Why do we even bother choosing books? The answer is easy...it allows you to immerse yourself in a world much like a swimmer immerses him herself underwater.
Madeleine Hanna has a brilliant mind in which the wheels are constantly turning. An avid reader who enrolls in a class (Semiotics). She is about to enter the real world....her parents are hovering over her...which she detests. She is quite tight-lipped about a charismatic young man, Leonard, who is a Darwinist....a lost loner. This relationship is complicated by some disturbing facts surfacing from his childhood. Both parents are alcoholics who rarely have been there to support him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange----resurfaces, obsessed with idea that Madeleine is to be his mate.
Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. Mitchell, while traveling around the world, trying to get Madeleine out of his mind, find himself face-to-face with the ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God and the true nature of love.
One of my favorite quotes in this book: "The problem is, no matter how much we try to be good, we cannot be good enough.
Madeleine-protagonist who is constantly challenged by her husband, Leonard who antagonizes her with his manic depression. She is a very giving person who tries to be levelheaded but becomes incredibly frustrated by her unpredictable husband. Leonard is hospitalized several times...erratic and angry...makes it very difficult to maintain a home and feelings of goodwill.
The setting for this book is mainly in the northeastern part of the United States...New York and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Leonard is working in cancer research but loses his position because he is unable to complete trials because of hand tremors and the fogginess of prescribed cluttering his brain.
The major problem stems from Leonard having an incurable disease where he keeps a diary of daily dosage and the side effects...his moods resemble a pendulum in a grandfather clock...some days everything is fine and other days...you must walk on eggshells....
The climax of the book comes when Leonard and Madeleine verbally challenge one another..deciding whether their relationship as a couple or better being apart.
Leonard simply states in the middle east...you say, "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee!" The marriage dissolves...
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