Middlesex

Rating:
Summary: Rachel Engelman
Review: Middlesex, by Jeffery Eugenides, chronicles the life of Calliope Stephanides and her family through the story of three generations of sacrifice, passion, secrecy, and love. Calliope, later turned Cal, who is neither boy nor girl, but rather something in between, endures the pain of loneliness, heartbreak, abuse, and confusion resulting from a childhood of unanswered questions. Beginning with a forbidden love that blooms between a brother and sister in a dying village in Greece, followed by a romance that grows between open windows and jazz serenades in downtown Detroit, and ending with a love between two girls that is discovered when the rest of the world is not looking, we are shown that the heart will always prove stronger than our conscience or our doubts.

Eugenides creates each of his characters built around one seemingly irrefutable aspect of their personality which drives the first few chapters of their lives, only to disrupt this set course by introducing a prospect of love that contradicts and threatens the very core of their being, proving that love is a more domineering force in a person's life and self than any element of their original nature. One of the first and most endearing characters in the book is Desdemona, who is introduced to us as a chronically superstitious and traditional Greek beauty who never paused from his meticulously scheduled lifestyle to acknowledge or address her own desires. However, despite herself, Desdemona severs the bonds of her self-imposed orthodoxy and her previously colorless past to pursue a desperately passionate and unplanned love affair with her only brother, Lefty. We watch her abandon all of the restraints that had once monopolized her life and shed all of her fears and inhibitions to run after a prospect of happiness that appears in the most unlikely of places. This reoccurring theme of the pursuit of love being one that forces you to sacrifice all of your reassurances and certainties for something that we are told is impossible and taught is wrong illustrates Eugenide's idealistic principal, that true passion overrides all warnings, and true love is worth all risks.

With eloquent sentimentality and a truly human voice, Eugenides teaches us that one's true identity is not reflected in our gender, our past, our face, nor even in our name, but in our heart, and the direction that it takes us in - it is the only constant that we have in a life of inconsistencies.

Rating:
Summary: An Appeal for Girls, Boys, and Both
Review: This is not a "book about..." type read. I'm confident in saying so because I was told it was a "book about a hermaphrodite". I won't argue with that statement but I wouldn't pass that information on because the statement is so limited. Limits are something Jeffrey Eugenides doesn't seem to recognize. His writing and subject matter both exceeded my expectations and went beyond the limits of "normalcy". While presenting matters such as incest, deciet, and hermaphroditism, Eugenides never alienated the reader. I felt very close to the characters despite the fact that I don't relate to them at all. Another large factor in the book dealt with the family's Greek origins and their fluctuating loyalty to Greek tradition and orthodoxy amongst an ever changing American society. 'Middlesex' makes me think of struggle because whether it was a battle for love, happiness, or econimic stability, all the characters struggled alone and with one another for acceptance. That's something everyone can relate to and with the eloquence of Eugenides' writing, it's something everyone, boys, girls, and both can recognize and deal with by understanding the characters in the book.
Caliope, a hermaphrodite, is (at least) the third generation steming from two incestuous relationships. The danger of altering the chromosomal make up of offspring as a result of incest, is avoided the first time but Caliope does not escape. At birth, it appears Caliope is a healthy little girl and so "she" is raised as such. Placed in an all girls' prep school she begins to feel ugly, akward, and different during puberty. "She" does not develop -- "he" does. Caliope discovers sexuality on a vacation with her good friend which eventually results in the discovery of "it" - "him". Life for Caliope's family is seriously disrupted as a result and (s)he leaves on a journey of self discovery. When (s)he is so far gone that (s)he's forced to call home, the family is already permanently changed. The ending ties together the original sin (incest), and it's realized repurcussions (Caliope) in a touching scene involving Callie and Desdemona (the grandmother). Sad but beautiful, the book seems occult when reflecting upon the issues it deals with, yet common and understandable after reading it and connecting with its characters.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is an outstanding novel and a very worthy Pulitzer Prize winner.

If you told me I'd enjoy a book about a hermaphrodite that finds their true sexual identity - not my kind of thing! But this is a very serious, well thought out, and comi-tragic novel about Cal. Calliope grew up thinking he was a girl until puberty came and oops! Actually not.

But it's about much more than just that. The novel is epic in scope centering on the history of Calliope's family and exactly how it came to be that two recessive genetic traits wound up in Calliope's genome.

History is in abundance in this book. History of a recessive gene, history of a family, history of World War I, World War II, the United States, Detroit, and history of Calliope, all rolled up into an epic, well interwoven tapestry.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Unique writing style
Review: The story is fantastic as you can see from reading the other reviews, however, I want to comment on the writing style of the author. I thought the way Eugenides handles the timelines and the author's comments throughout the story was extremely clever not to mention the delivery keeps the reader from a boring and ongoing timeline. The style also makes you believe this story is true. I still have a hard time believing it is a novel. What an interesting subject, but what an even more impressive delivery. I want everyone I know to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A novel overflowing with excitement and colorful detail...
Review: On first approaching Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, its size of the book itself warned of a gigantic novel, but I didn't realize until I was already caught in the midst of it what a huge, complex story it really contained. The pages are overflowing with colorful details from the lives of the three generations of the Stephanides family. Their many adventures and their numerous sins all lead up to the birth of Calliope Stephanides, who pays for the mistakes of her ancestors with her sexuality. She is neither girl nor boy, and is never quite comfortable in either category. The story follows her childhood, in which she appears to be a relatively normal, even beautiful little girl, and leads us into her troubling adolence, at which point Callie, who eventually changes her name to Cal, resolves to determine her own fate.
Throughout the story spanning 80 year, Eugenides leads us through a rampage of colorful and exciting, sometimes terrifying events, introducing us to a cast of eclectic and interesting characters along the way. Middlesex is the story of a hermaphrodite trying to figure out their place, but it is so much more: it is a story of the hardships of immigration, conflicts within families, the place of immigrant in the mid-1900's American society, factory life, race riots, and the American Dream. Although I never felt like I was reading a serious, great work of literature, Middlesex is high quality entertainment the whole way through. It is exciting, it never lags, and in the end left me satisfied with a knowledge of the whole story: past, present, and leading us into Cal's future.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing Characters and Fascinating Topics
Review: To echo a million other voices, this is one of the best reads of the year. Eugenides gave himself an incredibly tough mission: write a book that manages to weave together such unlikely topics as hermaphrodites, the Greek-Turkish conflict, teens coming-of-age, the Nation of Islam, incest, the American melting pot and gender identification . But he succeeds admirably in creating out of these seemingly disparate parts a carefully structured, enormously engrossing story filled with fully-realized and endearing characters. His prose is accessible, as smooth as silk, and enormously entertaining. And there is meat on the bone: this a lasting experience, since the book asks us to question topics one might previously have found unquestionable. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Read this Book
Review: This is really one of the best books I have read in a while. I have heard it said that the book ended weakly or too quickly, but I think the narrative simply became weaker towards the end (although if I ever write a book I suppose I might wind down a bit after pumping out 450 pages). The book's only flaw is it's structure-it is much more interesting and engaging in the beginning than it is in the end, but this is compensated for by its amazing depiction of character.

Jeffrey Eugenides has the amazing ability to create a series of characters who display a broad spectrum of complex emotions that are not usually found in people who exist solely on paper, and as such seem more human and alive. "Middlesex" is no exception to this rule. As I read, I fell in love with each character in turn and my own feelings toward them shifted subtly with the flow of the book, and by the end I almost believed that the characters were real people. By the time I had read the last page, the way I pictured and felt about Cal had changed significantly from the way I felt about and pictured him/her only a few chapters back (and not just Calliope's physical characteristics). After I finished, I reread an earlier chapter and encountered a different Cal-the author had changed my feelings and I didn't even realize it. It is the mark of a master when a novel can manipulate the reader so gently.

Despite the somewhat disappointing quality of the narration at the end of the book, it was a joy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Satisfying, Informative
Review: Jeffery Eugenides spent a lot of years working on this book, and it shows. He fuses history and biology into what amounts to a trilogy -- three generations of stories leading up to the time when a girl discovers that she, Caliope, is mostly a he, Cal. While Cal is the book's raison d'etre, a volatile gene is the axis for this family epic. I actually found the story of Cal's grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, to be the most exciting. Not only do we have a love story starring brother and sister, but we have a war, flight of the refugees, and immigrant new beginnings. The story of Cal's parents is almost as interesting; though not quite as stimulating, we again have a close-relatives love affair that won't be denied and a bloody uprising in a major city that was a virtual war. Then, in the third act, we have Caliope herself discovering himself, so to speak, which goes from a fairly normal but adventurous childhood to the ultimate story of teenage anst, followed by a nearly tragic road trip. Actually, the book could be called quite a road show, starting with the disputed Turkish-Greek regions of the Old World and continuing into the inner and outer zones of Detroit. Along the way, we cover a lot of history and culture and cultural shock. The book is as much about Greek immigrants holding on to or letting go of their heritage as it is about a loose cannon of a gene. And I now know a lot more about Detroit. This is the best way to discover the history of a city: through adventures. What surprised me most was the way Eugenides has used humor to convert a sensitive, almost squeamish subject into an enjoyable read. That, I think, is the real joy of this book. And to be able to let the main character use first person viewpoint to tell the story of his own conception and later his birth and still make it all seem credible to the reader, that is nothing short of a miracle. I just wish I knew the correct way to pronounce the last name of the author, Eugenides, and the character, Stephanides. Is it eye-dees, or ee-dees? Either way, Middlesex is a long book, but worth every page.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not a classic
Review: I enjoyed this as a book on tape, but I've enjoyed Eugenides' othe work much more. The reader made a number of surprising mispronounications.

Rating:
Summary: a great book for boys, girls, or both
Review: I'll admit that the beginning of this book was a bit slow. After being hyped about the fact that the book was about a hermaphrodite, i felt anxious when i found myself reading hundreds of pages of background. The background, however, was just as intriguing and unfamiliar as the storyline i expected because it was largely focused around the incestuous relations of Cal's (the hermaphrodite) parents and grandparents.

Eugenides writes with an element of eloquence despite the occult and sometimes vulgar nature of the subject. The content may be too advanced for little kids but the writing can be appreciated by all - it's clear, it's well thought out, and it captivates the reader's attention - too bad i can't say it's concise.

The book may look daunting but once you pick it up and plow through the first hundred pages -- you won't want to put it down. The writing is just as interesting as the subject -- read it!