The Marriage Plot quotes
The Marriage Plot (hardcover) - Jeffrey Eugenides
Farrar, Straus and GirouxSome quotes I earmarked from the novel. Interesting are the wide range of opinions on this book but I think I enjoyed it.
The book is about love, about the effects of depression of a person and his partner, about human fallibility, about religion but isn't supposed to tell you anything. p.35
Madeline
...that the hazing the pledges underwent enacted the very fears of male rape and emasculation that membership in the fraternity promised protection against...
...that there was something seriously wrong with homophobic guys who centered their lives around a homoerotic bond... p.43
postmodernism crap
...you have to be aware that language is by its very nature unreasonable. You have to reason yourself out of reasonableness...p.49
Madeline
... the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them. Here was a sign that she wasn't alone. Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling. p.93
Mitchell
with apparent honesty, these voices described in detail how they'd lost the will to live, how they'd become ill, bedridden, abandoned by friends and family until suddenly a "New Thought" had occurred to them, the thought of their true place in the universe, at which point all their suffering had ended. was to make him aware of the centrality of religion in human history and, more important, of the fact that religious feeling didn't arise form going to church or reading the Bible but from the most private interior experiences, either of great joy or of staggering pain. p.108
Leonard
so many people at college were jacked up on ambition, possessors of steroidal egos, clever but cutthroat, diligent bu insensitive, shiny but dull, that everyone felt compelled to be upbeat, down with the program, all systems firing, when everyone knew, in his or her own heart, that this wasn't how they really felt. there was a change to Leonard's pessimism about this time. It deepened, it purified. It lost its previous comedic habiliments, its air of schtick, and became unadulterated, lethal, pure despairp.125
Leonard
you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it. I go and reject it by throwing Roland Barthes in your face. p.159
on Feminism movement
anything large or grand in design, any long novel, big sculpture, or towering building, became, in the opinion of the "women" Mitchell knew at college, manifestations of male insecurity about the size of their penises p.160
(Mitchell on talking about women)
and yet he didn't think that a word like objectification covered the way these alluring-but intelligent! creatures made him feel. desire didn't bring fulfillment but only temporary satiety until the next temptation came along. p.204
(Mitchell)
death awaits us. There is no escape. And so we distract ourselves by licking whatever drops of honey come within our reach.because they believed they were living for art when they were really feeding their narcissism p.240
But it wasn't just him Leonard despised. He hated the hocks at school, he hated the Portland "pigs" in their cruisers, the 7-Eleven clerk who told Leonard that if he wanted to read Rolling Stone he had to buy it; he hated any and all politicians, businessmen, gun owners, Bible-thumpers, hippies, fat people, the reintroduction of the death penalty in the execution by firing squad of Gary Gilmore in Utah, the entire state of Utah, the Philadelphia 76ers for beating the Portland Trailblazers, and Anita Bryant most of all. p.244
He understood that, as a male, Leonard reminded Rita of Frank, and that she either consciously or unconsciously held him at a slight distance as a result. He understood that he had unwittingly assumed Frank's attitudes, belittling Rita in his private thoughts the way Frank had done out loud. In short, Leonard understood that his entire relationship with his mother had been determined by a person who was no longer around. p.255
As he answered the doctors' questions, Leonard felt as though he were being interrogated for a crime. He tried, when he could, to tell the truth, but when the truth didn't service his cause he embellished it, or outright lied. He noted every change in Dr. Shieu's facial expression, interpreting it as either favorable or unfavorable, and shifting his next response accordingly. Often he had the impression that the person answering questions form the scratchy armchair was a dummy he was controlling, that this had been true throughout his life, and that his life had become so involved with operating the dummy that he, the ventriloquist, had ceased to have a personality, becoming just an arm stuffed up the puppet's back. p.260
(Darlene, someone in Leonard's asylum)
Depression be like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch where it hurts. It always be there, though. That's all I have. Thanks for listening. Peace. p.275
Leonard
And yet the more you thought about her, the less you knew who she was. The hope was that love transcended all differences. That was the hope. Leonard wasn't giving up on it. Not yet.p.283
Leonard
The worst part was that, as the years passed, these memories became, in the way you kept them in a secret box in your head, taking them out every so often to turn them over and over, something like dear possessions. They were the key to your unhappiness. They were the evidence that life wasn't fair. If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't knew you weren't unlucky until you got older. p.314
Mitchell
Much of the time in Calcutta he was filled with an ecstatic tranquility, like a low-grade fever. His meditation practice had deepened. He experience plunging sensations, as if moving at great speed. For whole minutes he forgot who he was. p.316
Mitchell
Don't worry if you can't do good works, people. Just believe. Have faith. Faith will justify you! Right? Maybe, maybe not. p.318
Mitchell on carrying the old man
they began to treat the old man less like a person they were carrying and more like an object p.319
Mitchell when he is washing the old man
Not for a moment did Mitchell believe that the cancerous body on the slab was the body of Christ.p.321
to resist the sweet impulse that ran through his every nerve, Mitchell headed to the front of the home, right past Matthew 25:40, and up the steps to the bright, fallen world above. p.333
(Madeline on believing she was special because of her wallpaper of Madeline)
and the sense she had of herself, then and now, as being the one in a troop of girls a writer might write a book about. p.371
She was the thing that stood between Leonard and death.p.372
(Madeline when she couldn't sleep at night)
It was as if her own heart had been surgically removed from her body and was being kept at a remote location, still connected to her and pumping blood through her veins, but exposed to dangers she couldn't see: her heart in a box somewhere, in the open air, unprotected. p.375
(Leonard)
His suffering was sharpened by the knowledge that he was inflicting it on her. But he was unable to stop it. p.381
(Leonard on depression)
What happens is that the brain sends out a signal that its dying. The depressed brain sends out this signal, and the body receives it, and after a while, the body think it's dying too. And then it begins to shut down. That's why depression hurts, Madeleine. The brain thinks it's dying, and so the body think it's dying, and then the brain registers this, and they go back and forth like that in a feedback loop. p.382
(a direct echo to the book on love. the one he threw at her head.)
Even "I love you" seemed inadequate. She said this to Leonard so many times in situations like this that she was worried it was losing its power. blog comments powered by Disqus
Farrar, Straus and GirouxSome quotes I earmarked from the novel. Interesting are the wide range of opinions on this book but I think I enjoyed it.
The book is about love, about the effects of depression of a person and his partner, about human fallibility, about religion but isn't supposed to tell you anything. p.35
Madeline
...that the hazing the pledges underwent enacted the very fears of male rape and emasculation that membership in the fraternity promised protection against...
...that there was something seriously wrong with homophobic guys who centered their lives around a homoerotic bond... p.43
postmodernism crap
...you have to be aware that language is by its very nature unreasonable. You have to reason yourself out of reasonableness...p.49
Madeline
... the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them. Here was a sign that she wasn't alone. Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling. p.93
Mitchell
with apparent honesty, these voices described in detail how they'd lost the will to live, how they'd become ill, bedridden, abandoned by friends and family until suddenly a "New Thought" had occurred to them, the thought of their true place in the universe, at which point all their suffering had ended. was to make him aware of the centrality of religion in human history and, more important, of the fact that religious feeling didn't arise form going to church or reading the Bible but from the most private interior experiences, either of great joy or of staggering pain. p.108
Leonard
so many people at college were jacked up on ambition, possessors of steroidal egos, clever but cutthroat, diligent bu insensitive, shiny but dull, that everyone felt compelled to be upbeat, down with the program, all systems firing, when everyone knew, in his or her own heart, that this wasn't how they really felt. there was a change to Leonard's pessimism about this time. It deepened, it purified. It lost its previous comedic habiliments, its air of schtick, and became unadulterated, lethal, pure despairp.125
Leonard
you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it. I go and reject it by throwing Roland Barthes in your face. p.159
on Feminism movement
anything large or grand in design, any long novel, big sculpture, or towering building, became, in the opinion of the "women" Mitchell knew at college, manifestations of male insecurity about the size of their penises p.160
(Mitchell on talking about women)
and yet he didn't think that a word like objectification covered the way these alluring-but intelligent! creatures made him feel. desire didn't bring fulfillment but only temporary satiety until the next temptation came along. p.204
(Mitchell)
death awaits us. There is no escape. And so we distract ourselves by licking whatever drops of honey come within our reach.because they believed they were living for art when they were really feeding their narcissism p.240
But it wasn't just him Leonard despised. He hated the hocks at school, he hated the Portland "pigs" in their cruisers, the 7-Eleven clerk who told Leonard that if he wanted to read Rolling Stone he had to buy it; he hated any and all politicians, businessmen, gun owners, Bible-thumpers, hippies, fat people, the reintroduction of the death penalty in the execution by firing squad of Gary Gilmore in Utah, the entire state of Utah, the Philadelphia 76ers for beating the Portland Trailblazers, and Anita Bryant most of all. p.244
He understood that, as a male, Leonard reminded Rita of Frank, and that she either consciously or unconsciously held him at a slight distance as a result. He understood that he had unwittingly assumed Frank's attitudes, belittling Rita in his private thoughts the way Frank had done out loud. In short, Leonard understood that his entire relationship with his mother had been determined by a person who was no longer around. p.255
As he answered the doctors' questions, Leonard felt as though he were being interrogated for a crime. He tried, when he could, to tell the truth, but when the truth didn't service his cause he embellished it, or outright lied. He noted every change in Dr. Shieu's facial expression, interpreting it as either favorable or unfavorable, and shifting his next response accordingly. Often he had the impression that the person answering questions form the scratchy armchair was a dummy he was controlling, that this had been true throughout his life, and that his life had become so involved with operating the dummy that he, the ventriloquist, had ceased to have a personality, becoming just an arm stuffed up the puppet's back. p.260
(Darlene, someone in Leonard's asylum)
Depression be like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch where it hurts. It always be there, though. That's all I have. Thanks for listening. Peace. p.275
Leonard
And yet the more you thought about her, the less you knew who she was. The hope was that love transcended all differences. That was the hope. Leonard wasn't giving up on it. Not yet.p.283
Leonard
The worst part was that, as the years passed, these memories became, in the way you kept them in a secret box in your head, taking them out every so often to turn them over and over, something like dear possessions. They were the key to your unhappiness. They were the evidence that life wasn't fair. If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't knew you weren't unlucky until you got older. p.314
Mitchell
Much of the time in Calcutta he was filled with an ecstatic tranquility, like a low-grade fever. His meditation practice had deepened. He experience plunging sensations, as if moving at great speed. For whole minutes he forgot who he was. p.316
Mitchell
Don't worry if you can't do good works, people. Just believe. Have faith. Faith will justify you! Right? Maybe, maybe not. p.318
Mitchell on carrying the old man
they began to treat the old man less like a person they were carrying and more like an object p.319
Mitchell when he is washing the old man
Not for a moment did Mitchell believe that the cancerous body on the slab was the body of Christ.p.321
to resist the sweet impulse that ran through his every nerve, Mitchell headed to the front of the home, right past Matthew 25:40, and up the steps to the bright, fallen world above. p.333
(Madeline on believing she was special because of her wallpaper of Madeline)
and the sense she had of herself, then and now, as being the one in a troop of girls a writer might write a book about. p.371
She was the thing that stood between Leonard and death.p.372
(Madeline when she couldn't sleep at night)
It was as if her own heart had been surgically removed from her body and was being kept at a remote location, still connected to her and pumping blood through her veins, but exposed to dangers she couldn't see: her heart in a box somewhere, in the open air, unprotected. p.375
(Leonard)
His suffering was sharpened by the knowledge that he was inflicting it on her. But he was unable to stop it. p.381
(Leonard on depression)
What happens is that the brain sends out a signal that its dying. The depressed brain sends out this signal, and the body receives it, and after a while, the body think it's dying too. And then it begins to shut down. That's why depression hurts, Madeleine. The brain thinks it's dying, and so the body think it's dying, and then the brain registers this, and they go back and forth like that in a feedback loop. p.382
(a direct echo to the book on love. the one he threw at her head.)
Even "I love you" seemed inadequate. She said this to Leonard so many times in situations like this that she was worried it was losing its power. blog comments powered by Disqus
