Snazzified

Book #1 of 2012: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

This novel captures the all too familiar feeling of being at a crossroads post-college. Madeleine, a lover of Victorian literature, struggles to find her own purpose in life as she strives to support Leonard whose mental health issues further muddle things up in their relationship and in his vision for the future. Meanwhile, Mitchell travels through Europe and then India in order to find his path while pining gingerly for Madeleine. Their lives intertwine, but each character’s inner struggles are painted out for us to read and try to understand. The future may be unclear, but it’s the way in which they arrive there that is so significant.

At the risk of sounding cliche (but seriously, when do I not?), I could really relate to the inner through processes of the three characters. Graduating from college and having the world in front of you to conquer is simultaneously thrilling and exhausting. We set such high bars for ourselves, only to feel disheartened when things don’t fall into our laps with the ease we were led to believe they would. What recent graduate hasn’t felt that? And Eugenides captures this emotion perfectly. His writing is wistful, eager, and desperate in all the right places. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it to be a helluva novel.