Anti-Climacus

Adventures in Cultural Consumption:

The Marriage Plot: I recommended it on facebook, and a friend* asked why. Because, crazily enough, there is almost no overlap between this blog's readership and my facebook friends, I'll reprint it here:

I think it's a very good example of the trend in American literature back towards realism. It's well-written and well-constructed, both of which strike me as rare: the only parts that might be overwritten correspond to the attempt to represent the thoughts of overly romantic 22-year olds. The characters are portrayed in a sympathetic but not indulgent manner. The female main character falls for the allure of continental literary theory in the early part of the book, but it seemed to me an accurate portrayal of what it's like to find a new and different way of seeing the world; one of the male main characters spends a lot of the book flirting with religion, in a way that's respectful to religion without presuming it to have all the answers (and striking a balance between those never seems to happen). The ending was a surprise, but neither in its convention nor its attempt to buck convention--just an earned, character-based conclusion that followed on the logic of the plot. I haven't read anything else by Eugenides, so I can't comment on whether it's better or worse than his other books, and it's not destined to be a classic of world literature, but it's good and pleasurable on repays the investment of time read.


*The friend happens to be someone I met while doing an Institute for Humane Studies summer conference. Consider this to be my semi-annual pitch for IHS: you meet smart, interesting people and gain a network of folks to talk to far beyond your own grad school cohort. I'm currently reading a paper for one of my IHS friends, and will give him a paper of mine to read soon enough, and that's a pretty typical level of interaction. Also we like to share strange or amusing things on the social networks. It's a win-win.