Middlesex: A Novel
by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Book Reviews of Middlesex: A Novel
Book Review: Taboo Distilled by Graceful Storytelling
Summary: 5 Stars
Jeffrey Eugenides really is a talented, nimble writer. Swayed to purchase this book by the outporuing of positive responses, I missed the core subject matter staring me right in the face: the coming-of-age story of a hermaphrodite. This is not a subject that usually piques my interest, what with the potentially lurid implications of taboo subjects and fiery viewpoints often associated with writing about controversies of gender dientity. In this regard, Middlesex was a very pleasant surprise. Better yet, it is delightfully impossible to put down!
Beginning with the powerful, poignant narrative birth ("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.") of the central character, Calliope Stephanides, we are transported into the atmospheric, historically significant town of Bithynios, and then Smyrna, Turkey, where Calliope's grandparents find love while fleeing the latest Ottoman incursion. The seeds of their love, planted on a rag ship sailing for America, are allowed to grow with a fresh start in their new home.
This, of course, is only the beginning. Calliope, the seemingly omniscient tour guide of her own life, pulls us in and out of her past, with brief glipmses of her present, until she is ready to tell us how she got here. It is a veritable Greek myth of origins, as good as anything the ancients concocted. (Interestingly, Calliope's omniscience is often limited to her family, perhaps a biological intuition controlled by genetic forces?) Passions, mistakes, and desperate actions cycle and repeat through generations. Heredity trumps our most fervent hopes and the best of our best intentions.
Middlesex ebbs and flows with elegiac beauty and gentle nudges from the author to advance the story while allowing Calliope to reveal herself, one difficult, painful (but never morbid) layer at a time. Laden with humor, love, and emotional complexity, Middlesex never weighs us down with grief or sappy pity for Calliope. A great American saga and a Great American Novel.
Book Review: BRILLIANT
Summary: 5 Stars
Eugenides deserves every bit of the Pulitzer prize he won for this amazing story. I cannot recall a more original, well-written, well-paced novel. The deftness with which Euginides skips through time and jumps from one character's point-of-view to another's is, from a writer's viewpoint, stunning. The story is so convincing and unique that it is hard to believe Euginides didn't live through it all himself.
To say that Middlesex is about a hermaphrodite would be incomplete and give an incorrect impression. While the main character is indeed a boy who was raised half his life as a girl, the story is more about what makes a person who he is. Sprawling in scope, the story begins several generations before the birth of our narrator, Cal Stephanides, in Greece. It follows Cal's grandparents as they flee a war to America and settle in Detroit. It is an immigrant song and a history lesson, and the first act of a Greek tragedy, as Cal's grandparents are also brother and sister. This incestuous coupling leads to a gene mutation that will, two generations later, culminate with the birth of our narrator.
Despite its physical girth (500+ pages), Middlesex is a surprisingly fast read. This is a testament to both Eugenides's writing and seamless plotting. Not once, even though it is 125 pages before the narrator is even born, does the story drag. Not once did I flip forward to see how many more pages were left in the chapter. If anything, I wanted more. Cal's narration is engaging and likable, á la Holden Caulfield, and even though he tells the story as a thirty-five-year-old, he nails perfectly the confusion of a young teenager trying to find himself. That's where the greatest strength of this novel lies: even though the narrator has more to discover than the average teenager, the emotion and turmoil of what he experiences is completely relatable. Because of this, the story becomes not about freakishness, but about what is most human in all of us. It's an incredibly ambitious undertaking for a second novel, and Eugenides pulls it off brilliantly. I could not recommend this book more.
Book Review: Amazing story, amazing writer
Summary: 5 Stars
If you had any doubts that Eugenides was a fantastic writer (certainly one of the best of our time) after reading The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex will thouroughly convince you. To paraphrase what one critic wrote of his work, this man makes the ordinary into something extraordinary. The story is so bizarre, but at the same time, very much possible, and in fact, with all the real events put into the work, it seems almost impossible that this is actually fiction.One of the most fantastic aspects of Eugenides' style is his attention to subtlety. When you read the book the first time, you will notice small, mysterious passages that foreshadow events that will happen later in the book. When you go back and read these the second time, it will all make sense. Another aspect of his subtlety is his way with words, in describing things without being point blank about it. I really enjoy this, because it lets your mind create something unique. His expertise in describing the feelings and thoughts of Cal, the main character, is an especially difficult undertaking, because Eugenides had to write in the place of a man, a girl, and someone who is in a gender identity crisis. I don't know how he was able to do this, but for some reason, it all seems so real.
The character development is excellent. I think that one of the things about all of his characters, in Middlesex as well as the Virgin Suicides, is that you become very interested in them, and you care about what happens to them. Descriptions of scenery are excellent as well, whether it's the smoggy, dirty car factory in Detroit, or a beautiful beach in Petosky. It feels like you are right there, in that very place. The plot all ties in together, and nothing is just there for entertainment. The historical scenes were well researched, from the problems in Detroit to the problems of Greeks living in the middle of a war. All these important world events pass by in a fashion that seems a bit like Forrest Gump. All in all, it's very rich and enjoyable. A true masterpiece. Hopefully we won't have to wait nine years before his next book!
Book Review: An edgy tale of family, fortune and fate
Summary: 4 Stars
Let me slap myself first and admit that I have yet to read Virgin Suicides -- but hopefully, you will see that my review will be unbiased rather than unexperienced.
In Middlesex, Eugenides has a very careless way of making casually blase and sometimes obvious narrations, which are amusing at first, but got very annoying for me. Like "But that's enough of that, let me get back to the original story..." or "How about that? Did you get all of that? Okay, let's move on..." or "That's right folks, can you believe it?!" It reminds me of a young child given a lengthy writing assignment and puts in innocent remarks and exclamations just to fill up the page.
The story is also very "Forest Gumpish" in a way that this Greek family ironically find themselves in every major turning point of American history...which makes the story not only unbelievable, but quite laughable. It's as if Eugenides tried so hard to keep the story compelling, yet unnatural. And perhaps, this is what Eugenides what trying to accomplish, but it makes me wonder how Middesex won a Pulitzer Prize.
Despite its childish narration and contrived irony, it is an entertaining and bold story of a Greek family with each generation evolving more into the modern day American suburbia. Although the book will eventually focus on Cal's hermaproditic discovery, it is not entirely centered on this topic. In fact, the plot is constantly shifting but will get you full enough to make an easy transition into the next topic. From the siblings/lovers flee from the Greco-Turkish war to the assembly lines of Detroit to the Great Depression and the flourishing aftermath of a stereotypical Greek-immigrant family...to finally the rebirth of sexual innocence that will spiral into a dark place that only the legendary Desdemona can rescue us from.
If you enjoy an American epic tale of family, sex, war, love and the lie that kept everything intact...then this story will capture you. It is quite entertaining and the scenes and stories are described deliciously to make you want another helping.
Book Review: A vast, sweeping book about nearly everything, neatly told
Summary: 4 Stars
Everything happens in this book. In epic proportions, three generations of a family deal with each other, with America, and with lots and lots of strange twists. As in any narrative with a perspective this wide, events end up foreshortened - the Vietnam war shoots by in a few pages, fortunes are made in a dozen pages and lost in one, neighborhoods change character, and characters appear, assert their importance and dissapear.
Against the rocketing backdrop, Eugenidies draws a compelling portrait of an insightful person dealing with growing up. The book is at its best when it explores adolecense - there's a feeling of heartfelt sympathy and a believable intensity to descriptions of deep self doubt and intense crushes. And the couplings that bubble up through the wrenching desire of adolecense provide the thread of the story as they are uncovered. The bravado and head-on style that Euginidies attacks everything with is best suited to the drama, heartache and passion of all three generations in their youth.
One of the central themes (introduced in the first line of the book) is the narrator's gender identity. It's a thread holding some disparate bits of story together, but it's the likeability of the narrator that really makes it compelling.
So Cal narrates well, gives us his life as Callie, and gives us the life of a rare genetic mutation bouncing around history and ending up on his DNA.
The weakness to me, was in the ambition. Characters take on outrageous proportions, occasionally straining the credibility of the narrative. History hits this family with astounding force - important things happen all around them and luck comes on full throttle, both good and bad.
To be honest, I'm not sure a book with visions this grandiose could have been much better concieved. You can't make it over this much ground without cutting a few corners, and where he cuts them, Eugendies does a good job of smoothing out the edges. It was a pleasure to read, and an astounding accomplishment to write by any measure.