Notes "I began this book already feeling a little sorry for myself as a contemporary writer, because it seemed to me the great subject of the novel was marriage and had been marriage from Jane Austen through Tolstoy and all the great 19th century writers like Henry James. And we’re not able to utilize the marriage plot anymore. Some people get to do it: Vikram Seth gets to do it because he’ll write about a traditional family in India and he’ll write “A Suitable Boy.” So I was feeling sorry for myself that I couldn’t do that, but I began playing around with the idea, and I realized I was right. It’s impossible for a contemporary writer to write a marriage plot now. It just doesn’t exist. Women are freer now, you can get divorced easily, you can get a prenup. If Isabel Archer could’ve gotten a prenup, she wouldn’t have had any problems with Gilbert Osmond."
— Jeffrey Eugenides on The Marriage Plot (via fsgbooks)
