I received a free review copy of Jeffrey Eugenides The Marriage Plot AGES ago. So long ago that I can’t even remember how long ago it was. And we’ve been listening to it for months. A month ago I jokingly said we may NEVER finish listening to it and then yesterday TW said “this is the last disc” and I almost drove the car off of the road because I was so surprised. The last disc? Really? Yippeee!
So why did it take so long to finish this one? No idea. I thought it was just because it’s a really long book but now that I’ve looked at the listing on Amazon and see that it was only 416 page – I’m surprised, I thought it would be easily 600 pages and wouldn’t have blinked at 750. But just over 400? Ugh.
I liked the narrator’s voice and I found Madeleine and Mitchell’s stories interesting. I found myself chuckling quite often and rolling my eyes from time to time, as well. I really like nothing better than a Eugenides book for his super smart, thinky sentences – pretension included. But, and this is the but that made it take months to finish, I found myself easily distracted and disconnected from the characters. One minute I was super interested in what was happening and the next I had checked out – then I’d turn off the cd and it would be weeks before I’d turn it on again.
Too much of the story revolved around the guys and what they were doing (or not doing) with Madeleine. Her own story line was all about her life as it pertained to the guys. Had she ditched Leonard (and Mitchell) after the conference where she finally decided what she wanted to do next, and gone off and done it – or gone home and really worked to make it happen, that would have been something. But no – she went home, and the story dropped her right back where she was – with no depth, no ego of her own, just a young woman in the 70s still floating along where the guys allow her to float
Still… I’d like to know what happens next to all three characters. I would hope their lives move along without each other and they never see each other again.