All reviews for La trama del matrimonio (2011)
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In the end, I just didn't care about the characters or what they were doing. Eugenides writes beautiful prose at times, which kept me going, but I was so indifferent to Maddy, Mitchell, and Leonard that it didn't matter. The first 2/3 are definitely "about books", that is, a lot of the writing is about what the characters are reading and the feeling they get from those books. I'm a sucker for that, and usually end up picking up books like it, then being disappointed. True in this case as well. I can't help but think that a book describing the joy of reading other books is somehow lesser than those books from which joy is derived. It's almost like a book report, and it smacks of laziness. Will I read more Eugenides? Probably. But will I re-read this? Probably not.
This is a terrific book that made me believe in novels again. It’s funny how this book feels at once thick and thin on ideas, but it doesn’t matter. It is my kind of a literary page turner. I love the overall worldview of the writer, who loves ideas but not ideologies, and has true compassion for his characters. I am really a humanist and so Eugenides seems to be both in his work and when I saw him speak in person in Melbourne. And humanists are often dead-funny, as he is. There is so much natural, quiet wit in his sentences.
Cute book. Well written, but the characters were a bit irritating.
meh meh meh meh meh. ending felt pretty inevitable.