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If you've read Jeffrey Eugenides Pultizer-Prize in fiction, Middlesex, and you're expecting something similar in his new novel, The Marriage Plot, then you will be disappointed. But if you set aside that expectation and you're prepared to enjoy a totally different type of novel penned by one of the best writers of our time, then you will enjoy The Marriage Plot as much as I did.
A very general way to describe the plot of The Marriage Plot is that it's a love triangle: boy is convinced girl is his destined mate, girl is in love with another boy, that other boy is mentally ill. No, this is not lighthearted stuff. At a more cerebral level, this is a novel about books, reading, and how the experience shapes readers at any given time. All three main characters, intellectual Brown graduates, draw connections between their personal lives and the literary works they read. I found the reflections on literary theory works a bit difficult to trudge through -- even though I spent most of my English Master's program studying literary theory (I guess I didn't enjoy that stuff too much). But don't worry about understanding Barthes et al. The point is the influence and experience of books.
The strongest theme of The Marriage Plot is the cynical aspects of marriage. The novel explores three types of matrimony: ones that result from the temporary insanity of passionate love (indeed, that "honeymoon" period of any relationship is a time when lovers have irrational chemicals flowing through them), ones that result from societal propriety, and ones that result from true compatibility.
The novel concludes what we already know: true love and compatibility are rare. As for that Victorian notion of marriage as a virtue, that works if you're content with that sort of thing. Eugenides makes a great example of this type of marriage via the female protagonist's parents -- the proper, composed mother and the strident father who steps in for the official business.
That leaves us with the third type of marriage: the kind resulting from the temporary insanity of passionate love. Eugenides literally exemplifies this through the relationship between the straitlaced girl (Madeleine) and the mentally-ill boy (Leonard). Madeleine, raised by clones of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett (of Pride and Prejudice), can't help but fall madly in love with Leonard, who has manic-depression, a severe mental disorder marked by mood swings between mania and depression. Medications such as lithium have been largely successful in stabilizing these swings. But it's common for manic-depressives to go off their medications due to the negative side-effects, and that's exactly what Leonard does several times in the course of the novel. Thus, both Madeleine and Leonard confront the question: is it worth it to subject a partner to the sufferings of a severely mentally-ill person? For better or for worse...or not?
Apart from the Eugenides' theme of marriage and how he uses literal madness to exemplify how madness compels some couples to doomed matrimony, the author's treatment of mental illness is sensitive, well-researched, and on-the-nose. I sympathized equally with Madeleine and Leonard, and how each are affected by mental illness. Madeleine loves Leonard, but his suffering is her suffering: she is often worried about his mental health, and she finds herself cleaning up the wreckage of Leonard's manic sprees. Leonard suffers from his post-mania sprees and depression, and he's well-aware that he is the source of Madeleine's suffering. It's a sad scenario.
In short, The Marriage Plot is well-crafted and well-written. I definitely recommend it.
My favorite passages:
- What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them. Here was a sign that she wasn't alone. Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling.
- The worst part was that, as the years passed, these memories became, in the way you kept them in a secret box in your head, taking them out every so often to turn them over and over, something olike dear possessions. They were the key to your unhappiness. They were the evidence that life wasn't fair. If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't know you weren't lucky until you got older. And then it was all you ever thought about.
- All her life she'd avoided unbalanced people. She'd stayed away from the weird kids in elementary school. She'd avoided the gloomy, suicidal girls in high school who vomited up pills. What was it about crazy people that made you want to shun them? The futility of reasoning with them, certainly, but also something else, something like a fear of contagion. The casino, with its buzzing, smoke-filled air, seemed like a projection of Leonard's mania, a howling zone full of the nightmare rich, opening their mouths to place bets or cry for alcohol. Madeleine had the urge to turn and flee. Taking one step forward would commit her to a life of doing the same. Of worrying about Leonard, of constantly keeping tabs on him, of wondering what had happened if he was a half hour late coming home. All she had to do was turn and go. No one would blame her.
- Outside, shadows were lengthening along the pavement. Madeleine stared out at the Broadway traffic, trying to stave off a rising feeling of hopelessness. She didn't know how to cheer Leonard up anymore. Everything she tried brought the same result. She worried that Leonard would never be happy again, that he had lost the ability...Even worse, Madeleine knew that Leonard understood this. His suffering was sharpened by the knowledge that he was inflicting it on her. But he was unable to stop it.
- Let me tell you what happens when a person's clinically depressed, Leonard began in his infuriating doctorly mode. What happens is that the brain sends out a signal that it's dying. The depressed brain sends out this signal, and the body receives it, and after a while, the body thinks it's dying too. And then it begins to shut down. That's why depression hurts, Madeleine. That's why it's physically painful. The brain thinks it's dying, and so the body thinks it's dying, and then the brain registers this, and they go back and forth like that in a feedback loop.
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.
I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
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A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.
I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.
I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
Bart Schneider’s Beautiful Inez in three words: haunting, sad, and erotic.
Set in 1960s San Francisco, Beautiful Inez is a languidly-paced novel about the titular Inez Roseman, a talented first-chair violinist in the San Francisco symphony. She is married to the gregarious Jake Roseman, whose philanderings have ceased to embitter her. Although Inez loves her two children and her music, she is haunted by the scars of her past and present. Then she meets Sylvia Bran, a bohemian free-spirit who is ten years her junior. The two women are deeply attracted to each other and embark on an intense love affair. But the romance may still not be enough to thwart Inez from her spiraling depression, which is reminiscent of real-life female artists such as Sylvia Plath; like Plath, Inez lives during a time when mental illness carries a stigma and medication for such disorders are limited and still experimental. Inez thinks frequently of suicide.
Essentially, Beautiful Inez is a sad tale of beautiful, broken people and their tortured relationships.
As an on-and-off again resident of San Francisco, I greatly enjoyed author Bart Schneider ‘s detailed descriptions of the city. He also does an excellent job depicting a palpable sense of the 1960s era of San Francisco: the distinct class divisions, under-the-surface liberalism, and oncoming hippy movement. It was also a time when same-sex relationships and depression were still taboo.
The erotic scenes are detailed and, well, pretty erotic. The author complements these moments with musical metaphors and food. I know that sounds over-the-top but somehow, it worked for me.
Beautiful Inez was a random choice because I hadn’t previously heard of it. But I’m glad I discovered this book as it was a quick yet engaging read.
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The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Baochi, December 20, 2011
If you've read Jeffrey Eugenides Pultizer-Prize in fiction, Middlesex, and you're expecting something similar in his new novel, The Marriage Plot, then you will be disappointed. But if you set aside that expectation and you're prepared to enjoy a totally different type of novel penned by one of the best writers of our time, then you will enjoy The Marriage Plot as much as I did.A very general way to describe the plot of The Marriage Plot is that it's a love triangle: boy is convinced girl is his destined mate, girl is in love with another boy, that other boy is mentally ill. No, this is not lighthearted stuff. At a more cerebral level, this is a novel about books, reading, and how the experience shapes readers at any given time. All three main characters, intellectual Brown graduates, draw connections between their personal lives and the literary works they read. I found the reflections on literary theory works a bit difficult to trudge through -- even though I spent most of my English Master's program studying literary theory (I guess I didn't enjoy that stuff too much). But don't worry about understanding Barthes et al. The point is the influence and experience of books.
The strongest theme of The Marriage Plot is the cynical aspects of marriage. The novel explores three types of matrimony: ones that result from the temporary insanity of passionate love (indeed, that "honeymoon" period of any relationship is a time when lovers have irrational chemicals flowing through them), ones that result from societal propriety, and ones that result from true compatibility.
The novel concludes what we already know: true love and compatibility are rare. As for that Victorian notion of marriage as a virtue, that works if you're content with that sort of thing. Eugenides makes a great example of this type of marriage via the female protagonist's parents -- the proper, composed mother and the strident father who steps in for the official business.
That leaves us with the third type of marriage: the kind resulting from the temporary insanity of passionate love. Eugenides literally exemplifies this through the relationship between the straitlaced girl (Madeleine) and the mentally-ill boy (Leonard). Madeleine, raised by clones of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett (of Pride and Prejudice), can't help but fall madly in love with Leonard, who has manic-depression, a severe mental disorder marked by mood swings between mania and depression. Medications such as lithium have been largely successful in stabilizing these swings. But it's common for manic-depressives to go off their medications due to the negative side-effects, and that's exactly what Leonard does several times in the course of the novel. Thus, both Madeleine and Leonard confront the question: is it worth it to subject a partner to the sufferings of a severely mentally-ill person? For better or for worse...or not?
Apart from the Eugenides' theme of marriage and how he uses literal madness to exemplify how madness compels some couples to doomed matrimony, the author's treatment of mental illness is sensitive, well-researched, and on-the-nose. I sympathized equally with Madeleine and Leonard, and how each are affected by mental illness. Madeleine loves Leonard, but his suffering is her suffering: she is often worried about his mental health, and she finds herself cleaning up the wreckage of Leonard's manic sprees. Leonard suffers from his post-mania sprees and depression, and he's well-aware that he is the source of Madeleine's suffering. It's a sad scenario.
In short, The Marriage Plot is well-crafted and well-written. I definitely recommend it.
My favorite passages:
- What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them. Here was a sign that she wasn't alone. Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling.
- The worst part was that, as the years passed, these memories became, in the way you kept them in a secret box in your head, taking them out every so often to turn them over and over, something olike dear possessions. They were the key to your unhappiness. They were the evidence that life wasn't fair. If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't know you weren't lucky until you got older. And then it was all you ever thought about.
- All her life she'd avoided unbalanced people. She'd stayed away from the weird kids in elementary school. She'd avoided the gloomy, suicidal girls in high school who vomited up pills. What was it about crazy people that made you want to shun them? The futility of reasoning with them, certainly, but also something else, something like a fear of contagion. The casino, with its buzzing, smoke-filled air, seemed like a projection of Leonard's mania, a howling zone full of the nightmare rich, opening their mouths to place bets or cry for alcohol. Madeleine had the urge to turn and flee. Taking one step forward would commit her to a life of doing the same. Of worrying about Leonard, of constantly keeping tabs on him, of wondering what had happened if he was a half hour late coming home. All she had to do was turn and go. No one would blame her.
- Outside, shadows were lengthening along the pavement. Madeleine stared out at the Broadway traffic, trying to stave off a rising feeling of hopelessness. She didn't know how to cheer Leonard up anymore. Everything she tried brought the same result. She worried that Leonard would never be happy again, that he had lost the ability...Even worse, Madeleine knew that Leonard understood this. His suffering was sharpened by the knowledge that he was inflicting it on her. But he was unable to stop it.
- Let me tell you what happens when a person's clinically depressed, Leonard began in his infuriating doctorly mode. What happens is that the brain sends out a signal that it's dying. The depressed brain sends out this signal, and the body receives it, and after a while, the body thinks it's dying too. And then it begins to shut down. That's why depression hurts, Madeleine. That's why it's physically painful. The brain thinks it's dying, and so the body thinks it's dying, and then the brain registers this, and they go back and forth like that in a feedback loop.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Baochi, October 28, 2011
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
(0 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Baochi, October 28, 2011
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Baochi, October 28, 2011
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and I aim to read most ��" if not all ��" Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners through the ages. However, I was in no hurry to read Gilead based on its synopsis. The combination of a seventy-something protagonist, an obscure town setting, and a religious theme just didn’t sound like the page-turning story that I confess I’m always looking to read. Eventually, I had the good sense (or dumb luck) to pack Gilead alongside several other books for a solo vacation a couple of years ago.I love when my negative assumptions are completely upended, and the object of my assumption is revealed in beautiful truth. That’s exactly what happened with Gilead. What I thought would be a boring novel turned out to be a profoundly transforming one.
The story is narrated by minister John Ames, who is seventy-six and dying. As a gift to his seven year-old son, John shares his meditations on life, love, family, friendship and forgiveness. He describes three generations of Ames men, the misunderstandings between them, their love. Whether John is pondering a moment or a lifetime, he is never far from its spiritual significance. Those soulful musings ��" rather than coming off as preachy or unwelcome or scriptural ��" are delivered gently, simply. The prose is spare yet arresting and beautiful. Gilead is an experience…and yes, a spiritual one I am grateful for.
Beautiful Inez by Bart Schneider
Baochi, October 15, 2011
Bart Schneider’s Beautiful Inez in three words: haunting, sad, and erotic.Set in 1960s San Francisco, Beautiful Inez is a languidly-paced novel about the titular Inez Roseman, a talented first-chair violinist in the San Francisco symphony. She is married to the gregarious Jake Roseman, whose philanderings have ceased to embitter her. Although Inez loves her two children and her music, she is haunted by the scars of her past and present. Then she meets Sylvia Bran, a bohemian free-spirit who is ten years her junior. The two women are deeply attracted to each other and embark on an intense love affair. But the romance may still not be enough to thwart Inez from her spiraling depression, which is reminiscent of real-life female artists such as Sylvia Plath; like Plath, Inez lives during a time when mental illness carries a stigma and medication for such disorders are limited and still experimental. Inez thinks frequently of suicide.
Essentially, Beautiful Inez is a sad tale of beautiful, broken people and their tortured relationships.
As an on-and-off again resident of San Francisco, I greatly enjoyed author Bart Schneider ‘s detailed descriptions of the city. He also does an excellent job depicting a palpable sense of the 1960s era of San Francisco: the distinct class divisions, under-the-surface liberalism, and oncoming hippy movement. It was also a time when same-sex relationships and depression were still taboo.
The erotic scenes are detailed and, well, pretty erotic. The author complements these moments with musical metaphors and food. I know that sounds over-the-top but somehow, it worked for me.
Beautiful Inez was a random choice because I hadn’t previously heard of it. But I’m glad I discovered this book as it was a quick yet engaging read.
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