Quite well-written and enjoyable, though a few shades short of his other work; I enjoyed Middlesex more.

The evocation of a simpler time (of sorts) - the 80s, before cell phones and the Internet - was oddly nostalgic, for this reader born in 1979. It’s an odd choice of time frame as the backdrop for the themes of mental illness, wanderlust, religiosity, and the problem of fate and romance, but in an odd sort of way, it works. There were a few times where the sort of communication difficulties that are now obsolete make appearances as important plot points; and the gender dynamics between Madeline and her partners definitely make the most sense sense in a post-sexual-revolution-but-just-barely world.

I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it’s at least possible to read the story as a kind of modern twist on Austen - its closest cousin is Sense and Sensibility I think, or maybe Persuasion. Certainly it would be a fitting endeavor for a book about the norms around marriage, in which the main character is an Austen nut. The narrator has too much omniscience for this book to properly echo Austen, but perhaps that’s exactly the point - maybe we know too much, about the world, about one another, about fate itself, for pre-Victorian romantic etiquette to make any sense at all.

I was not so very interested in his portrayal of mental illness, and actually I found it a little tired and even watered-down. By contrast I think the discussions of religiosity, of Mitchell’s metaphorical and literal journey towards some kind of enlightenment, to be quite fascinating and not over-explicated. That was probably my favorite part of the book. The juxtapositions of Leonard (who I pictured, by the way, as Dylan from Modern Family) and Mitchell (Zach Braff circa Scrubs) could have used some sprucing up, though there were some interesting moments here and there - particularly the comparison of their shaving routines.

Given that she’s the main character, I was disappointed by the rather thin treatment that Madeline’s journey to adulthood took, as compared to the similar treatment for Mitchell’s. On the whole I think she was portrayed as a bit of an air-head who stumbled into a decent English program, which I think a bit unfair. I read her as a character with an exceptional amount of intelligence and sympathy, caught up in a few mistakes that would not be very difficult for anyone else in her position to make. We don’t see her learn a whole heck of a lot about love over the course of the book - it seems like Mitchell and Leonard are the only ones who grow up, as far as that goes - and that seems like a shame to me, and an unrealistic portrayal to boot. Alas.