Middlesex

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: MIDDLESEX is a miraculous reading experience. Like many before me, I was drawn to the book because I enjoyed THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and heard good things about his second novel, which was "about a hermaphrodite." But I was not prepared for the sprawling, multi-generational family epic, for the sweeping story of twentieth century American life, for the alternating first and third person POVs that allow the novel to be both introspective and breathtaking in scope. It's difficult to faithfully describe this book to someone who hasn't read it. Just buy the book and enjoy. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Drew Me Right In
Review: I was very impressed with MIDDLESEX. It has a very lyrical "voice" in its use of words. I was very convinced with the details and the people too. There were times that I felt my heart breaking for the people but which made me enjoy their celebrations with them too. Cal was inspiring but heartbreaking too. There is an interweaving of time and characters that has an essence in common with books like MY FRACTURED LIFE and ATONEMENT. The convincingness drew me in right away.

Rating:
Summary: Good, interesting, but with some big flaws
Review: This is an interesting story and an easy read (very easy, the 500 pages fly.) BUT, given that the there is so much research which has shed light on the intersexed, it is impossible to see as anything but a fatal flaw the decision to make the chromsonely male narrator totally at ease with being raised a female until the onset of adolescence.

Also, incomprehensible is Eugendies decision to make this 1960 born girl, who is portrayed as a voracious reader, unaware, until quite late, of what "happens to woman every month". Come on, girls of that generation who read, read "Are you there God, its me Margaret" Menstruation was no mystery, even to those raised in homes where it was not talked about!

Rating:
Summary: A superbly written saga . . . .
Review: The purpose of my review is to get you to read the book so I will resist relating you the story's plot. It is funny, its sad and it is magnificently written which makes it every bit worth its purchase price so all I can say is read it !

Rating:
Summary: Fiction truer than Fact
Review: Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" explores the mystery of gender in this sprawling family epic about, yes, a hemaphrodite. Don't be put off by the seeming oddness of the subject matter--this is a beautifully written story of a family and a very sensitive exploration of what it really means to be a man or a woman.
In this novel, the discovery of a grandparent's long-buried secret unlocks the key to the person Cal/Callie is and prompts the writing of the Stephanides story as Cal/Callie imagines it must have been. Eugenides is a fine writer and I knew by the middle of the second page that I was hooked.
The tale spans the 20th century, starting in post WWI Greece and the constant war between the Greeks and Turks. The story of Desdemona and Lefty's escape to the new world is gripping and suspenseful, and the relationship between them is totally believable. Forward to Detroit at the dawn of the age of the motorcar--we think of Ford and his assembly line as a magnificent innovation, but until now I'd never paused to consider the terrible price paid by the workers in the age before labor laws and safety standards, as well as by Detroit itself before anyone even thought about a thing called the "environment." As the story of this Greek American family unfolds the author takes us on some interesting detours, as many young novelists seem to do these days, to the world of bootlegging and illegal bars, the Detroit race riots, the Greek Orthodox church, the growth of fast food chains, and the earliest rumblings of Black Power.
It's a credit to the author that Cal/Callie remains the focus of all this, a thoughtful, confused teenager having no idea that anything was wrong but knowing somehow that nothing was right. The relationship between Callie and the "Object" was as sensitive a picture of teenage sexual exploration as I've read. And the suspense of waiting for Callie to discover her true nature made it hard to put the book down.
This book reminded me of "As Nature Made Him," a non-fiction account of a child with very similar gender identity issues, who went through the surgery to make him an anatomically correct girl but still couldn't suppress his true gender. And yet I was struck how "Middlesex" presented what I think is a much truer picture of the inner thoughts of an adolescent dealing with puberty in this utterly confusing situation. I loved how Eugenides portrayed Cal/Callie as a blend of the feminine and masculine, as we all are--in this case the blend was just so much closer to 50-50.
Physicians specializing in the gender field come in for some tough criticism in both "Middlesex" and "As Nature Made Him." In both cases the thinking of the time on the nature-nuture question gave more weight to the nuture part of the equation than medicine does today. Unfortunately the physicians here seemed to be as interested in validating their theories as in deciding the right path for the child. The theory may have changed, and one certainly hopes the way Callie was treated, as an interesting specimen, isn't the case today either.
"Middlesex" won a well-deserved Pulitzer. I'm interested in taking a look at Eugenidesa'prior novel, "The Virgin Suicides" and will eagerly await his next.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: In this modern Greek tragedy Cal Stephanides must contend with the sins of not one but two generations of fathers. Fleeing the Turks in the 1920's, Cal's grandparents and parents make their way from provincial Greece to suburban Detroit, and through their choices inadvertently pass to Cal an errant gene which results in his being born a hermaphrodite.

A coming-of-age story which opens with a European massacre and concludes with a teenage hermaphrodite coming to grips with his sexuality is one of the more ambitious plotlines that you're likely to read, but Eugenides pulls it off with grace. Middlesex is never lurid, often funny, and always engrossing. Cal is an excellent protagonist, probably one of the most fully developed and believable characters that I have recently encountered in contemporary fiction. The fact that Eugenides creates so much empathy for such a unique character is this novel's biggest accomplishment.

Middlesex is more than just a character study, however. The event filled story moves quickly, and the plot twists are outlandish enough to be consistently surprising but never require the reader to suspend disbelief. Along the way I got a new perspective on the Greek American community, prohibition bootlegging, industrial Detroit, medical ethics, and a host of other issues which Egenides seamlessly blends into the novel.

Middlesex is the best novel that I read in 2003. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Ah... Detroit
Review: This was a very interesting book. On a purely personal note, it was fun to read a book set in my hometown. The dose of Detroit history that goes along with the story of the Stephanides family makes this a fun read for anybody that knows how to pronounce "Gratiot" and remembers the reign of Coleman Young as Detroit mayor. Also, the connotations of the words Grosse Pointe are far reaching for those of us from the lesser Detroit "burbs." I'm not old enough to remember the race riots, but my old Italian relatives from Oakwood remember them well. It sparked some interesting dinner conversation with them over Christmas.

The story of Calliope/Cal is illuminating on several levels. Puberty is distressing enough for girls, but to never develop the way you're "supposed" to develop is a central theme for Cal, who is intersexed. (I will use Cal's chosen pronoun and call him "he.") I admire the character because he is so self-possessed and pragmatic through the whole ordeal. It may seem, at first that the voice of the author is overshadowing Cal's voice; however, as Cal moves into adolescence, the tone becomes wholly unto the character. I think Jeffrey Eugenides handled Cal's struggle with great sensitivity. More books should handle this topic as he has. More books should be written about the intersexed, period. These people are not curiosities. They are human, and struggle with their identity in a way that is so magnified, many of us will never understand.

As a member of the scientific community, I thought the way that Eugenides detailed Cal's visit to the gender disorders clinic in New York presented many sickening possibilities. Many accounts of gender assignment of the intersexed infant have come to light recently, and it is clear that physicians do not always know the proper course of treatment for these individuals. There is such pressure to assign an identity for the parents' sake, that the child gets somewhat lost in the assessment. Dr. Luce's delight at Cal's condition, and the possibility to advance his own career is something to be wary of. This is a consistently emphasized point in Middlesex. Cal is objectified by this physician. He then objectifies himself, and eventually comes uneasily to terms with his body.

I enjoyed this book because it allowed me to examine many of the taboos that know no cultural barriers, such as incest and the idea of what is and is not normal.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Fine, "Great American Novel"
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Book
Review: Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex: A Novel hooked me on page one and didn't let go until I finished the book. Eugenides has developed a powerful narrative voice in Calliope and uses beautiful language to trace the family's history. Calliope's tale makes me want to learn more of my own family's past so that I can pass it along to my children.

Rating:
Summary: "Middlesex" has entered the portals of Enduring Literature
Review: The proclivity of American critics towards big books, in particular big books about big sprawling families and intergenerational conflicts within these blood bound superstructures is never more evident than in their choices for the most prestigious annual book awards. Last year, they picked Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections". This year, they chose "Middlesex", Jeffrey Eugenides' sophomore effort and follow-up to "The Virgin Suicides".

A magnificent opus truly deserving of the huge and unanimous praise heaped upon it, Eugenides' genius lies in taking a quaint and offbeat topic - hermaphroditism - and transforming it into a shimmering beautiful and incandescent metaphor for change (writ large) that must inevitably have destabilised the status quo of intergenerational relationships within immigrant families that have settled in America for decades. The Stephanides are a Greek family hailing from a little village in Asia Minor. Driven out of their homes by the terrible racial violence that broke out between the Greeks and the Turks, Lefty and Desdemona fled - incognito - to America to join their cousin. Reinventing a past to hide a terrible secret taboo that will weigh upon Desdemona for the rest of her life, they started a family and business ventures that would leave some of their highest and lowest points in their early immigrant lives.

Lefty and Desdemona got off without a scratch when they had Milton. But nobody suspected or was prepared to believe anything was wrong when puberty seemed to elude their granddaughter Calliope. While Calliope struggled valiantly with the pain of lacking a clear sexual identity, her family turned a blind eye, so when the chips were down and there was nowhere to run, Calliope did the only thing possible.

"Middlesex" is simply a great, great novel. Better than "The Corrections", which I also enjoyed and admired. There are few modern novelists who write with the generosity, lucidity and honesty of Eugenides. His prose is never bombastic or cute or coy even when dealing with an unusual subject. Calliope/Cal are so palpably real and human we never stop believing or caring for them.

If there's one American novel you have time for in 2003, let it be "Middlesex". It is an important novel and will surely enter the portals of Enduring American Literature.