The Marriage Plot

By: Jeffrey Eugenides

Narrated by: David Pittu

Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Notable Book of 2011

A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Book of 2011

A Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Best Fiction of 2011 Title

One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2011

A Salon Best Fiction of 2011 title

One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books of the Year 2011

It's the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.

As Madeleine tries to understand why "it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France," real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead—charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy—suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus—who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange—resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it unfolds like the intimate journal of our own lives.

©2011 Jeffrey Eugenides (P)2011 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“The sound of silk drawn across fine-grain sandpaper best describes David Pittu's voice in THE MARRIAGE PLOT, by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides...The talented Pittu rises to the occasion of this challenging work, rewarding the listener with a sense of satisfaction reserved for great works of literature.”—AudioFile magazine, An Earphones Award Winner

“David Pittu brilliantly narrates this audio version of Eugenides' complex novel, whether he's rattling off quotes from Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes or creating unique voices for the book's many characters. Among the standouts are his renditions of the slow and reflective Mitchell and Thurston, the star of the semiotics seminar who speaks in a falsely laconic and disinterested fashion to impress his classmates and professor… [Pittu] never runs out of voices for this large, global cast. The result is one of the best audiobooks of the year.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“No one's more adept at channeling teenage angst than Jeffrey Eugenides. Not even J. D. Salinger . . . It's in mapping Mitchell's search for some sort of belief that might fill the spiritual hole in his heart and Madeleine's search for a way to turn her passion for literature into a vocation that this novel is at its most affecting, reminding us with uncommon understanding what it is to be young and idealistic, in pursuit of true love and in love with books and ideas.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“This is a story about being young and bright and lost, a story Americans have been telling since Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Our exceptionally well-read but largely untested graduates still wonder: How should I live my life? What can I really believe in? Whom should I love? Literature has provided a wide range of answers to those questions—Lose Lady Brett! Give up on Daisy! Go with Team Edward!—but in the end, novels aren't really very good guidebooks. Instead, they're a chance to exercise our moral imagination, and this one provides an exceptionally witty and poignant workout.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Well....

Alright. So I want to start off by saying that I get what Eugenides is doing here. I really do. I understand the point he's making about how the modern idea of love is based in syncretism. How can we hold onto the idea of a one true love, of the big courtship, the candy and flowers and white wedding in the age of divorce? I understand what he's trying to say about the tenuous relevance Regency and Victorian era romance novels have in our own lives.

I get it. I'm not some boob shaking my fist at a bunch of egg heads because I'm just too stupid to be intellectually engaged by this story.

That being said this one didn't grab me, and if I hadn't been listening to it there's no way in heck I would have finished it.

At first I didn't think it was too bad. I was pulled in by the characters and the writing and the setting. This is a Eugenides novel after all, and there's never been any question that the man can write. His character building is in top form here. Eugenides has this uncanny ability to write female characters that makes me feel uneasy - he's one of the few male writers out there who has been paying attention. But for the first time what normally makes his books so much fun to read - his astute eye for interpersonal relationships, his knack for crafting details, his stories that are set in the here and the now of contemporary America - all converge to make this story what it is. A sack of boring.

Yeah, I get what the characters are going through is rough, but it's all stuff I've seen before. I knew where this was going to end up before it even began, and that's not because I'm some sort of great brain, I've just seen enough reality TV to know that there's nothing really special going on here. One of the reasons I love to read is because I feel like I get to see, and experience and feel things that I've never done or thought of before. But after fishing this book I felt like I could have sat on my front porch and watched all this happen. That's not exactly the feeling I like to be left with after putting in hours of effort. Also, the narrator does a TERRIBLE job of narrating female voices. He reminded me of the boys in middle school trying to effect the voices of love struck older sisters whenever their boyfriend came around. You know the voice.

I did really like parts of this though. And what I liked I really liked, but unfortunately there wasn't enough of them to make this an exciting read.

After all's been said and done I'll say that this is not the author at his best. But if you like his work and you're a completest, then I'll recommend it.

Much enjoyed this one

Since I did not connect well with the Author in his previous book Middlesex, The Marriage Plot was a delightful surprise.
The story satisfied my attraction to 'growing up' novels, but there's more to it - the prose is sharp, the dive into each character is intriguing, and it includes fun 'extra's for book lovers who have a soft spot for Jane Austen/The Bronte Sisters.

The read gave me the feeling the book contains autobiographic aspects in unexpected places and that the author put his heart and soul into it.

I am very likely to follow Jefferey Eugenides' writing from here on.

It is highly recommended.

disappointed

One of my all time favorite books is Middlesex and I love Virgin suicides, so I could hardly wait to read Marriage Plot. Was very disappointed. Eugenides rambled on about so many things and none of the characters were very appealing.

Loved the reader just not the story

I couldn't relate to the main female character, in fact she annoyed me. Just couldn't get into it at all and this story was ultimately so depressing! I'm all for tragedy and drama but this left me wanting to slit my wrists. Yikes.

Engrossing and enjoyable

If you could sum up The Marriage Plot in three words, what would they be?

I know this book and this author have received a great deal of criticism. Yes, it's not the most elaborate plot. It's beautiful, t hough. The characters are beautifully realized. I recommend.

Any additional comments?

It's an extremely poignant picture about living with someone who is damaged, whether it's substance abuse, mental illness, or both. The portrayal in the book felt absolutely authentic.

Way less than expected!!

I expected so much more after having read, and loved, Middlesex. This was boring (mostly) too long and filled with characters that were difficult to care about. I almost gave up on it but I wasted a credit on it so I stuck it out.

One of the best stories

Any additional comments?

I hate answering this way, and won't. It was one of the best books I have recently read. Great characters. Five stars all the way.

Enjoyable

This was an enjoyable book. It is a real and, at times, painful view of what marriage is all about.

Engaging stoey and amazing performance

Excellent story and engaging writing. Performance really brought the characters to life. Interview at end was a bonus!

Pittu almost compensates for lack of character..

While "Middlesex" was one of my all-time favorite books, this novel didn't make me feel too much.
As an English major feminist myself, some of the literary references made me laugh, and the story was engaging, but perhaps like the characters themselves, I didn't develop any real emotion towards them, and I suspect so did Eugenides.
It's been a while since I've questioned an author's love for his own characters, but it seems like at least one of the 3 main characters, Madeleine, lacks character.
Pittu is such a talented narrator, that I've gone to look for other books that he narrates.
Go and read "Middlesex" if you haven't, instead.