The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides

I picked up the marriage plot because I greatly enjoyed Middlesex and heard that The Marriage Plot was a little lighter, perfect for a relaxing spa day.

The three main characters are senior Liberal Arts undergraduate students at Brown University.  Madeleine is a notably beautiful literature major hoping to publish her Victorian writing analysis. Her main beau, Leonard, started as a tall handsome smarter-than-thou philosophy student then spiraled tragically into poorly medicated manic depression.  The completion of the love triangle is Mitchell, who does his job poorly and mostly pines from afar. Very far. He pines from Paris, London, and then from Calcutta.

I feel like the love triangle line wasn’t as love-triangley as the book flap makes it out to be. Sure, there is a third person in the love story, but Mitchell doesn’t make much of an impact on Madeleine’s decision making, and she never really reciprocates his love at all. The thing that comes closest to making this trio a love triangle is one awkwardly poignant description of Leonard’s single sexual fantasy of Mitchell and Madeleine together. I hope that didn’t sound weird, that accepting inclusion of the most banal and disgusting aspect of our lives is what makes Jeffery Eugenides an excellent author.

The heft of the book comes from long sprawling dialogues that give me an idea what it must be like to be an introspective liberal arts student in college. They talk about things like Nietzsche and finding yourself. These are things I could not personally identify with. They spoke about philosophy like you weren’t anyone until you had an existential crisis. It was fun to play along, to be apart of that conversation. It made the characters people I didn’t know, instead of cardboard cutouts representing myself.

(spoilers)

The book takes a turn after Leonard and Madeleine get married. It was a wedding in a book that was completely unsatisfying. It happened without any description what so ever. The scenes that took place on the honeymoon were downright strange. These scenes were not charming, although they very well could have been. Sure, Leonard was getting more and more insane as time went on. I felt like the most manic he sounded was during the taffy shop incident, and didn’t have to be pronounced during the count Dracula casino incident.

(end spoilers)

Of the three protagonists, Madeleine was the least fleshed out. At one point she was described as an upper west side looking woman, and that felt like a surprise. At that point, I had no idea what she looked like. People would describe her as sexy, pretty, and composed, but nothing more was ever said. She is also described as very upper middle class. Her father is described as the president of a very small college, and inexplicably pays for everything. Madeleine seems to get everything she ever wants without so much as a thank you.  She doesn’t act like she deserves it, recognizes her priveledge, or even acknowledges its there. She just is, and things just come to her. Perhaps Madeleine is simply not decisive, aware,  and confused about her future, but I don’t think so. I think this the weakest part of the book. Madeleine was poorly drawn. In retrospect, The Virgin Suicides was about young men observing the strange habits of young women. Perhaps, Eugenides shouldn’t be remembered as the man that draws interesting young female characters, but rather, has always tried his best to observe them.

While Madeleine was poorly drawn, Leonard and Mitchell were very interesting. I loved hearing about Mitchell finding his religion. I thought he responded to situations in interesting and insightful ways. The scene in Calcutta with the agronomist was especially memorable. His embarrassing moment in Greece when he tried to speak in tongues was also interesting. It was one of those moments that happens to everyone, but are rarely shared. He took a leap of faith, and it didn’t pan out.

My favorite moment with Leonard was the moment he kissed the taffy girl. It was so bizarre, yet, you didn’t realize he was crazy until that moment. That moment shed new light on all his activities that day. Those moments are amazing. Its like how at the end of The Descent when you realize that she killed her friends.  

The thing that put me off the most about this book was the upper middle class white privilege every character except Leonard possessed. I read a review before I started reading that said that this book was Eugenides attempt at capturing the essence what it meant to be a young American. When I found out that he meant rich white kids in college, I was heavily put off. The characters were making choices they had the luxury to make. They could think of things like religion, love, and health because they didn’t have to think about money and self sufficiency. Is that how everyone else grew up? Because I didn’t. It’s a nitpicky thing, and it doesn’t put me off from the overall experience.

I highly recommend this book. It was a good read, and I enjoyed every page.