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: A Teenager Like No Other
Summary: 4 Stars
Set aside plenty of time for this wonderful, complex book, which tells the story of Calliope Stephanides, the daughter of Greek immigrants who, after a lifetime of struggling with her changing, anomalistic body, discovers that she is, in fact, a boy - a hermaphrodite with both male and female organs, but the XY chromosomes and emotional inclinations of a teenage male.
Cal, the first-person narrator, begins the story with his grandparents and their turbulent escape from the war-torn, burning shores of Greece. The grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, bring a guilty secret with them to America: they are brother and sister, and carry a shared genetic aberration that will alter the lives of their children and grandchildren. So begins the "roller coaster ride of a single gene through time," a chromosome mutation that finally manifests in the body of a newborn baby girl named Calliope.
Get ready for many story threads: sexual biology, Greek history, industry and race relations in Detroit, the struggles of Greek-American immigrants, and the turbulence of puberty in a teenager like no other. Sometimes I felt the narrator went a little too far into "omniscience" mode, getting rather far out in speculating about the feelings and motivations of the various characters. But mostly, I was fascinated and enthralled with Cal and sad to see his story come to a close.
Book Review: More than I was expecting
Summary: 4 Stars
If you have only heard mild buzz about this book, you may, like me, think it is the story of a hermaphrodite's late discovery of himself. If I had paid better attention to the back of the book I probably would not have felt like I was trudging through it for the first 250 pages. It is an epic novel spanning 80 years and three generations - NOT at all a simple voyeuristic telling of an extremely small percentage of people with a genetic disorder.
I was impressed with Mr. Eugenides' ability to make this reader sympathetic toward the narrator's incestuous grandparents, and the depths in which he went to completely and artfully portray the much-needed "back-story" to Calliope/Cal's genetic history. However, I often found myself distracted by his eloquent prose, sentence structure and $100 words. This novel requires a dedicated reader willing to take the time and thoughtfulness needed to truly absorb and enjoy it.
I was disappointed with how quickly the story wrapped up. Granted, I chose the book because I was expecting more of Calliope and less of her family history, but by the time I finally got to the part I was looking forward to, it flew by, then came to an abrupt, albeit poetic, end. At any rate, it was still a fabulous novel that I would recommend more as pseudo-historical novel, and not so much about a hermaphrodite who was reborn at 14.
Book Review: The best book I have read all year! (and I read a helluva lot)
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read some of the other reviews and I don't want to just reiterate what has already been said, but I really want to put my two cents in on this one. Middlesex is by far the best book I have read this year. You know those books that you just can't put down? Well, Middlesex is most definitely one of them! It has all that you need: history, foreign countries, Greek customs, incest, numerous love stories, sadness, more history, and, of course, the main character is a hermaphrodite... but doesn't know it throughout the majority of the book. When you get to the last sentence of the last page, you're left wanting more to the story, even though this book is a little over 500 pages. Not short enough for one sit (though, that is exactly what I did!), but not so long that you can't finish it during the weekend. It's a fast-paced read with never a dull moment. The beginning is laced with a lot of family heritage and Greek history, but it's all worth the read, for without it, the book would feel empty or artificial.
After reading Middlesex I handed it over to my roommate, who finished it in even less time than it took ME to read! Since then, it has been passed around the FOB and not a single Soldier has disliked it. This is a book that both males and females will enjoy, and I give it my highest of recommendations!
-Just another Soldier in Iraq
Book Review: A confused hermaphrodite within a confused family
Summary: 4 Stars
"Squinting in the dim light, my grandmother looked down to see the front of her tunic visibly fluttering; and in that instant, as she recognized the insurrection inside her, Desdemona became what she'd remain for the rest of her life: a sick person imprisoned in a healthy body" (pg. 20).
"Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds" (pg. 95).
"But there was something else I wanted to mention about those babies. Something impossible to see with the naked eye. Look closer. There. That's right:
One mutation apiece" (pg. 125).
"Though he'd never been religious, he realized now that he'd always believed in the soul, in a force of personality that survived death. But as his mind continued to waver, to short-circuit, he finally arrived at the cold-eyed conclusion, so at odds with his youthful cheerfulness, that the brain was just an organ like any other and that when it failed he would be no more" (pg. 263).
Book Review: Worthy of its Pulitzer
Summary: 5 Stars
Middlesex tells the story of the Stephanides family, beginning in the mountains of Greece and spanning the globe. The narrative jumps from Detroit to Berlin to San Francisco and back again. Our narrator and tour guide for this slightly fantastical journey is one Cal Stephanides, a fastidious and mysterious man in his early forties. Though he hides his past from those in his life, he is frank with the reader from the first sentence, "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."
From that astonishing opening, Cal spins the tale of his former self, Calliope Helen Stephanides, her eccentric Greek family, and her shocking discovery in the midst of a heady coming-of-age. Though Calliope's journey of self-discovery is wholly unique, her story expresses the pathos of sexual awakening and the confusion that comes with adolescence.
Eugenides is truly masterful in his writing, shifting seamlessly from Cal's viewpoint to Calliope's, and keeping us with him (or her) the entire time. It is easy to see why Middlesex was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The Stephanides family is not one you'll soon forget, even as you're still reeling from the surreal events of their fraught history.