Marriages And What Could-Have-Beens

An almost intensely personal novel, 'The Marriage Plot' by Jeffrey Eugenides draws you into the 1980s world of three college students, a woman and two men- Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead and Mitchell Grammaticus.

The plot follows their lives after graduation, and their choices made, big and small; not so much on the eventual marriage, but more of their lives and how that had panned out. It has been said that the plot's similar to the style of the old-world Jane Austen and Henry James. (Read reviews here, here and here.)

Not sure that I totally like the book, but I don't dislike it either. Knowing Jeffrey Eugenides (remember 'Virgin Suicides'), someone in the story will be depressed. Manic-depressive. That will be Leonard, a "brilliant scientist and charismatic loner". And unfortunately, Madeleine married him, only to leave him later and hunker up with Mitchell, not so much out of love, but out of grasping at straws. Mitchell, a "theology student searching for some kind of truth in life", was Madeleine's "survival kit." and he somehow still gets lost on the path of life, and not sure if he would ever go on to divinity school.

Love the ending. It was surprising, yet not too unexpected. It ended the only way it poetically could, not quite in the style of tragic romances, but more of a...it must be so. Here's an excerpt right to the ending paragraph on the final page.

"From the books you read for your thesis, and for your article - the Austen and the James and everything - was there any novel where the heroine gets married to the wrong guy and then realizes it, and then the other suitor shows up, some guy who's always been in love with her, and then they get together, but finally the second suitor realizes that the last thing the woman needs is to get married again, that she's got more important things to do with her life? And so finally the guy doesn't propose at all, even though he still loves her? Is there any book that ends like that?" 

"No," Madeleine said. "I don't think there's one like that." 

"But do you think that would be good? As an ending?"
He looked at Madeleine. She was so special, maybe. She was his ideal, but an early conception of it, and he would get over it in time. Mitchell gave her a slightly goofy smile. He was feeling a lot better about himself, as if he might do some good in the world. 

Madeleine sat down on a packing box. Her face looked more drawn than usual, and older. She narrowed her eyes, as if trying to bring him into focus.  

A moving van rolled down the street, shaking the house, the arthritic Great Dane next door bellowing hoarsely after it. 

And Madeleine kept squinting, as though Mitchell was already far away, until finally, smiling gratefully, she answered, "Yes."