ARE YOU LISTENING? THE MARRIAGE PLOT: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S" 

ARE YOU LISTENING? DAY" 

I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE TODAY'S

AUDIO BOOK CHOICE.....

 GIVEAWAY ENDED
THE MARRIAGE PLOT

The Audio Book

BY JEFFREY EUGENIDES

ABOUT THE BOOK:

It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, 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 tries to understand why “it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France,” real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead—charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy—suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual 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 mate.

Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can’t escape the secret responsible for Leonard’s seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.

PRAISE FOR THE MARRIAGE PLOT:

“Wry, engaging and beautifully constructed.” —William Deresiewicz, The New York Times Book Review

“[The Marriage Plot] is sly, fun entertainment, a confection for English majors and book lovers . . . Mr. Eugenides brings the period into bright detail—the brands of beer, the music, the affectations—and his send-ups of the pretensions of chic undergraduate subcultures are hilarious and charmingly rendered . . . [His] most mature and accomplished book so far” —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“No one’s more adept at channeling teenage angst than Jeffrey Eugenides. Not even J. D. Salinger . . . It’s in mapping Mitchell’s search for some sort of belief that might fill the spiritual hole in his heart and Madeleine’s search for a way to turn her passion for literature into a vocation that this novel is at its most affecting, reminding us with uncommon understanding what it is to be young and idealistic, in pursuit of true love and in love with 

books and ideas.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“This is a story about being young and bright and lost, a story Americans have been telling since Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Our exceptionally well-read but largely untested graduates still wonder: How should I live my life? What can I really believe in? Whom should I love? Literature has provided a wide range of answers to those questions—Lose Lady Brett! Give up on Daisy! Go with Team Edward!—but in the end, novels aren’t really very good guidebooks. Instead, they’re a chance to exercise our moral imagination, and this one provides an exceptionally witty and poignant workout.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“There has been a storybook quality to much American fiction recently—larger-than-life, hyper-exuberant, gaudy like the superhero comics and fairy tales that have inspired it. By sticking to ordinary human truth, Eugenides has bucked this trend and written his most powerful book yet.” —Zachary Lazar, Newsday

“Befitting [Eugenides’s] status as that rare author who bridges both highbrow book clubs and best-seller lists, his third novel is a grand romance in the Austen tradition—one that also deconstructs the very idea of why we'd still find pleasure in such a timeworn narrative style. It's a book that asks why we love to read, yet is so relentlessly charming, smart and funny that it answers its own question.” —David Daley, USA TODAY

“There are serious pleasures here for people who love to read.” —Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“If there is a writer to whom Eugenides appears connected, it is not Wallace but Jonathan Franzen. They are less than a year apart in age, and while Franzen got a head start, the two, who are both with the same publisher, are on similar publishing schedules. Last year, Franzen's Freedom was a bestseller; like The Marriage Plot, it's a robust, rich story of adults in a love triangle. Eugenides benefits by the comparison: This book is sweeter, kinder, with a more generous heart. What's more, it is layered with exactly the kinds of things that people who love novels will love.” —Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeffrey Eugenides grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and attended Brown and Stanford Universities. His novel Middlesex was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ambassador Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, France's Prix Medicis, and the Lambda Literary Award.  It was also selected for Oprah’s Book Club. Eugenides’ first novel, The Virgin Suicides, was adapted into a critically-acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola. He is on the faculty of Princeton University, and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. 

MY REVIEW/THOUGHTS:
THE MARRIAGE PLOT is the new best seller from Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Jeffrey Eugenides. Imagine the expectations for THE MARRIAGE PLOT after Eugenides wrote a book that was loved by millions and won so many accolades. What could Eugenides come up with to engage readers once more?

The basic storyline revolves around the three main characters that are flawed to say the least. The story takes place in the 1980s with three students attending Brown University. There’s insecure and submissive Madeleine, an English major who loves Leonard, a Biology major. Leonard is a nonconforming outsider who loves Madeleine as much as he can but has so many mental problems of his own, that having someone else in his life just adds to his confused state. Meanwhile, Mitchell is a Religious Studies major and does love Madeleine; however she can not return his feelings. This seemingly common love triangle, or “Marriage Plot”, has been written about so many times one asks what makes this book different? Eugenides treatment of their situation psychologically takes readers to places they never expect. Meanwhile, Mitchell physically takes his broken heart and travels to India and beyond in search of his true calling in religion only to realize that Madeleine is still his focus. Leonard’s mental illness is expertly portrayed by Eugenides while Madeleine’s response to it seems quite appropriate once you get to really know her.

I feel that Jeffrey Eugenides had one set of expectations for THE MARRRIAGE PLOT while readers probably had different ones. I know I enjoyed MIDDLESEX and was interested to see what Eugenides would come up with this time. So many people that I had spoken to, and reviews I read prior to even getting this audio book, made me feel like I was in for a fabulous read. I think the statement of “to each his own” applies to me in this case.

I had a very unique experience with THE MARRIAGE PLOT. I must say I worked hard to finish this book. I was interested in the three main characters and Eugenides writing style for several reasons. First, although the characters were people I didn’t like or care about while listening to the majority of the book, Eugenides did such a masterful job of allowing me to get into their heads, that I wound up wanting to know what would happen to them anyway. 

As for the narrative itself, I was a bit frustrated with it. The writing contained too much detail for me. It almost seemed that Eugenides wanted to be sure that only people who were experienced in science as well as literature and the classics especially, would enjoy (and understand) the story. I didn’t think I needed to have all that background and minutia to move the story along.  With all this said, then did I like the book or not? I have to say the last part of the book that I was cautioned to wait for, suddenly had me hooked. I couldn’t stop listening and stayed up late to finish it. I can only imagine that Eugenides is such an expert at what he does that perhaps subliminally he was drawing me in all along and so when the ending was in sight, I couldn’t wait to find out how it turned out.  I then was frustrated because there was nobody awake at 3 AM to discuss the story with when I finished the book. This is why I said Eugenides expectations to start with were much different then mine but somehow, he worked his magic to bring me around to be a supporter and fan once again. I can’t explain it in any other way so you will just have to listen, or read, THE MARRIAGE PLOT to see how it affects you. As for me, Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell are still playing games in my head!

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO ESTHER AND FRIENDS AT

MACMILLAN AUDIO BOOKS , I HAVE TWO

COPIES OF THIS BEST SELLING AUDIO BOOK

TO GIVE AWAY TO TWO LUCKY READERS

 

--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE
--INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
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SEPARATE IN ORDER TO COUNT
AS MORE THAN ONE ENTRY

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: READ ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK AND MY REVIEW ABOVE AND COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THE MARRIAGE PLOT THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS AUDIO BOOK

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GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, NOVEMBER 30

GOOD LUCK!