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| photo source: [goodreads.com] |
This is the first book I have read on my kobo-ereader. I would have never expected myself to support this kind of reading, opposing the printed word and the feeling of turning paper pages in your hand. Still, this was a special experience and I’m going to continue reading many more books this way. The most obvious advantage is that I can even read the thickest books and take them everywhere with me, without carrying their actual weight along! ^^ The other thing is that it’s just a totally different experience. Maybe I’ll get bored with it as I get used to it, but for now, it’s a nice change up to what I have been used to before.
And now finally to the book. I’ll say right in the beginning that I’m contemplating of giving it either four or five stars. I always write my reviews right after I finish reading the book and sometimes I even start when I’m on the last 50-100 pages and revise it once again when I’m done.
With “The Marriage Plot” I was so captivated by the book that I simply didn’t want it to end. With the ending having inevitably approached, it was a shock, enhanced to an even greater extreme because I wasn’t expecting it, so caught up, not even looking at the number of pages left anymore. It was entertaining from the very beginning until the very last page. After this being the third book I read by Jeffery Eugenides he has definitely made it into my list of favourite authors. I’d say that this time the style is quite similar to the “Virgin Suicides”, not being as complex as in “Middlesex” but still fitting perfectly to the whole story.
Here the emphasis is placed on three main characters, which was a huge relief for me. I’m really bad at remembering names (even in the course of reading a single book) and I prefer just a few but masterfully crafted personalities, rather than a bunch of people all just involved in a minor way in the plot. Madeleine, Mitchell and Leonard were depicted in such a relatable way that you felt emotionally close throughout the whole time of the portrayal of this triangle-relationship. But believe me, this isn’t just some trivial tale of how a girl gets to choose between two guys, this is a deep, complex and gripping narrative.
To me, I’ve had the experience of reading a book and getting the sensation of the story enveloping like walking down a straight road. Even if it was written in an incredible way, there was something missing, it just felt flat. Well here with this account, there was a totally different sensation about it. It all almost felt three-dimensional, not like a simple road going on for miles but like a weirdly formed 3D object floating in space. You were able to have a look at all of its sides and even dive deep inside of it. The narrative is so perfectly constructed that you get to know the story from all of its possible sides. This was a book that I didn’t want to put down and I’d say that it’s the main goal of a writer, which has been achieved here brilliantly.
Thinking about the only point for which I would have reduced the rating by a star, I actually have to cancel it out. The only thing which I could have criticized would have been the lack of depth, but analyzing the whole book once again, this isn’t the case at all. Jeffery Eugenides takes you on a journey of the emotions of three totally different people, which lapse from hysterical joy, dropping to profound sadness and depression, describing their development after getting out of college and starting a “real” life.
It’s enveloping, it’s impressive and I would recommend it to each and everyone! Just read it! :)
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