Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Book Reviews of Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Meet Cal/Calliope: The Best Narrator Since Garp
Summary: 5 Stars
The best book I read in June 2007 (and probably for awhile before that), which is saying something as I started the month with Khaled Hosseini's brilliant "A Thousand Splendid Suns", is "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Eugenides gets as close to the spirit and creativity of John Irving's classic The World According to Garp, one of my favorite novels of all time, as I've read in the intervening 30 years.
The narrator and central character, Calliope Stephanides (or "Cal" as we first meet him), is a hermaphrodite, raised as a girl, but living and writing as a 41-year old man as the book starts. Cal proceeds to tell his current story, but mostly his backstory, including the ancestry whose genes mixed to create his condition. Out of this we get European history (ethnic Greeks being purged from Turkey in the 1920's (which is also covered very well in Louis deBerniere's Birds Without Wings); the Europe to U.S. immigration experience; Detroit cultural history, both inner city and suburban, from the rise of the auto industry to the riots of 1967 (with a surprising guest appearance by the Nation of Islam); a detailed scientific exploration--physiological, psychological and cultural--of hermaphroditism, and a whizbang finish that comes at you from at least two directions.
Some books I read slowly because they are boring or difficult. I read "Middlesex" slowly to savor every chapter: to enjoy Eugenides's deft handling of both the voice of a male narrator telling a story through the eyes of the female he once was; and as the living embodiment of his/her family history, knowing things (or making them up, as he admits) about his family that he couldn't learn directly or even indirectly. His colorful language and phrasing made reading an engaging and delightful experience. It's clear that he loves to write and to entertain, inform and enlighten his reader. Somehow it all works, in a literary tour-de-force that makes me wish that its author doesn't wait nine years to publish his next book. Highly recommended to all lovers of literary fiction.
Book Review: Transformation
Summary: 4 Stars
Callie's grandparents emigrated from Greece with a secret--they were not just two strangers who met, fell in love, and got married on the ship headed toward America. They were actually brother and sister, fleeing their war-torn home. Both knew that incest was frowned upon by the church and was said to contribute to terrible birth defects, but their kids seemed fine. It was only in their granddaughter Callie's DNA that tiny genetic mutations matched up.
Although Callie is born a hermaphrodite, with a vagina as well as a penis, the doctor at her delivery overlooks this fact and believes she is just female. Therefore, that is how she is raised. Her biggest disappointment as she enters her teenaged years is her body's failure to go through puberty and grant her the breasts and periods she's been awaiting.
When she is fourteen, Callie finds out the truth--that her genes are actually more male than female. This explains her attraction to other girls and her failure to go through puberty, but obviously accepting the fact that she is male after more than a decade of being female is difficult. Newly rechristened Cal and trying out life as a male, the narrator struggles to come to terms with a life and a future that are suddenly uncertain.
I loved the narrator in this story. The casual tone with which he treated his life was endearing, and I really liked that his life wasn't filled with tragedy and angst. When I think of kids growing up with gender identity issues, I think of a horrible childhood of depression and confusion, but Callie was a pretty happy girl, and Cal was a pretty well-adjusted man.
However, I was really fascinated with seeing how the transformation from Callie to Cal completed itself as he left his teen years behind and became an adult. The story didn't go into as much detail as I would have liked when it came to this part of Cal's life. Instead, much of the book focused on the history of Cal's parents and grandparents who, although they had interesting histories themselves, just postponed the main point of the story. I would have liked to have seen less of the history and more of the present-day events.
Book Review: Excellent book, but no "Wow" factor
Summary: 4 Stars
Middlesex was a confusing book for me because I didn't know if I liked the book or not.
Usually when I put down a book of this scope there's a certain "Wow" factor and I didn't experience that with Middlesex. For me, while the story started out with a bang and picked up speed from there, the last quarter of the story, beginning with Calliope's journey and continuing right though to what I felt was a rush to the end, began to feel contrived and out of synch with the first three-quarters of the book. As a result, rather than ending with that explosive "Wow", the whole thing just sort of just fizzled out. Rather than not wanting to put the book down because I was hoping for more, I closed it, put it away and thought, "Okay, what's next up?"
Middlesex is a big book that covers a lot of ground. It's the story of three generations of an immigrant Greek family and one recessive gene that happens to manifest in the story's narrator, Calliope Stephanides, a girl born in 1960 with ambiguous genitalia.
The book is a lot more than that simple sentence. Middlesex is also the story of war, persecution, the immigrant experience, Detroit, America, race relations, love, longing, isolation, acceptance and ultimately, fate. The book is also rich with metaphors that went over my head, but that more educated readers will probably pick up on.
The book is very well-written in language that is not only easy to read and entertaining, but complex and deep. The book is so well-written that more than once I wondered if this wasn't really a true story rather than a fictional memoir. The historical events and personal experiences are wonderfully well-developed and the eccentric Stephanides family and the people who surround them are richly drawn, complex and interesting. Despite the fact that everything about Middlesex felt authentic to me and I knew these characters very well and could identify with some, I never felt close to any character and I never fell in love with any of them.
Despite not giving me that "Wow" feelng, and leaving me with one unanswered question about Desdamona (maybe someone reading this might know the answer?), I give Middlesex a very high recommendation.
Book Review: Fabulous Work of Entertaining Literature
Summary: 5 Stars
I must preface my remarks by admitting that I am, apparently, a literary phillistine. Most works of acclaimed literature fail to interest me and prove to be a slog to get through. I am left wondering whether I am somehow unequipped to appreciate fine literature, or whether, in fact, the Emperor is wearing no clothes. Suffice it to say, when reading for pleasure, I rarely gravitate to the classics or Pulitzer prize winners.
That said, it is a real pleasure when I can find myself truly enjoying what is considered a great work of literature. At such times, I begin to believe there may be hope for me after all. Such was the case with Cold Mountain, Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns and most recently, Middlesex.
This novel weaves a fascinating tale, in three distinct threads, through the eyes and emotions of a hermaphrodite. The story begins through the narration of a now middle aged foreign service bureaucrat, Cal Stephanides. Cal was born a "female", but upon reaching puberty, began demonstrating the secondary sexual characteristics of a male. The story then reverts to Cal's grandparents as they immigrate from a war torn Asia Minor. From that point, the story flows smoothly back and forth from the ancestors, to Cal's (Calliope's) childhood and to the present day in a surprisingly seemless fashion.
The story is gripping, both for the history imparted (most particularly Turko-Greek relations in Asia Minor in the post WWI years and the growth and decay of Detroit) as well as for the lives of the primary characters. A minor thread touching upon the foundation of the Nation of Islam in Detroit is particularly entertaining. And throughout, the writing is extraordinary without being oppressively dense.
When reading a book of this quality, I'm constantly reminded that, at least in my opinion, the underlying essence of a good book lies in the artistic telling of a captivating story. The finest writing on the planet cannot cover for a story that either goes nowhere or is simply boring (Suite Francaise comes immediately to mind). This fine novel has both, outstanding writing and a fascinating story with which to demonstrate it. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Immigrant's Song
Summary: 4 Stars
As a second generation American, this book had its biggest impact on me as the story of near assimilation. Told almost faultlessly in the first person, Middlesex is a family history with engaging characters and a very strong sense of place. Early scenes in a Greek Village contrast with final settling by the family in upscale Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
The most compelling parts of this immigrants song, however, take place in Detroit beginning with the grandparent's arrival in 1922. The Detroit Free Press reviewer refers to Middlesex as Detroit's great novel, comparing it to Joyce's rendering of Dublin. From Henry Ford's factories to the grandmother's job in the Nation of Islam offices to the riots of 1967, the novel presents the family's part in the city's growth and decline.
The fate of the family and city, however, don't mirror each other. The riots bring the family insurance money that begins their ascent into the upper-middle class. The narrator tells us: "Shameful as it is to say, the riots were the best thing that ever happened to us."
The narrator's unusual sexual status, neither one nor the other, mirrors the immigrant's assimilation challenge. The author describes why Michael Dukakis was not a serious presidential candidate. Not only did he not look good in a tank but "Americans like their presidents to have no more than two vowels". If they have more than that, "they can have no more than two syllables." Street-smart assimilated Americans know their limits according to the narrator. Dukakis is forgiven his optimism because he is an "academic from Massachusetts," but Mario Cuomo did not run for President because he "was from New York and knew what was what."
To be fully American and slightly different is the identity conflict of the second or third generation immigrant. This is skillfully echoed in Middlesex by Cal's shifting and somewhat confused gender identity.
Middlesex is one of those rare novels that are fun to read, illuminating and challenging on levels not always on the surface of the narrative, and in no way disturbing to that surface.