'There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.' Anthony Trollope It's the early 1980s. In American colleges, 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 studies the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the form of two very different suitors, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead -- charismatic loner and college Darwinist -- suddenly turns up in a seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged 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 wife.
'Jeffrey Eugenides is a big and big-hearted talent: generous to his readers in telling stories that unfailingly entertain, and generous to his characters, who mess up and strive and suffer and repent the way anyone we really love does --forgivably.' Jonathan Franzen 'Eugenides has emerged as the great American writer that many of us suspected him of being.' Los Angeles Times 'A hypnotic storyteller.' Jay McInerney Praise for Middlesex: 'This year's most sumptuously enjoyable book ! superb' Sunday Times, Books of the Year 'This is a truly original and compelling novel, by turns sad, funny and moving' Daily Mail 'The best American novel since The Corrections ! exuberant, ambitious, deeply compassionate and wildly funny' GQ 'A transatlantic epic ! a towering achievement' Los Angeles Times 'A warm and beautifully written novel that illuminates the part of the human soul that even biology cannot reach' Sunday Times 'Eugenides's superb third novel is his most mature to date, the work of an author who has achieved a new gravity after the audacious brilliance of his earlier work!Eugenides looks poised to become a writer on a par with Updike and Cheever as an anatomist of contemporary American matters' -- Stephen Amidon, Sunday Times 'The characterisation is remarkable. Leonard, Madeline and Mitchell, as well as all those of the periphery, are constructed with patience and artistry, with the result that they are completely believable and always capable of surprising the reader with breathtaking insight, Eugenides teases out the emotional truth at work here. This is a complete and complex work!If you were ever young and thought that you knew what you wanted, if you ever imagined that no one else could ever feel such intensity of emotions as you, if you ever had your dreams dashed and your heart broken, then this is the book for you.' Sarah Vine, The Times The tight plotting and internalised psychology of this new novel, allied to the full sweep of ideas and social observation and quiet comedy that characterised Eugenides's earlier works, are signs of a new maturity. In the generosity and nuance of his characters and paragraphs, you are reminded of the Jonathan Franzen of The Corrections.' Tim Adams, Observer. 'It's a tender, well written, compulsively readable, essentially conventional love story.' Nat Segnit, Independent on Sunday. 'Highly enjoyable' Evening Standard. 'Masterful!Eugenides brilliantly captures the excitement of intellectual discovery and argument for its own sake' Psychologies Being Eugenides, the book is immensely readable, funny and heartfelt with instantly beguiling writing that springs effortlessly back and forth over the years's events' Daily Telegraph 'A marvellous, compulsive storyteller, richly allusive, he reminds us that while love may not always be a triumph, it follows its own wayward course to the end' Sunday Telegraph 'Erudite, smart and entertaining' Mail. '!powerful and all consuming. Forget the hearts and flowers; this is a challenging and intellectual novel about life and the intricate human relationships it weaves.' Express 'Nobody is going to accuse Jeffrey Eugenides's new novel of being insufficiently clever. It is a big book of tricks.' New Statesman
Title: The Marriage Plot
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Jeffrey Eugenides
ISBN 13: 9780007441303
ISBN 10: 0007441304
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
Publication Date: 1/05/2012
Place of Publication:
London,
United Kingdom
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
Modern fiction
Dewey Classification:
813.6
(DC23)
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Height: 197mm
Width: 130mm
Weight: 289g