Where is the Love?

Today I will finally be able to start 1Q84!! I can't wait, especially because I finished The Marriage Plot Sunday morning, meaning I had nothing to read yesterday! I've been meaning to post my thoughts on Euginides' new novel, but I still have to organize exactly what it is I feel about this book. I was a bit hesitant to read it once I started it; I do not enjoy reading books about love as much as I used to. The last book I read that focused a lot on romance was Pamela, which (aside from the suitor literally terrorizing Poor Pamela prior to deciding on being a gentleman) I thought had a beautiful, though clearly idealized, ending. I read Wuthering Heights right before that,
this one being a story of a dark and intense love. Starting The Marriage Plot, I thought I would be reading a cheesy, cliché ridden, awkward novel. I slowly got over this fear, however, as the novel proved to be as intelligent and gripping as I expected Euginides to be. Maddy, recently graduated and aspiring to be a literary scholarly, falls in love with Leonard, an unstable genius and not her introspective, intelligent, honest "friend" Michell. The next bit isn't too hard to guess; Michell adores Maddy and for years harbors the hope he will marry her (indeed that he is meant to marry her). So, here I am, reading about a girl in the eighties acting love-stricken and silly, trying to get past Maddy's unoriginal situation. Then, suddenly, Michell's perspective was introduced, and his down-to-earth nature was surprsingly endearing. Also, the change of perspective allowed me to see a different side of Maddy that helped make her and her story more unique and, yes, endearing. Around the middle of the novel, Leonard starts dominating the narrative at some points, and I have to say, Jeffrey Euginides created the perfect metaphorical onion, as each perspective reveals layers and layers of the whole. Leonard's sections were so personal and yet matter-of-fact, so honest in the ways of manic-depression, that it was hard to read about such a great mind being burdened with the extremely heavy weight of it.

For a while, I didn't really buy that Maddy and Michell were "meant to be," but I finally accepted that theirs was a true love, thinking that Euginides was trying to bring back what he says is now dead: the marriage plot that defined Victorian novels, where women needed to have a good marriage because it was all they had to rely on. (SPOILER ALERT) Here's the catch, and the genius, I suppose: it isn't "true love." It was what I thought it was from the onset; Michell was just a fool, thinking wanting someone makes them yours, and Maddy had gotten caught in the middle of something she felt it was her responsibility to fix, something she couldn't fix at all. It made me disappointed and kind of sad at first, as if the whole novel had almost been a waste of time. Of course, after a few days of thinking about it I respected the ending much more...but I still can't say I was as happy with the novel as I hoped to be.

In a nutshell, The Marriage Plot was very thought-provoking and engaging enough, but there was always a sense of annoyance, of feeling left-out, which didn't help the thought the novel didn't meet all my expectations.

I ran straight to the bookstore on campus this morning and have been so aware of 1Q84 sitting next to me all day, I can't wait to start!!! So I'm off:) Good reading, everybody!

P.S. Readers, all comments are welcome! Have you read any of these books? What do you guys think about them, or want to know?