Middlesex

Rating:
Summary: ok, but not wow
Review: Although I enjoyed the tone and many of the sentences (though, come on - 529 pages worth?) I found that overall this book suffered from - "close but no banana." Pun intended.

Given to me as a must-read by a PhD student in Genetics, I was somewhat surprised to find that a huge digression of the book, into the supposed transmission of this faulty gene via Cal's grandparents, to be vastly genetically irrelevant. Not to spoil overmuch but their relationship was weird, yes, sad, yes, interesting, yes - but revelant to the story of "how I got my mutation", not so much.

Sadly, neither Cal, nor, I suspect, Eugenides, has grasped basic biology and so makes much ado of little - and that, to me speaks volumes about the story itself. Eugenides is a wonderful crafter of sentences, spinning out divine little truisms here and there, but so much rings false just like his grasp of genetics. He is visibly proud of his skill and one wishes he would flaunt his style a little less and give us something much deeper in its place.

Rating:
Summary: A picaresque sociohistoric epic
Review: In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that develops between them, along with Calliope's failure to develop, leads Calliope to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all but what the author calls the "dritte Geschlecht".
The explanation for this surprising fact is a rare genetic mutation and a guilty secret that has followed her grandparents from Greece to Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glorious days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the country known as suburbia. Because of the gene, Calliope is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun.
Spanning eight decades and an unusually awkward adolescence, "Middlesex" is a long fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender and the mysteries of desire.
"Middlesex" is masterfully read by Kristoffer Tabori and I strongly recommend acquiring this audiobook along with the printed novel.
Philippe Horak / [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Definitely Not Pulitzer Worthy
Review: It must have been a weak year for literature if this kind of boring tripe was winning awards. Eugenides is awful. It's a sorry state of affairs when smart people can't spot mediocrity right in front of their faces. I'd give him five stars for spelling all his words correctly, but no stars for everything else.

Rating:
Summary: If you appreciate quality writing, this is a must-read!
Review: After reading two highly recommended novels that I had to struggle to get through (though they were well written, I found them boring), I SO needed a book that I could be immediately drawn into and fully enjoy...Middlesex came along at the right time. I was captured from page one through the last page, and found the writing to be deliciously descriptive. In fact, I left several little sticky notes throughout the book as I read to mark passages that left a particular mark on me.

To give you an idea how good this book is and how much it kept my attention, this was what I call my "work book"--a book I take to work and leave there to read on my lunch hour. A "work book" almost NEVER comes home until I've finished it, but Middlesex came home with me the past two weekends because I couldn't bear to leave Calliope and her family behind when I left the office on Friday afternoon.

Middlesex is a truly unique story that defies description (yes, it's about a hermaphrodite but it is about SO much more than that). It is about history and self-exploration and family and genetics and being different...just to start. Most definitely worth a read...I finished it 8 hours ago and I still have a glow inside and feel sad that it's over.

Rating:
Summary: If You Read One Book This Year, Read MIDDLESEX!!!
Review: This was one of those books that, as soon as I finished, I wanted to turn right back to page one and start all over again. Middlesex is a highly complex, carefully crafted story that can not be easily summarized on the dustjacket flap or the back of the book. Such a summary makes it sound somewhat kinky or wierd. Anything but! All one has to do is get through the first couple of pages, and any hesitancy has evaporated. In a story spanning three generations, Cal, the main character, delves into a detailed history of a very complex family. Only through the exploration of his past can he, and the reader, accept and understand who he is. This book is filled with strength and love, and, when you turn the last page, just like me, odds are you'll want to start all over again on page one. A stunning and superb masterpiece of a book. I can't wait to read more of Jeffrey Eugenides. He will be a celebrated author for generations to come.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: A masterpiece. I am shocked at the people who gave this book anything less than 3 stars. After reading Middlesex I am very interested in visiting greece--and learning more about the war with the Turks; I'm much more sympathetic to gender issues, and I sadly realize I'll never be a Jeff Eugenides. He is in another league.

Rating:
Summary: One for all to read...
Review: After reading the first chapter, I was pulled in- I didn't think that it could get any better but it did- the ideas of growing up a female is difficult enough- the complex issues of finding yourself in a society that is changing, with immigrant grandparents, with a hardworking middle class family, with a pot head brother- dealing with the ideas that the mind and environment effect who we become as a person.

Calliope "Callie" then "Cal" Stephanides is the narrator- and from the beginning we know that Cal was born a girl and then a boy... the person that Cal becomes throughout the story remains the same, the general ideas never change, just that Cal finds out who "he" really is and why.

When the book ends, you'll be wanting more- looking for the rest of the pages in the book- hoping to see what happens throughout Cal's life... because you become a part of it- you learn, grow, and develop along with Cal- you just don't want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: So good on so many levels. Read it!
Review: This book was so much better than I expected it to be. I'll admit, I didn't read "The Virgin Suicides," but I saw the movie, and found it pretentious, so I translated this trait onto the author, Jeffrey Eugenides. I owe him an apology for jumping to that conclusion. This book is accessible, funny, smart, sad...it's just a great, great novel, and a fabulously entertaining read.

From page one I could not put this book down. I won't give away any of the plotline, but this is the story of a hermaprodite and the disturbing (but equal parts touching and human)family history that made her the way she is. Eugenides begins the story with Calliope, our hermaphroditic narrator, tracing a mutant gene back two generations to the Stephanides, a Greek family, emigrating from Turkey to escape the Turks. The family moves to Detroit, Michigan, and starts a new life. They raise a family, live through the race riots, and join the white flight to Grosse Pointe. It is their that second generation Greek-Americans Calliope and Chapter Eleven grow up.

Like the genetic mutation that haunts Calliope, Greece follows the family and story to America. It is a promise to the Greek Church that saves Milton in World War II; it is a Greek-named hot dog that saves the Stephanides family; it is the fires of the Turkish invasion that replays itself in the Detroit race riots; and it is a Greek myth that Calliope's life parallels. The reader is struck by the simplicity of the story-telling, and at the same time the complexity of the story. Eugenides is truly a marvel.

Calliope is the best narrator I can think of in recent American literature. Vernon Little ("Vernon God Little") pales in comparison. Calliope is human, empathetic, hilarious, and brilliant, making this book a whirlwind of all these different characteristics. I laughed out loud several times, and yet when Calliope discovers that she is not truly a girl, it is one of the most touching and heart-rending passages I have read in years. I read that page three times, and was moved every single time.

I hope that this conveys just how excellent this book is. I only wish I had read it sooner. I give it the highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: A near miss at greatness.
Review: I'd like to start off this review talking about the things that are really nice about this book-- mainly because there's a lot of them, and I actually think that nothing negative that I say should detract the potential reader.

_Middlesex_ is a multigenerational history of a Greek-American family which begins with a silkworm farm in Asia Minor and ends somewhere in Berlin. Along the way it takes you through the burning of Smyrna, the 1967 Detroit race riots, the depression and the rise of the Nation of Islam. It treats subjects as wide ranging as hermaphrodism, family secrets, the nature of marriage and the occasion to trust.

What's amazing is that Eugenides writes all this with an eye for detail that's really astonishing. You could read this book for its richness of detail and the fine nuances alone and come out a happy and satisfied reader. He pulls off the family story through all its generational turns and creates characters who are very human and very real.

I suppose that simply because I enjoyed it so much I wondered to myself if this was a book that was going to stick with me, or one that would molder on my shelf unread in 20 years.

While I'm probably not going to argue for unread, I also didn't find it a masterpiece. The character arc of the adult Cal felt contrived and unsatisfying-- I couldn't anchor his fear of intimacy in the history that the book reveals and I didn't believe (or didn't care) about its ultimate conclusion. Even given that the history was clearly the focal point, I still wanted to care about the present. At the very least, I didn't want to find the moments in the present aggravating-- which is unfortunately how I did find them.

So. A near miss. I will however, go back and read _The Virgin Suicides_ and whatever else he may write in the future. A near miss is after all better than not even being in the running...

Like I said, don't let this review dissuade you from reading. The book is the Book of the Hour for good reason, so you'll waste no time deciding for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Uniquely wonderful
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Jeffrey Eugenides' novel. He wove an entertaining story about one family and their adventures through several generations as they leave their homeland to pursue the American dream that the USA shined on them.

The Stephanides family in not unlike that of many families that left everything in their own country with nothing more in return than a vision of hope. Through their generations they witness the worse of man as from their war-torn village to the race riots in Detroit. Each event demonstrates the errors of mankind and our refusal to learn from our mistakes.

However, the author takes what could be a gloomy story and uses it to demonstrate to us the vital importance that goes way beyond success. He illustrates that inner qualities and being true to one's self our above all the most important in any stage of life. His ability to do this with such poise seasoned with a dash of wittiness makes this entertaining reading as it will quickly convert into the classic it is destined to be.