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Sarah 's Reviews > The Marriage Plot
The Marriage Plot
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by
Sarah 's review
bookshelves: dang-i-wanted-to-love-it, so-this-is-love, favorite-authors
Mar 06, 2012
bookshelves: dang-i-wanted-to-love-it, so-this-is-love, favorite-authors
This was the first book that I read in my first house I bought late last year. I saw Eugenides (one of my favorite authors ever) speak and received an autographed copy, which had a dust jacket that my dog Franny chewed his face from. I loved the Fresh Air interview where he spoke about this book, as well. And I had been waiting for this book for soOOOoo long. I was VERY excited to read it once it was finally in my hands.
This book was a major letdown, truth be told. I really love and admire The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex. They are both such different books but they are in love with metaphor and simile and imagery and maybe all those devices made me love him. It was like he spent days on each sentence (which is probably why it takes him a bajillion years between novels.) I didn't get that with this book. The language was much more straightforward. But even so, it was pretty good, being written by Pulitzer Prize winning Jeffrey Eugenides, after all.
Maybe it was the protagonist. Madeleine wasn't my favorite character. An audience member told him that she didn't love the protagonist, either, and asked if he did that on purpose. He assured her that he liked Madeleine just fine and then the audience girl seemed embarrassed and apologetic. He was funny about it, though. I agree with her! I have faced the sorts of situations Madeleine goes up against and I still didn't sympathize with her. I wanted to love it, though, like I loved his other two, and I didn't. Super sad face!
I did sort of love the ending, though. Did any of you read it, yet? Make me love it! Convince me. Please.
Sarah Montambo Powell
This book was a major letdown, truth be told. I really love and admire The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex. They are both such different books but they are in love with metaphor and simile and imagery and maybe all those devices made me love him. It was like he spent days on each sentence (which is probably why it takes him a bajillion years between novels.) I didn't get that with this book. The language was much more straightforward. But even so, it was pretty good, being written by Pulitzer Prize winning Jeffrey Eugenides, after all.
Maybe it was the protagonist. Madeleine wasn't my favorite character. An audience member told him that she didn't love the protagonist, either, and asked if he did that on purpose. He assured her that he liked Madeleine just fine and then the audience girl seemed embarrassed and apologetic. He was funny about it, though. I agree with her! I have faced the sorts of situations Madeleine goes up against and I still didn't sympathize with her. I wanted to love it, though, like I loved his other two, and I didn't. Super sad face!
I did sort of love the ending, though. Did any of you read it, yet? Make me love it! Convince me. Please.
Sarah Montambo Powell
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
March 6, 2012
– Shelved
March 6, 2012
– Shelved as:
dang-i-wanted-to-love-it
March 6, 2012
– Shelved as:
so-this-is-love
March 6, 2012
– Shelved as:
favorite-authors
Comments Showing 1-16 of 16 (16 new)
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Perhaps I would have. And perhaps you will be able to, now, since your expectations have been quashed.
Low standards are the key to happiness.
I read it. I didn't love it, and it was my first Eugenides. I will read Middlesex one day because it has been so highly recommended by more than one person.
I listened to Middlesex first and it was such a perfect thing to listen to and so well done and I totally fell in love with it immediately.I think listening to really well-done audio makes me love a book more than it would on its own. But it all depends. The best ever audiobook period in my life was when I was school librarian and I was processing or shelving books with my headphones on. Awww...sad. I miss that that time.
You should read Middlesex, Michelle. I don't like contemporary authors. I don't trust books that aren't at least 25 years old, but I really enjoyed Middlesex.
Sorry--- Didn't love it either nor did I like Madeleine -- Sort of loved the ending as well-- Seemed to me like he was trying to channel Tom Wolfe and Jonathon Franzen and I'm not sure why
Geektastic-- I know absolutely my dissappointment was definitely not based on expectations-- I read so much and had read the other two so long ago---Sorry!!
I liked Mitchell's shitty jobs in Chicago which were clearly a cypher for Eugenides. The welter of 80s references in the beginning felt very shoe-horned in as if to give the book a very definite temporal placement, which was then later just assumed. Madeleine did feel rather insubstantial compared to the dudes. I know plenty of dudes that are too much like the 3 guys in the book. I've also met a few mothers like Madeleine's. I thought those characters were well fleshed out, and I enjoyed the ending, which felt correct.
the only character I liked was Mitchell. Leonard irritated me. Madeleine didn't interest me. I just thought the pace was clumsy and I just never really got into it -- I got into "I MUST FINISH THIS" mode. no fun. i liked the ending, but it tied the book together in such a way where it felt a little funny to me to have read so much extra stuff that didn't matter to it. i don't know if that makes sense ...
.... but even still, I got the feeling that if I were to meet Jeffrey Eugenides or listen to an interview (which I think I'd like to do still), I would like him. So without even having read his other books, I felt a little sad about not liking it too.
Yeah, I really liked him when I saw him speak. I was so excited for this book. I haven't really looked at how much the lit world liked it or didn't like it.
I don't even remember this book. :(
Sorry, I don't have Whatsapp, and I distrust Yahoo mail. I'll need to stick to warlocks and shamans who have gmail accounts.
I think the author loved Leonard, and made Madeline stay with him because it’s his own fantasy.
Do you think you may have liked it more had you read it before his others? I've heard some say that it's the ridiculously high standard of the preceding works that really did this one in for them.