30 Books in 30 Beach Days Day 20: The Marriage Plot
Ah, the good 'ol marriage plot: something every diligent English major knows (and has read) intimately. The traditional marriage plot had its heyday in literature of the 19th century -- think Austen, Eliot, the Brontes, and more. In his 2012 novel The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides riffs on that classic structure with an even more classic trope: the love triangle. This is the story of three college friends -- Madeleine, her boyfriend Leonard, and her friend (who wishes he were her boyfriend) Mitchell -- upon their graduation from Brown and their entry into the real world.
It is a novel about love and marriage, but it's also a novel about ideas and privilege and ambition and mental health and the things and people who hold us back and propel us forward; in short, it's a novel about growing up. It's a bit heady in its language and its ideas; appealing to a liberal arts set, maybe, but always somewhat inaccessible. Each of the three main characters kept their distance from the reader somewhat, which I entertained only because they also kept somewhat of a distance from each other.
What's interesting is that I found myself liking this book even though I didn't really like any of the characters -- a rare feeling for me (typically if I can't find a character to support, I write off the whole story, which I understand is poor form). I found Madeleine too two-dimensional, too passive; Mitchell too whiny and weak; Leonard too much, too cruel. But at the end, I was glad I had read it, which is sometimes all you can ask for in a book to read on the beach.
Rating: 3/5
