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The irony here checks out: Casaubon, not unlike so many of Franzen’s male characters, is self-righteous, pompous, largely ineffectual.

The title of the trilogy, “A Key to All Mythologies,” is also the name of Rev. Casaubon’s uncompleted work of theological scholarship in George Eliot’s “Middlemarch.”

There are planned meetings with Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, Mexico’s foreign secretary, and officials from the foreign ministry and migration policy officials, among others.

I will get to the end some day, but already suspect that the Reverend Casaubon isn’t going to complete his big project.

Q. Solemn play: My boyfriend has been reading me the novel Middlemarch out loud, and the character we both find the most compelling is Dr. Casaubon.