sky-high expectations every minute. Or in every page. The blurb and the first part make references to the marriage plot of great English novels written by Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James. I was hoping that the main characters’ lives were going to be linked to this Victorian marriage plot with a modern twist. I thought that was what the whole book was about. But after I crossed the first part, it didn’t feel that way. Or maybe it was, but I couldn’t see it. Maybe it was all part of the subtext. Or the subtext of the subtext. The story meandered along and reached the last page, where Mitchell makes a feeble attempt to refer to the Victorian marriage plot and Madeleine replies to him. It was like the theme of the story went missing for the major part of the book and then made a surprise entrance in the last scene. Or maybe I didn’t catch the subtext during the majority of the novel.
The ending of the book was surprising and interesting. It was also unexpected. I thought the ending would be predictable, after what had happened a few pages earlier.
I liked most of the characters in the novel in different ways. I liked Madeleine and Mitchell and Madeleine’s mother Phyllida. I liked Phyllida for looking stylish, having class, showing strength in a crisis, being a wonderful parent and being unselfish when the situation required, but also being firm and defending her territory when it was required. In one scene she tells Madeleine – “If that’s the only thing you have to worry about in your marriage, you’ll be lucky” – which was one of the best lines in the story, in my opinion. (I am not revealing the context, because I don’t want to spoil the story for you). In my opinion, she is the best fictional mom ever. I also loved a minor character called Diane MacGregor, who is a biologist and who wins the Nobel prize. The description of her went like this :
Unlike the other scientists at the lab, MacGregor employed no assistants. She worked entirely alone, without sophisticated equipment, analyzing the mysterious patterns of coloration in the corn she grew in a plot of land behind her house…Other scientists at the lab ridiculed MacGregor for not having a phone or for her general eccentricity. If MacGregor was so out of it, though, why did everyone have to talk about her all the time? Madeleine guessed that MacGregor made people uneasy because of the purity of her renunciation and the simplicity of her scientific method. They didn’t want her to succeed, because that would invalidate the rationale for their research staffs and bloated budgets. MacGregor could also be opinionated and blunt. People didn’t like that in anyone, but they liked it less in a woman…There was the other thing that amazed Madeleine about MacGregor. She’d been at Pilgrim Lake since 1947! For thirty-five years she’d been inspecting her corn with Mendelian patience, receiving no encouragement or feedback on her work, just showing up every day, involved in her own process of discovery, forgotten by the world and not caring. And now, finally, this, the Nobel, the vindication of her life’s work, and though she seemed pleased enough, you could see that it hadn’t been the Prize she was after at all. MacGregor’s reward had been the work itself, the daily doing of it, the achievement made of a million unremarkable days.
I didn’t like a few characters, but even then I found their portrayal quite authentic. (For example I didn’t like Madeleine’s father Alton much – he looked like a bullying dad – but the portrayal of his character was quite realistic). I think it is a tribute to Eugenides and the way he develops authentic, realistic and complex characters in his story.
There was an arc of the story which looked quite memoirish – Mitchell’s time in India, when he spends time at the Home of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, taking care of sick people, trying out Indian food, travelling in rickshaws, drinking bhang lassi, following the tourist trail in India from Calcutta to Benares to Madras to Mahabalipuram to Pondicherry to Madurai to Mysore to Cochin to Trivandrum to Goa. The descriptions during this part of the story makes one feel that Eugenides himself might have done at one point of time in his life, what Mitchell was doing in the story.
One of my favourite descriptions in the book was about the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs which happened in the 1970s. I grew up reading about that and so this passage brought back a lot of fond memories.
One of the nice things about the book was that I got to add some interesting titles to my ‘TBR’ list. Some of them are :
(1) Books by William F. Buckley
(2) Books by Anne Finch
(3) Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
(4) Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
(5) The Role of the Reader by Umberto Eco
(6) A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes
(7) On Deconstruction by Jonathan Culler
(8) The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac
(9) Interior Castle by Saint Teresa
(10) A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Leo Tolstoy
So, what do I think about the book? Did I like it? I loved the first part of the book. I liked bits-and-pieces of the rest of the book. If I have to give ratings, I will give the first part 5 stars (out of 5) or even 6 stars. Overall I will give the book, somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. Maybe 3.5. If I think of re-reading, I will definitely re-read the first part of the book. And parts of the book after that, which I have highlighted.
Favourite passages
I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
A Lover’s Discourse was the perfect cure for lovesickness. It was a repair manual for the heart, its one tool the brain. If you used your head, if you became aware of how love was culturally constructed and began to see your symptoms as purely mental, if you recognized that being “in love” was only an idea, then you could liberate yourself from its tyranny. Madeleine knew all that. The problem was, it didn’t work. She could read Barthes’ deconstructions of love all day without feeling her love for Leonard diminish the teeniest little bit. The more of A Lover’s Discourse she read, the more in love she felt. She recognized herself on every page. She identified with Barthes’ shadowy “I”. She didn’t want to be liberated from her emotions but to have their importance confirmed. Here was a book addressed to lovers, a book about being in love that contained the word love in just about every sentence. And, oh, how she loved it!
She was a large disordered woman, like a child’s drawing that didn’t stay within the lines.
What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn’t like?
There comes a moment, when you get lost in the woods, when the woods begin to feel like home.
…whenever Mitchell stopped to think about the words of the Jesus Prayer, he didn’t much like them. “Lord Jesus” was a difficult opener. It had a Bible Belt ring. Likewise, asking for “mercy” felt lowly and serf-like. Having made it through “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” however, Mitchell was confronted with the final stumbling block of “a sinner”. And this was hard indeed. The gospels, which Mitchell didn’t take literally, said you had to die to be born again. The mystics, whom he took as literally as this metaphorical language allowed, said the self had to be subsumed in the Godhead. Mitchell liked the idea of being subsumed in the Godhead. But it was hard to kill your self off when you liked so many things about it.
…it rained all the time, fog covered the fields, and by then he was reading Tolstoy. There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things. A Confession was a book like that. In it, Tolstoy related a Russian fable about a man who, being chased by a monster, jumps into a well. As the man is falling down the well, however, he sees there’s a dragon at the bottom, waiting to eat him. Right then, the man notices a branch sticking out of the wall, and he grabs on to it, and hangs. This keeps the man from falling into the dragon’s jaws, or being eaten by the monster above, but it turns out there’s another little problem. Two mice, one black and one white, are scurrying around and around the branch, nibbling it. It’s only a matter of time before they will chew through the branch, causing the man to fall. As the man contemplates his inescapable fate, he notices something else : from the end of the branch he’s holding, a few drops of honey are dripping. The man sticks out his tongue to lick them. This, Tolstoy says, is our human predicament: we’re the man clutching the branch. Death awaits us. There is no escape. And so we distract ourselves by licking whatever drops of honey come within our reach.
Most of what Mitchell read in college hadn’t conveyed Wisdom with a capital W. But this Russian fable did. It was true about people in general and it was true about Mitchell in particular. What were he and his friends doing, really, other than hanging from a branch, sticking their tongues out to catch the sweetness? He thought about the people he knew, with their excellent young bodies, their summerhouses, their cool clothes, their potent drugs, their liberalism, their orgasms, their haircuts. Everything they did was either pleasurable in itself or engineered to bring pleasure down the line. Even the people he knew who were “political” and who protested the war in El Salvador did so largely in order to bathe themselves in an attractively crusading light. And the artists were the worst, the painters and the writers, because they believed they were living for art when they were really feeding their narcissism. Mitchell had always prided himself on his discipline. He studied harder than anyone he knew. But that was just his way of tightening his grip on the branch.
Have you read ‘The Marriage Plot’? What do you think about it?
I love it when a novel leads you to other books Vishy ,I ve only read Middlesex by him myself I heard a lot about this one and still not sure about it but may pick it up at library if I see it there ,all the best stu
Glad to know that you liked ‘Middlesex’, Stu! Hope you enjoy ‘The Marriage Plot’ too. Other reviewers have gushed about it 🙂 Yes, I love it when a book leads us to other books. This particular book was very good on that aspect.
Did he write Virgin Suicides? If he did, that’s the only book of his I read. I think he did.
Also, I read Portrait of a Lady 4-5 years ago, and I liked it a lot! Strong woman lead.
Thanks for posting this! I enjoyed it and loved the list of books you added. I love it when books do that. Lead you to other books.
Yes, he did 🙂 How did you find ‘The Virgin Suicides’? Did you like it?
Glad to know that you liked ‘Portrait of a Lady’. I want to read that sometime.
Yes, it is wonderful when books lead to other books.
I enjoyed it a lot but I think I was in high school when I read it. That’s over ten years ago! 😦 I was a bit more angsty.
Funny to revisit books and have different feelings towards from when you originally read the book. I think this may be the case if I ever reread Virgin Suicides.
Glad to know that. I agree with you on re-reading books and finding that our feelings towards them have changed. I used to think that our response to our favourite books will always be the same, till I re-read one of my favourites after many years and found to my dismay, that I didn’t respond to it in the same way.
I think it was in Lost Art of Reading where the author said to steer clear from rereading your favorites if you want to keep them. 🙂
That is good advice 🙂 I will follow it from now on. I will also add ‘Lost Art of Reading’ to my ‘TBR’ list. Thanks for mentioning it.
I have the Virgin Suicides here. I had it for a long while, decidely one of those wines that need a long time to age (I liked that description). I saw the film which is wonderful. Music, actors, everything.
I have never read a book that I liked so much in the beginning and then it dropped.
I see this is another one of the books that leads you to new discoveries. Great. I love The Portrait of a Lady. One of my Top 10 (or 20).
I just remembered I have an anthology that has been edited by Eugenides. “My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead”. Love stories from Chekhov to Munro. Why did I forget that book? I liked the title a lot.
Hope you like ‘The Virgin Suicides’, Caroline. I didn’t know that it was made into a movie. I will try to find the DVD.
Glad to know that ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is one of your top 10 books. I will move it up my ‘TBR’ list.
Hope you enjoy reading ‘My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead’. I want to read it, but am still waiting for it to age 🙂 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it, whenever you get around to reading it.
I’ve read Eugenides’ first two books. I liked them enough at the time, but they didn’t impress me so much that I felt the need to rush out and buy his new one. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to read it. Your review doesn’t make me think I’d like it all that much.
Glad to know that you liked Eugenides’ first two books, M—–l. I liked the first part of this new book, but felt that the rest of the book wasn’t as brilliant. But other bloggers have raved about this book. So, maybe you can still give it a try.
Your opinion on the matter is much more important to me than the raves of these unnamed “other bloggers”. I think I’ll avoid this one…unless I find a super cheap used copy with flies on the cover, of course.
Thanks M—–l 🙂 Hope you are able to get a super cheap used copy 🙂
By the way, I am planning to read ‘Every Man Dies Alone’ by Hans Fallada, that you recommended, in November. I can’t wait to start it 🙂
Cool. I hope you like it. It’s a big book, but I think I read it in about 2 days. I just couldn’t put it down. I remember finishing it in the middle of the night…at about 3:00 AM.
That is interesting 🙂 I remember you saying that it was one of your favourites of the year and I also saw it in your alltime favourites list. I can’t wait to start reading it!
Aw, I’m sorry to hear the rest of the book didn’t live up to part one for you. But I’m guessing you still found it worth reading overall, so I won’t feel guilty for making you get it 😛 You are absolutely right that Mitchell’s trip and volunteering are inspired by Eugenides’ own life. He has said so in interviews, and it’s amazing that you picked up on that! It didn’t cross my mind when I was reading the book, though looking back it makes sense.
That Diane MacGregor passage you included is so great. And I’m guessing very accurate too. “A million unremarkable days” is such a lovely way to word it.
I hope you do read his other two novels at some point. As you know, I loved The Marriage Plot, but I love his other two SO much more. And I’m guessing you would too.
I loved the first part, Ana. But somehow the rest of the book didn’t look as brilliant to me, though I liked it in parts. Interesting to know that Eugenides himself did the trip that Mitchell does in the story. I loved that passage on Diane MacGregor. It shows how women scientists as well as scientists who are unconventional and go with old-fashioned methods struggle everyday to do what they want and find it difficult to get credit for their accomplishments. I remember reading in a Roger Penrose book (or was it a Lee Smolin book?) that most physicists are researching on String Theory today, as it is the hot topic now (though it doesn’t have any evidence supporting it), while other areas of research which are probably more concrete are being ignored or if someone wants to do research in them, it is difficult to get funding. It is sad. ‘A million unremarkable days’ is a really wonderful line.
Thanks for recommending Eugenides’ books. I hope to read Eugenides’ other two novels sometime in the future.
Oh man, I was so proud I knew the answer and then you go and reveal it! ;D Both covers are interesting though.
I really wish Donna Tartt would be a trifle more prolific!
This book still sounds pretty great and I will have to give it a try. I really love the passages you quoted.
I loved The Virgin Suicides as you know and would recommend you try it, the Coppola (Sofia) film adaptation of it is pretty great, too.
You are really awesome for having found that out, Bina 🙂 Do you remember Scarlett Thomas writing about the Möbius Strip in ‘The End of Mr.Y’?
Hope you enjoy reading ‘The Marriage Plot’. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it!
Thanks for recommending ‘The Virgin Suicides’. I will get a copy soon and read it. I will also try to watch the movie.
Nearly ten years have passed since the last Donna Tartt book came out. I think the next one is due 🙂
There was something strange about that ring, now I know there’s a name for it. Thanks. 🙂 You have an eye for detail and a desire to see behind the words. That’s why I enjoy reading your reviews.
I’ve read two other books by Eugenides, first was Middlesex which I liked a lot because I had never read on the particular subject the book explored and I thought it was fascinating, intriguing, interesting and I could go on and on….well, you get the idea. 🙂
The other one was The Virgin Suicides which was gloomy, dark, depressing and I was glad when I finished it.
Beautiful passages, the Russian fable is very apt. Between life and death all we can do is try to live life to the fullest.
Glad to know that you liked the description of the cover, Delia 🙂
Nice to know that you liked ‘Middlesex’ so much. I have to read that soon! ‘The Virgin Suicides’ has a gloomy title and so I will pick it up when I am feeling brave.
Glad to know that you liked the Russian fable and its interpretation. I agree with you on living life to the fullest.
I like the Mobius strip symbol! It’s interesting when a writer has such long gaps between novels. Makes me wonder if they write very slowly, or just write quickly and then have long breaks in-between! This is a new writer for me although, like Caroline, I enjoyed the film of The Virgin Suicides.
I have been wondering that myself – whether writers work on a book slowly or write quickly and take long breaks 🙂 I think Eugenides teaches creative writing in university and so his days must be busy and that might explain the long gap between two books. Glad to know that you liked the movie version of ‘The Virgin Suicides’. I need to see that sometime.
Oh goodness, I LOVE contemporary takes on Victorian novels, and I loved MIDDLESEX too, so maybe Nymeth and you are convincing me to get this one!
Hope you get to read this book and liked it, Sarah 🙂 Will look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.
Wonderful review Vishy! The first part of the book seems mindblowing, with all those concepts you have highlighted… I had read Eugenides’ Middlesex and I remember thoroughly enjoying it. I hadn’t heard of this book, so it’s nice to read your review… 🙂
Glad to know that you liked ‘Middlesex’, Birdy. It is a book I want to read. Hope you get to read ‘The Marriage Plot’ and like it. It just came out this month, and so I haven’t even seen many book-blogger-reviews yet. I can lend it to you, if you would like to read it. The first part of the book is really awesome!
Thanks Vishy I would love to read it! I am racing to finish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which is the book for Nov’s book club meeting and then read Maus. I can’t wait to read it, so it’s making me impatient to finish this!
Hope you are liking ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. Happy Reading!
I hate when they send the wrong cover, but I’m glad you appreciated it in the end. I haven’t read anything by Eugenides, but I’ve seen great reviews of his books everywhere. Sorry the second half didn’t work for you after loving the first part. I had the same kind of experience with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Thanks for stopping by, Kristi 🙂 Yes, it was sad that I got a different cover, but I am also glad now that I got it. I remember having mixed feelings about ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ when I read it. If you do get to read ‘The Marriage Plot’, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
You have convinced me. Now I really do want to read this book!
Thanks for stopping by, Harvee 🙂 Hope you get to read this book and like it.
“Still, there was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.”
I just read this passage in American Gods by Neil Gaiman and it felt like deja-vu. Small world, eh?
Wow! This is really amazing! I can’t believe this! Thanks for quoting this passage, Delia 🙂 Yes, it definitely feels like deja vu. And it definitely is a small world 🙂
You’re absolutely right that the first third of the book was the strongest.
But I’ve loved Eugenides for so long that The Marriage Plot felt like a serious letdown, both thematically and narratively.
What’s even more disappointing is that it might be a DECADE before we see another Eugenides novel (seriously, he’s like the Terence Malick of books).
My full review can be found here: http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-review-jeffrey-eugenides-marriage.html
Thanks for stopping by, TheOncomingHope 🙂 Yes, it is really disappointing that we have to wait for a decade for the next Eugenides novel! Thanks for the link to your review. I will read it soon.
I had all of Eugenides books and haven’t read any? Can you believe it? I’m suppose to read Middlesex this year. I’ll get to it but I want to read this book too!
like Bina, I was so proud I knew the answer and then you go and reveal it! ;D
Thanks for the review. I haven’t read it properly but I’ll come back once I read the book myself. 🙂
Hope you enjoying reading Eugenides’ works, Jo. His prose is beautiful and his previous books seem to have been unconventional. I liked this book because it was more conventional – a love story set in a university in the modern era.
Thanks again for this review Vichy! YOu inspired me to read it and I loved it!
Glad to know that you liked this book so much, Sarah 🙂 I loved your review of it.
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