Middlesex: A Novel
by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Book Reviews of Middlesex: A Novel
Book Review: A note for Jeffrey and a comment from St. Ignatius of Antioch
Summary: 4 Stars
Jeffrey Eugenides confessed to me on 4 June 1995. Neither sacramental nor private, the confession took place not in a coffin turned on its side but on the pages of "The New York Times," and concerned itself with that travelling mad priest of stage antics, Ian Anderson and Anderson's "incomparable" (Eugenides' word) band Jethro Tull ("Hand Me My Air Guitar. I'm Still a Jethro Tull Freak"). Tull is my favorite band and the photo accompanying the article, as I remember, showed Anderson in an iconic pose, perched on one leg playing flute in his unorthodox self-taught style, one hand on the flute while the other, raised in a flourish like a puppeteer's above the flute, drew out the airy music. (A note for Jeffrey, who mentioned in the article that at age sixteen he and his two best friends smoked an enormous joint at the Pontiac Silverdome while Tull was pounding out "Locomotive Breath:" I saw Tull at the Universal Amphiteater, Universal City, California, in November 1984 in what was to have been the first of three performances there that month. After a few songs, Anderson asked "What's that smell?" as he approached the front of the stage. He then confronted about three teenage boys or young men in or near the front row with his ragged voice - it was the last stop on that tour of North America - with words approximately these: "Put out your BLOOD-Y MAR-Y-JUANA. I hate the smell of that stuff and it's not helping my voice any, which, if you haven't noticed, is bad enough. If you don't, I'll walk off this stage and you'll have ALL these people (Anderson made a sweeping gesture around the audience with the flute) mad at you. You wouldn't want that now, would you?" The show went on, but I believe the next two shows were cancelled. Anderson is quite against the use of illegal drugs and must have been at least partly disappointed by the pundit from the band's very early days who called him a "crazed flamingo on speed" doubtless because of Anderson's whirling like a dervish, manic gestures and noises, and one-legged poses.)
Early in 2006, a co-worker who teased me about the women I date, pulled me aside and told me I had to read "Middlesex." Had I not been primed by Eugenides' 1995 article on Tull, I probably would have resisted more and ultimately fended off the book. But I accepted it. Immediately skimming the book, I opened to page 184 of the paperback edition and found these words: "Asian chicks are the last stop. If a guy's in the closet, he goes for an Asian because their bodies are more like boys'." I, a washboard-stomached man's man who, while believing that beautiful women hail from many parts of the globe, have, and for no small part this is due to my novice knowledge of Mandarin, dated many lovely Chinese women, was chagrined. "Ha!" I glared at my friend. "That's where you got those crazy comments about my dating Chinese women." She laughed. (I think that east Asian women, by the way, are often quite feminine, for what it's worth. I also understand that Eugenides may be married to a woman of Japanese descent.) And so I began to read "Middlesex."
Having read the book, it is not false humility but deference to reality to report that I consider myself poorly qualified to critique a novel. While I love fiction, I consume much more non-fiction, and I am confident that some of the complexity of such a long novel eludes me. But I will challenge Eugenides on one small but to me important point, one made over the space of just a few lines, on page 221 (again, of the paperback edition) where Eugenides has these words of the narrator Calliope/Cal: "...I was baptized into the Orthodox faith; a faith that existed long before Protestantism had anything to protest and before Catholicism called itself catholic; a faith that stretched back to the beginnings of Christianity, when it was Greek and not Latin, and which, without an Aquinas to reify it, had remained shrouded in the smoke of tradition and mystery whence it began." Catholicism traces its origin directly to Christ himself. I wish to establish here that Catholicism called itself catholic from the early decades of the faith. To do so, I appeal to St. Ignatius of Antioch, venerated by Catholics and Orthodox as a martyr and canonized in both faiths as a saint. St. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch (St. Peter was the first). Ignatius' martyrdom (by beasts in an arena) occurred circa A.D. 110. He wrote in his "Letter to the Smyrneans" that "[w]herever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (from William A. Jurgens "The Faith of the Early Fathers," Volume One, 1970, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, page 25). Fr. Jurgens remarks in a footnote that this is the earliest use of the term "Catholic Church." Note that this occurred quite early in the second century. And to the Catholics and Orthodox who accept that the Church should breathe with both lungs, Calliope/Cal's narrating words that at its beginning Christianity was Greek and not Latin seem very tendentious. Yes, the dominance of Greek influence over Latin influence yielded to Latin dominance as the legacy of the golden age of Greek civilization faded and as Christianity spread, but Catholics and Orthodox alike understand that, for example, Sts. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome, and other examples of Latin influence on the nascent Church could be presented.
3.5-4 stars, I suppose.
Book Review: Middlesex Selected for Medicine and Literature - But It's Also About America
Summary: 5 Stars
An entertaining and brilliantly written story, much more enlightening than a pseudo sci-fi biology thriller. I believe "Middlesex" is about America's history as an immigrant nation played out in Detroit, Michigan, and the myth created by our notion of the great melting pot. Rather than being a nation of assimilators, our country's diversity is ethnic, racial and (according to author Eugenides)sexual. As for casual reading, this story isn't necessarily the engaging novel a bookworm of popular fiction might pick up. Promotional summaries on the book's jacket did absolutely nothing to inspire my interest. As far as "Michneresque" European saga stories go, I've read a bunch already. Fortunately, "Middlesex" was selected for reading by our Medicine and Literature program. It's the first selection in our series of six months of selected readings in the 2005 Medicine and Literature program at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick (Maine), a reading seminar conducted for medical professionals and the community in concert with The Maine Humanities Council. As for medical interest, the novel is rich with the superstitions and science associated with forecasting the birth of a baby, in particular, a Greek baby. Old World superstitions supported by thousands of years of Greek history, culture, customs and obstetrics medicine intersect rather mundanely in 1960, in the nursery of a Detroit hospital. The Stephanadies family physician (himself a Greek refugee) skips a rather ordinary step in his ritual examination of a newly born baby girl whose family members are, also, friends. As a result, baby Calliope is raised as a girl when, actually, her sexual organs are hidden, the result of a "Gender Identity, 5-Apha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites" recessive trait. As with any entertaining novel, I learned a lot reading "Middlesex" and discussing the book's provocative themes. Medicine and culture notwithstanding, I learned to enjoy reading about the city of Detroit, also known as (a.k.a) the auto city of entrepreneur Henry Ford, with a rather dicey reputation as "murder capital of the world" and "Motown" to rock n'roll lovers. Detroit's amazing ethnic diversity is on display in "Middlesex". I found Detroit's little known immigrant history, lovingly described by Eugenides, as a "melting pot", to be a fascinating sub-plot in the novel. Detroit's compelling immigrant story is uniquely independent from the better known New York City variety, where "give me your tired, your poor" is universally recognized. Detroit, with it's myriad of French locale names inherited from the early colonial explorers and the city's neighbors to the North in Canada, is beset with worker-bees who flocked to the city for industrial automobile jobs. Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, wanted only the best for his Detroit. Riff-raff was hurled to the streets and out of his elite factories of mass automobile production. Obviously, Henry Ford didn't insure his brand of "gilded melting pot" would stick with Detroit very well. It's a city fallen into disrepair by reputation, and the modern historic and traumatic Detroit Riots of 1967. Eugenidies describes all the nostalgia of Detroit - especially capturing the hopes the city held for a better way of life for anxious immigrants like Eleutherios (Lefty) and Desdemona Stephanadies. They were brother and sister fleeing their burning island of Bithynios off the coast of Turkey in August 1922, when they took the desperate step of seeking refuge with their cousin Sourmelina, who lived in Detroit, USA. Because the two siblings were alone in the midst of emotional trauma circulating around them in Bythnios, they fell in love and were married by the captain of the French immigrant ship they managed, with great difficulty, to be manifest on. Of course, no one knew they were so closely related because there was nobody to tell. I especially enjoyed the riveting chapter about seven year old girl-Calliope darting her two wheel bicycle expertly behind National Guard Army tanks during the 1967, Detroit riots because she's on a personal mission to rescue her grandfather, Lefty, who is protecting his Greek restaurant, the Zebra Room, from being burned down by rioters. It's an adventurous piece of narrative worthy of a short-story, forgetting the sexual identity stuff.
Yet, "Middlesex" is a story about being "middle-sex", although the story's title derives from the name of the Greek family's Detroit home. Eventually Calliope becomes "Cal", but not without a dynamite interchange with the physician who breaks the news to her-his family. Eugenides creates real drama with Calliope's sexual discovery. Eugenides leaves readers in limbo by telling us how sexual identity, or hermaphadites or those who simply don't want their sex to label them, are the "way of the future". He leaves us with this sobering thought and nothing in the way of explanation. Is sexual identity a biological phenomenon or is it a social label? "Middlesex" is a provocative family story set during America's middle 20th century immigrant history covering World War II and the height of Detroit's industrial age. Eugenidies takes advantage of our sacred melting pot myth and proves we are all vulnerable to our culture, history and the random selection of genetic pre-determination.
Book Review: A Very Fine, "Great American Novel"
Summary: 5 Stars
The little Pulitzer Prize sticker one immediately notices on the cover of this book doesn't automatically guarantee that it'll be any good--there have been some dogs over the years--but in this case, it is absolutely justified. This is an ambitious, extraordinarily well-written hunk of a novel, and richly deserves every award it can get. It is narrated by Cal, a hermaphrodite, and the premise is that she, (and I will use this pronoun, because this is what she is for most of the book), has finally decided after many years to tell her story. Of course, the word "hermaphrodite" immediately sets off alarm bells, as any discerning reader knows that contemporary American fiction is loaded with oddball sexual practices, usually grotesquely and unrealistically portrayed.
Happily, that is not the case here, because Cal is . . . normal. Normal under the circumstances, that is, but normal nevertheless, as she acts in such a way that we would expect most people to act. Mr. Eugenides handles this expertly. To begin with, in her early life she is not even aware that she is different. When the doubts begin to creep in as adolescence approaches, she reacts as one would expect an adolescent to act: she pretends it doesn't exist. Finally, when confronted irredeemably with the truth, she reacts by . . . well, better not say too much, but her actions are certainly not atypical for an average 14 year-old.
In any event, she believes that to tell her story she must go back to the beginning in a search for the elusive gene that caused all of this. She starts with her Greek grandparents in Smyrna, Turkey, 1922, who themselves are possessors of a dark, dark secret. They are driven away by the invading Turks and must escape, first to Greece itself, then to New York, and finally to Detroit, Michigan, where they have a cousin. This is where Cal's parents are born, and where she is eventually born, in 1960.
Mr. Euginides has a superb sense of period, place, and culture. From the beautiful hills above Smyrna, to cosmopolitan Smyrna itself, to Ellis Island in huge New York, and finally to smoky, big-shouldered, factory-spewing Detroit, the scene is superbly evoked. He understands the times as well, and how people change with them. Immigrant Greeks in the twenties and thirties had a different world-view than their cautiously optimistic children of the forties and fifties, who in turn had a different world-view than their wild children of the sixties and seventies.
The characters presented against this broad backdrop are wonderfully presented. Lefty is the grandfather, a skinny guy with a pompadour who becomes a rum runner and then a speakeasy owner. Desdemona, the grandmother, has flowing hair and ancient superstitions. Milton, the horn-playing, wise-cracking, opinionated Dad, is equally angry with Nixon and with the black rioters who burned the city in 1967. All of the characters, large and small, are finely etched, and again, reflect the times in which they lived. They and their setting represent an accurate, comprehensive slice of one person's 20th century America, done in an entertaining, very readable way.
But it is when Cal begins to tell her own story that the novel really begins to shine. Poor, awkward Cal, flat-chested, too tall, and still pre-menstrual at 14 years of age: she desperately tries to fit in, and is not sure why she can't. She's confused and lonely but she nevertheless maintains a chin-up enthusiasm and has kind, eccentric parents who love her. Never is there a hint of self-pity or sentimentality in her tale; instead she is witty, intelligent, and often humorous. She is a sympathetic, hugely original character, and easily carries the narrative with her charm.
On top of everything else, Mr. Eugenides' use of the English language is magnificent; reminiscent, as other reviewers have pointed out, of Nabokov in many places. Cal's moment of agonizing self-discovery begins with an infatuation she has with a female classmate she refers to wistfully as the "obscure object." To her surprise and delight she finds that this beautiful all-American has become her best friend. From here her desires become more transparent, and on a bizarre, emotionally confused, dreamy night, they finally manifest themselves physically: " . . . my body, like a cathedral, broke out into ringing. The hunchback in the belfry had jumped and was swinging madly on the rope." How perfectly wrought this is, from the wise and bemused narrator later in life. And how emotionally powerful this is, causing as it does the conflict in the reader as to whether to giggle or to sob.
Shortly thereafter the transformation begins, and many more surprises and power punches are in store. This is a magnificent American novel, rich and sweeping and poignant and true. The novel at its best. The novel as a work of art.
Book Review: Middlesex
Summary: 5 Stars
What exactly defines the sex of an individual? What about those who have male and female sex characteristics? What sex are they? Middlesex explores these questions in the tale of a hermaphrodite who is born as the girl Calliope in the 1960's and later again as a teenage boy, Cal in 1974. This fascinating tale starts with the history of how the recessive mutation on the fifth chromosome was passed on to Cal, causing some feminine and some masculine characteristics (including a male brain).
The setting of the book is realistic and believable because it has to tackle the bizarreness of the life of a hermaphrodite who does not realize for 14 years what they are. Thinking that you are a girl, and then finding out that you are quite different than you seemed would indeed be a shocking development. Tracing his heritage back to his grandmother Desdemona and his mother Tessie, Cal unravels exactly how the mutation occurred, creating what many view as a freak of nature.
Middlesex is very interesting because the reader switches back and forth between thinking of Cal as girl or a boy. The question that is being posed throughout much of the book relates to how someone should live if they have characteristics of each gender. Can these people be assimilated into society, or are they to remain outcasts? Can they have relationships with other "normal" people? Which gender should they tend towards if they have aspects of both in themselves?
Beyond all of these questions, the author shows the emphasis that society places on gender and how this can at times be harmful to certain individuals. Our culture has a fixation with sexuality and gender that can cause some to have difficulties fitting in. Although this is emphasized, no true solution seems to be present. Instead, the point is to make us see that our world does this and think of possible solutions.
The plot is quite complicated and surprising. One finds themselves making assumptions throughout the book that are later disproved. The explanation behind the chromosome mutation occurring are quite intriguing. The delving into this history of Cal, from his grandparents' immigration from Greece, to his own birth, involves a number of surprising twists and turns although the reader is never lost.
The title of the novel comes from the house that Cal lived in as a child on Middlesex Boulevard. It was also the name that the Stephanides family used to refer to their house. The house is described as strange, sci-fi, outdated, and futuristic. The bizarreness of the house seems to be mirroring the hidden secrets disguised within Cal. It also seems a strange coincidence that the name of the street (Middlesex) could be a quite plausible definition for a hermaphrodite.
What makes up the identity of a person (especially sexually)? After Calliope discovers his true identity is not that of a girl as has been thought for years, he goes through a time of turmoil and fear. Doctors try to tell his parents that he simply has too much testosterone and should have an operation to correct his few masculine traits. However Cal realizes that he truly does have a male brain although raised as a girl. The question comes up of whether how someone is raised makes them who they are. Can someone undo training that makes them someone that they are not? Are they who they are according to rearing or can someone make a complete turn around and become someone quite different (who they might really be)? Should this person be allowed to make their own decision regarding how they want to live out their life? These debatable issues are what the author explores in detail.
This novel is good because it causes us to examine our perceptions and think about questions that we may have not considered before. It is a very unique look into the life of a hermaphrodite, and what their actual experiences in life might be like. Although the tale does not provide answers to all of the questions that it asks, it makes one really think which is the point of a good book. In fact not being provided the solutions makes the journey of Middlesex more interesting because it forces the reader to react and come up with some conclusions of their own.
Ultimately, Middlesex is the tale of coming to terms with what one really is. It also shows that the abnormal can be buried under the normal. Our society's obsessive fixation with the normal is also portrayed. It portrays the love and acceptance that people can provide for those who are different. It shows that beyond the boundaries of gender, there is indeed a universal common ground that all individuals have and we should be more focused on finding that rather than on alienating those who do not fit into our definitions.
Book Review: Exploring Greek myth and sexuality
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this one as much as Virgin Suicides! It contains the same sharp but subtle insights into American culture, in this case, the American tradition of becoming whatever it is you appear to be. Forced normality because whatever is truly normal and natural is never good enough.
The parallels to Greek mythology are well-placed -- Calliope is the oldest muse, of writing and epic poetry, now telling the epic story of his own family history. In mythology, Calliope had to settle an argument between Aphrodite and Persephone and did so by giving them both equal time.
Then the Minotaur was the half-man, half-beast creature born of the unwise mating of Pasiphae and the white bull. So Minos locks up the monster in the Labyrinth. Minos, who goes nuts when his son is murdered, starts wreaking havoc on Athens and demands that every 9 years 7 boys and 7 girls must be sacrified to the Minotaur locked up in the Labyrinth in exchange for peace. This continues until the hero, Theseus, gets wind of it. He takes pity on the families of the sacrified children and vows he will go in with them and bring them all out alive. He does this first by bringing in some girls dressed as boys and boys dressed as girls in order to confuse the Minotaur. Then Minos' daughter, Ariadne, gives him a ball of string to trace his way into and back out of the Labyrinth. Theseus goes into the center, kills the Minotaur, and emerges victorious. I've always loved this story. Partly because I think the Minotaur gets a bad rap and I've always wondered what happened inside the Labyrinth when Theseus kills him. That part of the story is never told.
One could write a whole separate book on the use of Greek mythology in Middlesex. There's Antigone, played by the Obscure Object, the first anarchist of the Greek stage who defies the state by burying her brother's body. For this, she is imprisoned in a cave. Teiresias, the part played by Callie in the book, warns the ruler of Thebes that the gods are on Antigone's side.
There probably *is* fodder here for a whole separate book analyzing Eugenide's use of this stuff. There's also the Oracle at Delphi and Androgeus, which I'm sure meant something, but I don't know much about their stories. He seems to have picked the running themes of fate, hubris, and being only half-something and half-something-else (which I guess about covers Greek mythology)
At first, I was a little bored by the whole story of Desdemona and Lefty and then Milton and Tessie. I knew what it was getting to (the inbreeding causing Cal's syndrome, blah, blah), but I was getting a little impatient at that point. It did make me wonder though: if we could wipe out all other manipulation such as media conditioning and so forth, how much of attraction could be based on genetics? Do our bodies communicate genetics in such a way that potentially our attractions could be based on one person's genes having compatibility with another person's genes and the mind perceiving this as sexy and attractive?
Once the Obscure Object came into the picture, I thought the book got much more interesting. I wonder if girls create such deep emotional bonds in early adolescence as a form of rebellion against the power they sense boys already have? Like without even knowing they're doing it, they're standing together. Or almost falling in love with each other because they know other girls will understand them in a way they suspect boys won't and that makes other girls safer..
The whole gender exploration completely fascinated me. I mean, I knew there were more than two genders, but I'd never really thought about it like this. I've always had this theory that we're all bisexual, because gender is much more ambiguous than most societies allow. I mean, where's the line? We're obsessed with the genital determination of gender and sex, but it doesn't seem to be very helpful.
Then I got to wondering: is feminism too limited? Is the real problem beyond the oppression of women and really that we suppress multiple sexualities and gender identities and misogyny is only one piece, or one symptom, of this? Will feminism ultimately stagnate unless it embraces the GLBT movement for this reason?