Explore The Marriage Plot Authored By Jeffrey Eugenides Formatted As Digital
is books like this one that make me weep for humanity, What went wrong Eugenides Well, everything, I do not think I have ever read a more pretentious book in all of my life.
It is filled with pretensions people that do nothing but be pretentious, and this is coming from a selfproclaimed pretentious person that loves pretentious books, I am offended.
I don't hate the guy, I loved Middlesex, and liked The Virgin suicides, but this book drove me into the schism.
It did have some good moments, but they were few and there were long separations in between.
I'm afraid that I don't know enough about the old marriage plot novels Austen, Elliot, James, etc.
that this one references to really "get" everything Eugenides is trying to do here, For example, I initially found Madeline to be fairly thinly rendered in comparison to the more fully fleshed out intellectual and emotional lives of her male counterparts, but by the end I thought that might be part of the point ie.
that she exists on the page only as an ideal mirrors the way she exists to her suitors.
There were other things I found a little disappointing that may also be explained away, such as how the semiotic/deconstructionist thread of the first act is dropped for the remainder of the book, though the entire work itself clearly intends to fit that category.
Maybe that doesn't sound like astar review, but I did find it extremely well crafted and written, and the problems I have with it are more those that raise questions than just thisorthat was done poorly.
Definitely inferior to his two earlier bestsellers, sitelinkThe Virgin Suicidesand sitelinkMiddlesexbut I still liked this.
It is still has that tongueincheek, contemporary satirist prose of Eugenides, His playful words, the effective use of settings to heighten his scenes, his easy tone and light generally mood are all in this book.
The revelation in the end is not as shocking as Virgin and there is no overbearingly strange character like the hermaphrodites in Middlesex here.
However, somethings in here reminded me of his early works like the controlling parents similar to Virgin and the medical case of Leonard Bankhead can be as interesting as that of Cal's case the hermaphrodite in Middlesex.
There is also the Greek characters and settings here that were one of the main flavors in the middle part of Middlesex.
But do you want to know what make this positively different from the first two
.Overall, this book may not be as engaging as his first two earlier novels but I guess, Eugenides is one of the contemporary authors who do not rewrite themselves by coming out with a fresh piece of meat each time they prepare the dinner table.
Too hot sex scenes, Madeleine Hanna is this liberal arts college graduate who is getting her first experiences in sex and when her boyfriend asks her what her sexual fantasy is, she says, ashamed of being seen as a deviant, it is to be pampered.
However, later in the story she says the real one and when her boyfriend carries it out, she reaches orgasm bigtime.
From then on, she sticks to her boyfriend no matter what other people, including her parents, say.
. The use of classic literature that has "marriage plot" women chasing men to get married especially during the Victorian era.
While reading you can't help but notice how Madeleine's life revolves between Leonard and her bestfriend Mitchell Grammaticus.
It is similar but not exactly the same as that of Isabel Archer in Henry James's sitelinkThe Portrait of a Lady or to sitelinkJane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, or to Helen Graham in Anne Bronte's sitelinkThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Not exactly the same because in having this book, Jeffrey Eugenides creates his own kind of heroine and tries to put it sidebyside these women of classic literature.
. Semiotics. Literature students will be able to enjoy Eugenides' use of semiotics study of signs including symbols, metaphors, analogies in communication.
Eugenides' prose is easy to read and understand but it is tricky because if you read more carefully, he uses a lot of normalday metaphors and analogies that can escape your attention.
So you have to be careful while reading,
Eugenides seems to takeyears to write and publish a novel, Virgin was published, Middlesex inand this book, The Marriage Plot in.
Having said this, I am sure his fans and that includes me will not mind waiting for anotheryears for histh book.
It will surely worth all the wait,
He is this good! I loved sitelinkThe Virgin Suicides for its style, imagery and voice.
I loved sitelinkMiddlesex for its 'epic' storytelling, its characters and a lyrical flight of fancy near the end that I think I'll never forget.
Because of the lofty standards the author's previous works set for me perhaps it is inevitable, despite the trademark humor and intelligence evident in this novel too, that this one couldn't live up to the others.
Perhaps it's just that the elements I liked in this novel didn't add up to a cohesive whole for me.
Early on I wasn't too sure about it, but continued on because of my love for his other novels.
I was glad I did because I ended up enjoying it while reading it for the most part.
JE's prose is compulsively readable and his characters are welldeveloped and interesting, especially when he's inside Leonard's head.
I was thinking perhaps JE wouldn't speak from Leonard but hoping he would as it took a while to get to him later, I wished for at least one more section devoted to Leonard.
The intensity in Leonard's voice was, at times, almost hard to read but I think it was the best part of the book, though perhaps not as essential to its theme.
I was reminded of Bronte's sitelinkThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall, though the parallels are not exact, of course.
Having been a big fan of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, it's needless to say that his latest, The Marriage Plot, immediately went on my virtual toreadlist.
But despite making many a yearend bestof list and literary awardnominated, it almost as quickly tumbled down my list as heard very mixed things about it including the inevitable "not as good" as Middlesex.
It only made it back up my list when it was announced as one of theseeds in the Tournament of Books competition.
I am glad it did, Despite it being only February, it will no doubt be one of my favorite reads of,
The novel gets its name from a Victorian novel literary device: which one of two suitors will the lady end up with At its very simplistic core, The Marriage Plot is the journey of a love triangle.
. . but with modern/revisionist twist, . . and a satire of academia, as well at thes, . . with healthy doses/passages on literature, philosophy, theology, biology and more, It is a very literary, very smart work, In other words, others will and do! find it pretentious, snooty, elitist, . . and will and do! find the tone and characters unbearable, Others might get frustrated with the backandforth, pushpull nature of the narrative, but for me it was intricately crafted with Eugenides painting wonderful overall scenes and going back to fillin/touchup with nice detail to really bring it all together.
The novel reminded me of other recentish reads, . . romantic comedy elements and a real deep affection for the principal characters of One Day a book I loved, others despise.
. . the physical and spiritual journey of Eat, Pray, Love some folks are really running for the hills now!, and very much so of another acclaimed novel from last year, The Art of Fielding with the academic setting, the comingofadultage tale, and the exploration of love/sex/relationships.
Fielding was dubbed "Eugenideslite" and I certainly agree with that assessment as Eugenides is a master class vs.
these other
works all of which I very much enjoyed,
Yes, it's not Middlesex, but I'd offer up that The Marriage Plot is a far richer and more ambitious work, but surfacewise slyly disguised as something quite generic.
This will not work for everyone, but for me it was an evolution for Eugenides where I didn't think there was a whole lot room for improvement in the first place.
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