Middlesex: A Novel

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It's a hit!

I must start out by saying that it took me over three weeks to get through the first 250 pages of this book - not because it wasn't well written or... (show more)

I must start out by saying that it took me over three weeks to get through the first 250 pages of this book - not because it wasn't well written or interesting; but because it took the author that long to effectively build the story. It was good, but it didn't suck me in at first. Be patient, my fellow reader, it will be well worth it. I read the latter 200 pages in two days.

The author is insightful, wise, and intelligent - and makes me want to learn more about both Greek mythology and history. It's amazing how much of "that stuff" he is able to weave through the pages of novel that is set in the 1900s.

He manages to cover three generations of a Greek family that emigrated to the United States, as well as effective scribe the narrator's struggle to find his gender identity in the midst of everything else. Puberty and that awkward phase in life is something to which we can all relate.

Oh, and if any of you attended an all female high school, pay attention to page 327 (Picador paperback edition, (c) 2002; Chapter: Obscure Object). Flawless insights run abound there, with respect to behavior at an all female school.

A fabulous read, I definitely recommend it. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook User

No, it's a flop!

I am torn about this book. On the one hand, the story kept me coming back. A list of what I liked:
**Hermaphrodites rarely make it into books as a... (show more)

I am torn about this book. On the one hand, the story kept me coming back. A list of what I liked:
**Hermaphrodites rarely make it into books as a main character.
**The incestuous relationship between the grandparents sucked me right in.
**I wanted to know what happened to the main character, Cal, over the course of his/her life.
**Eugenides has an intriguing writing style that slips into witty sarcasm (though, I admit, there were a couple instances when it felt as if he was trying too hard).
**Several lines made me laugh - I recited them to my spouse.

On the other hand, the story had some annoying tendencies. A list of things I didn't like:
**I never felt like I really got to know Cal. He tells us much of the story without filling us in on what Cal really felt or thought as a child - we're only told what he thinks/feels with the benefit of hindsight.
**The story ends shortly after Cal undergoes the transformation from Calliope to Cal, shortly after the age of fifteen. Cal, the narrator, is forty-one years old. We never learn what happens in between those ages; we never find out why Cal is in living and working in Germany. Too many questions are left unanswered.
**While the grandparents intrigued me, their children bored me senseless. They felt stereotypical and flat, especially when compared to their parents.
**There's a lot of passages that felt out of place and, in the long run, weren't necessary to the storyline. I would've preferred those passages been cut in order to make way for more information about Cal's adult years. (show less)

 

 

by Angie Lisle

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  despite being in Oprah's book club, this is one of my favorite books. It's the story of a Greek immigrant family moving to Detroit. Telling the history of the city through this lense is fascinating. Eugenides is one of my favorite fiction writers. Beautiful, but often times dealing with some of the darkest human emotions.

   

   

  by Anonymous User on Jan 31, 2008 at 09:17PM

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  ‘Congratulations Mrs. X, it’s a …. [insert sex of baby here]!’ To what extent do these words affect the outcome of our lives, how we live, how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive others? A pronouncement that commits us to the world of social signification, as a boy or girl, punctuated by a slap on the rear. Is biology destiny? Perhaps, more accurately, can our perceptions of what constitutes biology be relied upon, or is it the case that we see what we want to see?

  Enter Cal (né Cal... (show more)

  ‘Congratulations Mrs. X, it’s a …. [insert sex of baby here]!’ To what extent do these words affect the outcome of our lives, how we live, how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive others? A pronouncement that commits us to the world of social signification, as a boy or girl, punctuated by a slap on the rear. Is biology destiny? Perhaps, more accurately, can our perceptions of what constitutes biology be relied upon, or is it the case that we see what we want to see?

  Enter Cal (né Calliope) Stephanides, in all his Greek oracular splendour. He is considerably favoured in that he is his own muse, his own Tiresias, his own interlocutor. But with this comes a damning privilege: Born a hermaphrodite, at the age of 14 he undertakes his own decision, virtually at knife-point, about what sex he is. Even in our ‘anything-is-possible’ world of today, what must it be like to have the choice? Actually, to have to have the choice?

  Cal, like many hermaphrodites, lived in accordance with his perceived gender (female) until he went through puberty (or didn’t, as a female), when a pair of undescended testicles, and his erstwhile clitoris (albeit larger than the norm) were finally recognised as male genitalia. But this story is not so much an exhibition of titillating attributes as much as a quest, in the Classic sense of the word, for identity, in which ‘what I am’ and ‘how you see me’ are related, but not synonymous.

  This tale occupies that sacred space of the border, something that at once limits and proposes … a frontier, a new beginning. To be constituted as something in society is to be recognised as a signifier, an individual; but the social contract tacitly states that we conform to the subtextual grammar of social organisation. So, what to do with a hermaphrodite … neither or both man nor/and woman?

  Consider this: What is the difference between sex and gender? Masculine and feminine? Man and woman? And how do you know? Cal’s story highlights the places in which these outcroppings of identity formation, that at once appear so solid and reliable, are uncovered as misdiagnoses and preconceptions, as an aetherial scaffolding propping up what society wants to see, and not what is.

  Our sexes are not based wholly on what we have in our knickers. There are many factors that determine sex, something Calliope discovers, surreptitiously, alongside the fact of her XY genotype. For Calliope, the XY, and her long-standing passion for the Obscure Object (her best (female) friend), are basis enough for her decision, despite her rearing. Even still, each of us has chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, hormone levels, internal genital structures, external genital structures … plus! the way we’re raised to think of ourselves, and the way others see us. With all of these factors in play, there are myriad ways in which to signify as male and/or female, to be a hermaphrodite; and yet the phenomenon is still considered rare. (Perhaps this is because many hermaphrodites are unwittingly so?)

  People love to claim the cornerstone of biology: biology is destiny. But if biology is so diverse, and much of it is actually unseen, i.e. unexpressed phenotypically, why are we as a society so derailed by the presence of hermaphroditity, a concrete biological fact? Why time after time does the cookie cutter descend to stamp out a ‘normative’ boy or girl? Why can’t nature be left to itself? We fear and are attracted to the border; we negate it through lowered voices and nods, Significant Looks, ridicule, derision, … and still can’t tear our eyes away. Tiresias the Greek symbol of the all-knowing was such precisely because he was a hermaphrodite. And so in some cultures the path of enlightenment unfolds.

  This is more my world view than a book review, but I can say that Cal’s is a story that (hopefully) will cause you to revisit what society wants us to consider taboo, and ask yourself why. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Aug 09, 2009 at 05:44PM

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