The Marriage Plot

it's not middlesex, but it's pretty good. i enjoyed it four stars worth, but i really, really like eugenides' writing; objectively, i felt i should give it three.

although there are many things in this story that speak to me directly, i didn't feel like i connected with it totally. it's possible you will find yourself in the same boat unless you are really primed in the fields of literary/critical theory and the victorian/regency periods of literature. if you miss the lit. crit. stuff, you will probably notice it. there is a lot of name and theory dropping. go ahead and google derrida, barthes, lacan, and their contemporaries before reading. my theory is that if you miss the victorian lit. stuff, you probably won't know exactly what you missed, but you will have a sense of not quite connecting with the book. i have not had a chance to question my own personal dickensian victorianist, and regency austenite, friends who have read it to find out if that genius that i suspect is happening, is actually happening. that's kind of cheating, i suppose i could read the pickwick papers, vanity fair, daniel deronda, the luck of barry lyndon, mansfield park....