I loved Eugenides’ book “Middlesex.” It was so rich in
character development and detail. I was absolutely convinced that the writer
had to be an hermaphrodite because his insight was so convincingly drawn. Nope,
he’s an unambiguous male. Expecting the same depth of writing for the “Marriage
Plot” I was slightly disappointed. But it could be that the angst of the
college dating years tend to no longer hold interest for me. And that is a
major thread of the book. The heroine, Madeleine, is going to grad school to
study the 18th century novel with particular interest in how the
marriage plot plays out in the likes of Bronte and Austen. The plots don’t
differ. Eugenides takes that plot and applies it to dating and marriage of the
1980s in the aftermath of women’s rights. Madeleine is the test case and as she
navigates life between two men, we understand what has changed, and what has
stayed exactly the same.
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