LOVE FOR SALE.(Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School)(Book Review)

John Updike reviews "My Life as a Fake," by Peter Carey

The notion that dating, mating, and marriage take place within a marketplace is a conceit universally observed by writers of comedic-dramatic television shows, directors of romantic comedies in Hollywood, and authors of "chick lit" novels loosely based on plots from Jane Austen or Edith Wharton. Objective measures of eligibility--appearance, earning power, age--are understood to determine whether individuals will be perceived as desirable commodities (the six-foot-two investment banker; the communications director with a good decade of childbearing years still ahead of her) or relegated to the remainder bin, ...