Memory and The Marriage Plot

I started The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides yesterday while sitting in the car on the way to my grandparents' for the weekend. If I am honest, I don't have any particular affection for Eugenides. I've read The Virgin Suicides and thought it was good, but I was never able to get through Middlesex. I am the sort of person that needs to be in the mood for certain types of books. Whenever I purchased Middlesex, I just wasn't in the mood to read it and I haven't tried to pick it up again (except now I realize it is one of the many books lost in my dad's flood so...).

So when I kept seeing The Marriage Plot on my list of recommendations courtesy of Amazon.com, I just ignored it. Until I heard that it was set at Eugenides' alma mater...which just so happens to be my alma mater...good ol' Brown University.

I am a sucker for a book that is set in a familiar place or that has a character that went to a school/had a similar experience to me. I don't even need that much. For example, I read Love Story and American Psycho because the male protagonists are to have gone to my high school. That is all I needed.

But we all like to catch a glimpse of ourselves in the books that we read. Sometimes it is more of an emotional/personality glimpse. During times of my life that I was feeling particularly blue, I found myself drawn to books with, well, depressed characters. Or books on how our brains deal with emotions.

But sometimes I want something a little more concrete. I am not someone who is particularly nostalgic for my college years. It just hasn't been that long. Still, The Marriage Plot is chock full of connections and I love it. It mentions buildings I used to frequent, spaces I found myself in. The Blue Room, Sayles, Leeds Theatre, Production Workshop, Wayland Arch, Thayer Street, Waterman Street, Faunce, The Cable Car...

I love it because it adds another layer to the reading experience. Not only am I reading about Mitchell, Leonard and Madeleine, but I am able to reminisce about my own college experience and the years afterward. A small reference to the student-run theater, Production Workshop, made my day. I sat for a few moments and thought about the building, my friends that worked with me there, and even the complicated emotions I have about my theater experience. The Cable Car reference reminded me of watching The Diving Bell and The Butterfly with a friend of mine. Leeds Theatre was the first theatre I saw at Brown on the tour and fell in love with it.

And that's just the places mentioned. The book mentions Barthes, Derrida, Cixous, Kristeva and many others...theorists I first read in college classes. I remember one theory class that required me to read many of these theorists...I also remember skipping it several Mondays in a row to hang out with my boyfriend at the time. Oops. Sorry Derrida.

Of course, many types of books will send you down memory lane. I love that about reading and about writing. Your experience colors the text you are reading/writing. While we all may read The Marriage Plot with the same words and plot, we each will have an individual experience. I know a million people before me have written on that very idea...I am just fascinated by how that happens.