Middlesex: A Novel
by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Book Reviews of Middlesex: A Novel
Book Review: Metamorphosis, psychological insight, and the story of American immigrants. A small masterpiece on every level.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2003. I had heard it was about a hermaphrodite and that was a little off-putting but so many people recommended it that I had to check it out. I sure am glad I did. Middlesex is a fantastic book on several levels and I loved every word of it. There are no real surprises and I liked that. The narrator lets us know the theme right in the first sentence. But then he goes on and tells the story, and he sure did captivate me for the next 528 pages. And, best of all, it keeps getting better and better as it moves along, with the last quarter of the book even more interesting that its fine beginning.
On one level it is a family saga about a Greek American family. It starts in 1922 in a small village in Greece. This is a village that has been isolated for thousands of years in which there have been occasional marriages between close relatives. There's war and disaster and many deaths, but a young couple manages to escape and make their way to America where they settle in Detroit. We get to know them well, and we also understand that they have a family secret that is carried in their genes.
On another level, this is the story of America itself. It's about the immigrant population that built cars and opened restaurants and prospered. It's about a generation that sent their sons off to fight in WW2. It's about freedom and opportunity and dreams. It's about the Greek-American experience in particular and we're present at the christenings and funerals. We see the cars they drive, the food they eat and their hopes and dreams for their children.
But later there is urban decay. There are race riots. There is a flight to the suburbs, the peace movement, and a whole different kind of life for the grandchildren of these original immigrants. That one of the grandchildren, Calliope, is carrying a recessive gene makes the story all the more interesting. She is raised as a girl in an upscale environment. We get to know her as a person. And we get to discover, along with her, her differences. We feel her adolescent angst. We know what is happening.
We also learn all about the medical condition. It certainly was an education for me. Obviously, the author did a lot of research on the subject. All the veils are stripped away. We do understand. And then we watch the privileged Calliope run away and live on the streets, stepping into the identity of a boy named Cal.
There's a lot of psychological insight in this story. It's also a story told as an epic. And underlying it all is the ancient Greek myth of metamorphosis. The author achieved a unique and phenomenal success in making all these elements work together. This book stands alone as a small masterpiece. And I have no hesitancy whatsoever in giving it one of my highest recommendations.
Book Review: Completely Unique--Breaks New Ground
Summary: 5 Stars
"Middlesex" by Jefferey Eugenides is as unique as its protagonist, Cal/Calliope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite born a female, yet destined at puberty to express his underlying male nature.
It is easy to see why this book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2003. At once a sweeping rollicking comic epic family saga, this novel breaks new ground by successfully hybridizing different literary styles and throwing aside conventions of proper storytelling voice and construction. The novel is told primarily in first person. How else could Eugenides tell the tale of this endearing heroine/hero without resorting to awkward use of pronouns? But then comes the real breakthrough. How does the author take us into the minds of the supporting characters when the novel is narrated in first person? Eugenides solves this by making his narrator creatively omniscient. The reader is consciously aware at all times that it is Cal/Callie, the protagonist, that is stepping into the minds of his/her ancestors and immediate family to reveal their hidden feelings as she/he tells their tales in third person. It works! The storytelling comes alive on two levels: we better understand the motivations of the third-person characters, and we learn to treasure our creative, endearing, fully human storytelling protagonist. As a bonus, this construction often leaves the door wide open for outrageous comedy, and Eugenides makes full use of it.
The book mixes literary styles, too. It starts out almost like a fairy tale--a tragicomic Greek epic--with chorus, no less! Much of the next part of the novel is written in a 19th-century style. Finally, the novel transforms into a modern psychological coming-of-age tale. As the literary style transforms over the course of the novel, we progress from the stories of Cal/Callie's Greek ancestors through to the present day. Along the way, we are treated to a courageous Greek-American immigrant family saga as well as the story of Detroit from the Prohibition through to the present day. The story of Detroit is so vividly told that the city almost becomes a third character. In particular, we are brought into the alien worlds of early Ford assembly-line factory work, bootlegging prohibition gin-running and speakeasies, the birth of the Nation of Islam, the 1967 race riots, the rise of franchising wealth, and white flight to rich suburbs including sending children to private schools to avoid racial desegregation. All is so vividly recreated that the reader in transported.
At the heart of the novel is, of course, poor confused sweet child Callie/Cal. The story of her/his gradual awakening to sexual awareness, self-acceptance, and identity is profoundly touching, tastfully rendered, and ultimately very believable.
I loved this book. I did not want it to end; even after almost 600 pages, I wanted more.
Book Review: Exhausting Book about a Hermaphrodite, etc.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an exhausting book about a hermaphrodite. I first read Virgin Suicides several years ago and was drawn into that story by the haunting narration. I was hoping that the author was able to create a similar narration for this book, not exactly the same, but something that stayed with me for months/years after. That did not happen.
Initially, I put off buying this book because of the subject matter. Really, who wants to read about a hermaphrodite? Not me. Plus, many years ago I read RAPTOR by GARY JENNINGS, which was absolutely brilliant and also dealt w/ a hermaphrodite (what an annoying word to type) and I figured one hermaphrodite book in a lifetime is enough for me. Then I was in a brief stage where I couldn't find anything to read, which is pretty rare for me, and I picked it up (about a year and a half ago).
Well, like I said, the book's about a hermaphrodite. But there's much more to it. Like Jennings's book, Middlesex reads like historical fiction, chronicling a family over many years and taking you to far-off locales. Here, the author captures the lives of people fleeing war-torn Greece and tracks them across the ocean to the States. It is also part romance, which is necessary in order to let the reader know how the main character's genetics became warped. Plus, the author goes into the history of Detroit, if anybody out there is interested in that, as well as prohibition and hooch smuggling.
But basically the book is about the life of a hermaphrodite, which, as you can imagine is not an easy one. The haunting narrative of Virgin Suicides does not exist in this book. When I was reading Virgin Suicides I felt as if I was reading a book that was a hundred years old and now a classic. Middlesex does not have that feel, and I don't think will have that kind of longevity (V.S. will).
The author does do an admirable job getting inside the head of an adolescent who has to deal with problems most teenagers don't have to, but there is something lacking from the story. Perhaps it just doesn't seem real enough. The narrative is very dry and cumbersome, given all the information that he's trying to jam into this book. In the end, it all just seems unreal and forced. I did not care very much about the main character and didn't buy the ending at all (with the woman not minding that her boyfriend was a little bit more than what he seemed [or less?]).
If you are looking for a historical romance novel with a hermaphrodite as the lead character I would pick up RAPTOR instead. Jennings is a brilliant writer who possesses the rare ability to create gripping narration that pulls you write into the story. Although, with a hermaphrodite as the main character, I'm not sure if that's a place where you want to go.
Book Review: a modern classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Without risking overstatement, I think they'll be reading this book in college literature classes for decades to come as an American classic. For certain, it's well-written and carefully constructed, but a classic has something more, something deeper, something almost ineffable. When you finish a classic, you simply know that what you've just read isn't just good but great, isn't just great but classic. I had that feeling when I finished Middlesex.
The book is amazingly rich in every way, and there's so much one could discuss. The narration, for example: whether Cal/Calliope can be trusted as a narrator, or how much he has made up or embellished. Or the numerous mythical allusions that add to the book's epic nature. In its look at modern American life and the American "experience," the book is sweeping and grand -- from immigrants to teenagers, Greeks to African Americans, Islam to Orthodox, working class to upper-middle class, birth to death, family to friends. It spans the Great Depression, World War II, the race riots and counterculture of the 60s, and Watergate -- and even extends, with less detail, into the present.
At its core, the book is largely about identity: where do we come from, who are we, and why. Do we have to be the way we are? To some extent, yes. Because of genetics, Cal can't be anything but a hermaphrodite. Because of family, history, and tradition, he is -- and can't avoid being -- Greek. But neither DNA nor upbringing need be constrictive. Born with male proclivities but raised as a girl, Cal chooses to be a man. Raised in a fairly traditional, conservative family, he blazes his own unique path, entirely his own but never entirely shorn of his past either. The implications are universal, even if we don't share Cal's genetic abnormalities.
I have no complaints about the book. I have a very, very minor quibble with Cal's brother's name, Chapter Eleven. The running joke is never explained, though I assume it has something to do with his running the hot dog stand company into the ground. It was the only thing in the book that struck me as strange -- and that's saying a great deal for a book in which there is so much one could consider weird. Parts were (necessarily?) racy, but on the whole, it was tastefully done, with nothing over the top. Somewhere around page 400, the book felt as though it was dragging just a bit, and I started to think that maybe some of the reviewers were right and the book was too long. But the end snuck up on me, and when I finally finished, I wished there had been another 500 pages.
Book Review: An American Odyssey
Summary: 5 Stars
The scope of Middlesex makes it epic, the quality of its characters makes it beautiful, the skill of Eugenides' writing makes it unforgettable. Perfect in her imperfections, Cal makes for one of the most unique and gifted narrators imaginable, omniscient and unbound by the conventions of time, place, or even gender. Like Milton's cuff links, Middlesex combines comedy and tragedy seamlessly, and Eugenides pays extraordinary attention to the details while never losing sight of the big picture, the greater story he has crafted.
Guided by Cal, the reader learns the intimate details, the hopes, dreams, and fears of the Stephanides family. The story is roughly chronological, but Cal confides in the reader along the way, always giving a hint of what is to come. By letting slip these crucial details, the story unfolds not with the breakneck pace of a mystery or suspense novel, but rather the calm elegance of an epic. Just as Homer tells the Iliad to an audience that already knows that Troy has fallen, Eugenides allows the reader to know that Callie becomes Cal 400 pages and 50 story-years before it actually occurs in the novel. This critical piece of information skillfully shifts the reader's focus from the natural question of "what happened?" to the complex details of "how did it happen?" A vague sense of inevitable sadness hangs over the novel, as the reader slowly learns the details of how a girl born Callie can possibly turn into a middle-aged man named Cal. It is impossible not to become emotionally involved and heartbroken as each character, and especially Cal, attempts the impossible--so called "normalcy". Yet, while full of the pain and misery of kept secrets, Middlesex also abounds with the catharsis associated with disclosure and the freedom that goes along with allowing oneself to hope.
I imagine that each reader will take something different away from this story, but for me the highlight was Eugenides' portrayal of the equally forceful pull of fate and free will. In many ways, Cal's life was entirely predestined from before her birth. And yet, the way Cal's life unfolded was full of personal decisions, with the story ultimately ending in a choice that provides the first moment of true optimism in the book. Was this too the work of genetics, or free will? The reader must struggle with those same questions in his or her own life. Touching, daring, amazing, Middlesex is a new and successful American spin on the classic genre of the epic.