A middleweight marriage

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A Middleweight Marriage is a novel by John Irving , translated by Nikolaus Stingl; the English original was published in 1974 under the title The 158-Pound Marriage .

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The first-person narrator (his name is not mentioned in the novel) and his wife Utsch have a partner swap relationship with the couple Severin and Edith Winter. The narrator is a college history lecturer and writes and publishes historical novels. Utsch was born in Austria; she lost her parents during WWII and was raised by a senior Soviet officer during the occupation of Vienna. Severin Winter grew up in Vienna, too, his father, a painter, died during the war, his mother was a popular nude model. Severin had studied in the USA, now he teaches German and wrestling at the same college as the narrator . Edith is American, she writes short stories, at the end the reader learns that she has also secretly worked on a novel.

At first everything looks like unadulterated sexual pleasure. All involved seem to be a better fit with their “new” partners than with their own spouses. The narrator and Edith enjoy talking about literature at their meetings. Utsch and Severin are physically similar and have German as a common language, and Severin can also interest Utsch in wrestling. But while the narrator thinks that their relationship goes beyond the physical, Severin says that “this whole thing” is more about sex.

Finally, the narrator has to find out that Severin would probably not have agreed to a partner swap if Edith had not caught him in an affair with a dance teacher and that Utsch knew about this history. Edith and Severin end the foursome relationship, which Utsch in particular suffers from. Since she thinks that her husband has not adequately protected her from this suffering, she leaves him and goes to Vienna with their children.

In the end, the tensions between Edith and Severin became clear; they also go to Vienna together, where Severin has to look after the estate of two deceased family friends. The first-person narrator has remained lonely, but plans to look for his wife in Vienna.

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"Middleweight" is the weight class in which Severin Winter competed as a wrestler in his own college days. Wrestling also plays a role in many areas of the book: Severin compares many things with wrestling, among other things he characterizes books he reads according to weight classes. Edith speaks of having Severin "in control" after she caught him in his affair. This affair took place in the wrestling room, and when Edith found out that Severin had also gone to the wrestling room with Utsch, the four-man relationship came to an end. The affinity for wrestling is also reflected in some headlines; in the English original they are

  • 2: Scouting Reports: Edith (126-pound class) ,
  • 3: Scouting Reports: Utch (134-pound class) ,
  • 4: Scouting Reports: Severin (158-pound class ),
  • 6: Who's on Top? Where's the bottom?

The plot of the book does not unfold in strict chronological order. The first-person narrator describes many events from the past of the individual in order to characterize them; the more immediate events, on the other hand, are told in passing.

The names of Severin and Edith's children (Dorabella and Fiodiligi) were probably not chosen by chance to represent Edith's interest in Italy or Severin's love for operas. Dorabella and Fiordiligi are the main female characters in the opera Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . In this opera, two young men try to seduce each other's fiancée because of a bet, and they succeed. The voices assigned to the four main roles give the impression that the new partner combination fits much better than the original one.