This is a book about transition.Transition from child to adult to parent and grandparent.From native to immigrant.From brother and sister to husband and wife.From rural dweller to urbanite.From modest affluence to poverty and up again.From loving language to losing the power of speech.From geek to hippie.From war through peace to civil unrest.From belief to unbelief.From rescued to rescuer.From moral probity to corruption and crime.Oh, and one character transitions from female to male.The last of those is the book's USP, but don't let that fool you: it's no more limited to those with niche interests in intersex conditions than it's limited to those of Greek heritage. It is an unusual story, but with universal themes, told by a wonderfully engaging, lyrical, narrator.Few of us fit neatly into binary categories. We all go through many transitions in our lives; the final one is "only another kind of emigration". This book speaks to everyone, not just those like Cal's family who "have always had a knack for self-transformation".PlotThe family originally raised silkworms, so metamorphosis and long threads are at the heart of their lives as well as the story. No fear of spoilers: the key aspects are summarised in the opening paragraphs, starting with: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl... and then again, as a teenage boy." The rest of the book brings two strands together: Cal's grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, fleeing the Turks in 1922 as siblings, and arriving in the US as husband and wife, and how that meant Cal ended up with a recessive intersex condition, and is now telling his story. He sometimes addresses the reader directly (shout outs to deus ex machina, Checkov's gun etc).In many respects, it is a conventional sweeping family drama, of the ups and downs of the American Dream: building (and rebuilding) businesses against the backdrop of the Vietnam war and civil rights movement, but with an extra dose of teen angst about puberty (or lack thereof). However, the final few chapters strike an oddly different tone. Octopussy's Garden is partly to hammer home the parallels with Greek mythology (and echo a passage in the middle where Cal muses on the transformations of puberty, using sea creatures as an analogy), but the final intrigue and chase felt very off-key, compared with the rest of the book.There is also "an innate female circularity to the story", perhaps because Greeks believe "that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you began." This is compounded by some reversal (like Amis's execrable "Time's Arrow"): in old age, Lefty's mind and memories go into reverse, and in an early section, Cal describes his birth like a film on rewind.Destiny: The Known and UnknownCal is omniscient, not just when he remembers things he wouldn't be able to recall (including being a foetus), but also in terms of how much he knows about other people's inner thoughts and private actions. On a few occasions, it feels a little weird (the erotic significance of the grandmother's corset, for instance), but it's how he makes the more extraordinary aspects of the plot credible: he has already conjured believable characters the reader cares about. Nevertheless, the lack of knowledge often displayed is staggering - yet just about plausible. The most significant examples are that Desdemona and Lefty get away with their relationship, and that no one realises Calliope (as he originally is) is not a girl. There are others, though, such as teenage fumblings and more, at which point Cal "clearly understood that I wasn't a girl but something in between", though the boy involved did not.Some of the ignorance is cultivated. When Desdemona and Lefty fake a courtship on the boat, "Lefty never discouraged any speculation. He seized the opportunity of transatlantic travel to reinvent himself... Aware that whatever happened now would become the truth... Playing out this imaginary flirtation... they began to believe it... it wasn't other travellers they were trying to convince; it was themselves."Forgetting also matters: "Everything about Middlesex [the house] spoke of forgetting and everything about Desdemona made plain the inescapability of forgetting."There are echoes of Greek mythology throughout, which gives a certain weight and tone to how Cal tells it. For instance, "An infinite number of possible selves crowded the threshold" as Cal's parents prepare to conceive him, and it's no coincidence that his childhood church was the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, and that they later move to Middlesex Boulevard. It also creates an additional layer of foreshadowing. Cal's father is conceived after his parents see a play about a hybrid monster, and at a significant medical appointment about Cal, Milton (Cal's father) wears traditional Tragedy and Comedy masks as cufflinks: which way will it go?SexSexual identity is key. Desdemona is obsessed with predicting the sex of unborn children, and Cal himself was only conceived because his parents really wanted a girl (they already had a son) and believed they had found a way to improve the odds of that. He was born at the women's hospital and "It was all around me from the beginning, the weight of female suffering, with its biblical justification and vanishing acts." Nothing unusual was noticed by the elderly doctor, so "Five minutes old, and already the themes of my life - chance and sex - announced themselves."There is relatively little about Cal's adaptation to living as a man (though there is a sweet sideline in learning how to date women, the perils of what to tell them when etc). Most of the story leads up to that realization: the agonies of not developing when her friends do, then growing oddly tall and awkward, struggling with infatuation with girls etc. However, there are glimpses of the adult issues: "I'm not androgynous... when Calliope surfaces, she does so like a childhood speech impediment... It's a little like being possessed. Callie rises up inside me, wearing my skin like a loose robe... But then, just as suddenly, she is leaving, shrinking and melting away inside me". Cal is currently in Berlin and "This once-divided city reminds me of myself." A childhood trip to Cyprus was cancelled by annexation "Cyprus was being cut in half... like all the other places in the world that were no longer one thing or the other."It is incest that causes Cal's condition, but there is no rancour in the telling of the story, perhaps because it's not just Desdemona and Lefty. Other cousins married each other (Cal's parents are cousins, conceived on the same day, who grew up together), and even some couples who are not related by blood have a rather incestuous aspect: a much older husband who treats his wife - in some ways - like a daughter; an engaged couple who split, only for the spurned man to marry the sister of her new boyfriend; one sibling suggesting another experiment with masturbation; a first sexual encounter with a best friend's brother, followed by intimacy with the friend. But none of it's salacious. A quiet irony is that the English test at Ellis Island is about eunuchs. DesdeomonaCal's grandmother is central to the book. In many ways they have very contrasting lives, but there are surprising parallels too. After an initial coldness, there is a special bond between them: Desdemona disapproved of Milton and Tessie marrying, of trying to choose their sex of the baby, and was then upset when her prediction of a boy was wrong. However, she was quickly won over, at which point, Cal "gave Desdemona back her original sin".She had been an innocent village girl, surprised by developments of her own body as well as her heart (and that of her brother). Her "body was a constant embarrassment to her. It was always announcing itself in ways she didn't want to sanction...[her] body was still a stranger to its owner", which applies just as much to Cal. Similarly, just as Desdemona had to reinvent herself as wife instead of sister, and forge an identity in a new country, Callie becomes Cal, "Like a stroke victim [as Lefty was], I was having to learn all the most simple skills" and "I was like an immigrant" to the world of men. Diagnosis and Treatment: What Determines Gender?"From my birth when they went undetected, to my baptism where they upstaged the priest, to my troubled adolescence when they didn't do much of anything and then did everything at once, my genitals have been the most significant thing that ever happened to me."Gender is not always clearcut, "determined by a variety of influences: chromosomal sex; gonadal sex; hormones; internal genital structures; external genitals; and, most important, the sex of rearing." The last is the belief of the doctor, who saw it as "like a native tongue... imprinted in the brain during childhood." Cal, raised as a girl, proves otherwise.Cal's father looks to medicine to "fix" her problem, and both parents react differently: "Milton heard the words that were there. He heard 'treatment' and 'effective'. Tessie, on the other hand, heard the words that weren't there. The doctor hadn't said my name... He hadn't said 'daughter' either. He didn't use any pronouns." Cal is left "poised between the print of genetics and the White Out of surgery." But "we're all made up of many parts."Controversy: Appropriateness and SensitivitySome question Eugenides' right to write a book like this. He is Greek-American, but does not have any intersex condition and is not a trans person. Furthermore, Cal (and his doctors) uses the term "hermaphrodite", which many find offensive when applied to people.As a straight cis woman, with no medical background, I guess I am not really in a position to defend against such criticisms. Nevertheless, I think those who actually read it would find it hard to take offence at the sensitive and insightful way this aspect is portrayed. As for the H word, I expect it's what doctors in the 1960s would have used and there are still places where 5-Alpha-Reductase Deficiency is described in such terms. Eugenides has said: "The story of Hermaphroditus, the beautiful son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is one I retell, in modern guise, in two different sections of the book." and "I'm referring not to a person or a group of people but to a literary character." (From http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/M...)For me, one of the bigger issues is the focus of mid-teen Cal's desires, "The Obscure Object". Calling a girl or woman an object can't be good, can it? Yet it doesn't come across as objectifying in the usual sense. It's more a way of preserving anonymity and distance, reflecting her special, idolised, position in Cal's life. More troubling is the the issue of consent. Minor spoiler follows:If one parter is apparently asleep but enjoying things, and the pattern is repeated over many nights, is that OK? As a plain question, I'd say not, but the way it's described, I'm inclined to sit firmly on the fence. Another tricky aspect is the exploitation (or not) of sex workers; even if it's dressed up as empowerment, I'm not convinced it is. Chapter ElevenCal's brother is only ever referred to as Chapter Eleven (a US statute relating to business bankruptcy); we never learn his real name. This is different from some other characters who are referred to by a nickname, but whose real names are stated.Quotes* "His shortness had a charitable aspect to it."* "A sick person imprisoned in a healthy body."* "She'd spend a decade in bed trying with vitality to die."* "You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by their face. Immigration ended that. next... footwear. Globalization ended that."* "Sparks fly across the city, inseminating every place they land with a germ of fire."* "Motorcars parked like giant beetles... smokestacks rose everywhere, cannons bombarding the atmosphere... stacks in regimental rows or all alone puffing meditatively away."* The Ford factory, "that controlled Vesuvius of chutes, tubes, ladders, catwalks, fire, and smoke known, like a plague or a monarch, only by a color: 'The Rouge'."* African-American area of Detroit in the 50s, "The gloom of front porches and apartments without electricity seeped out into the streets and the thundercloud of poverty... directed attention... toward... forlorn, shadowless objects."* Joining the Nation of Islam, "Women exchange the maids' uniforms of subservience for the white chadors of emancipation."* "A group of boys whose main bond was their unpopularity."* "There is no evidence against genetic determinism more persuasive than the children of the rich."* "In the cedar swamp, verticality wasn't an essential property of trees... everywhere the grey skeletons of trees."* Tranquillizers provide "a kind of viewing platform from which she could observe her anxiety."* "San Francisco, that cold, identity-cleansing mist."Apparently German is bad for conversation because the verb is at the end of the sentence, which means you can't interrupt (wouldn't that make it good?)!.............................................Review from 2008Pulitzer prize winning story of a Greek-American hermaphrodite! Evokes sympathy for the most unlikely things (incest) and plausibly documents Callie/Cal's coming to terms with growing up and then discovering her/his true nature. When telling the family history, Cal sometimes uses the first person, and sometimes her/his name at the time, paralleling her/his feelings of empathy or detachment. Although close to her/his family in some ways, s/he more often refers to them by name (Milton, Tessie) than relationship (father, mother). Takes a slightly unexpected turn towards the end.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the labelBook #15: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)The story in a nutshell:The tale of "the most famous hermaphrodite in history," Middlesex is the second and latest novel by Greek-American Midwesterner Jeffrey Eugenides, his first being the cult hit (and eventual Sophia Coppola movie) The Virgin Suicides. And indeed, both of these things about Eugenides should be noted in this case, because the book is not just about a hermaphrodite who is "discovered" by a pop psychologist at the height of the "let it all hang out" 1970s (hence being the most "famous" hermaphrodite in history), but a Greek-American hermaphrodite who grew up just outside of Detroit, Michigan, one who grew up as a normal girl and never suspected anything different about herself when younger, due to an aging pediatrician her family was too loyal to stop going to during Calliope/Cal's childhood. As such, then, the vast majority of the book is not about Cal at all, but rather the two generations of Greeks and then Greek-Americans who led her/him to the place where she/he now is; from Cal's grandparents who just happened to be brother and sister as well, a fact conveniently hidden by the two of them during their rushed emigration to America during the Greece/Turkey border wars of the 1920s, to Cal's parents as well, who happen to be cousins themselves and who grew up as best friends in Detroit in the 1940s and '50s. After tackling the adulthoods of both these generations, then, and all the Forrest Gumpesque historical/narrative coincidences that happen in their lives (Detroit race riots! Turk invasions!), Eugenides finally gets around to telling Cal's unique story, and of the way she eventually morphed into a he during her/his tumultuous puberty in '70s San Francisco.The argument for it being a classic:Well, you can't argue with results, Middlesex's fans say; this did win the 2002 Pulitzer Freaking Prize, after all, considered by many to be the most prestigious literary award on the planet, not to mention the more important honor of being picked a few years later for the Blessed and Glorious Oprah's Book Club Hallowed Be Her Name Amen. And it's easy to see why once you read the book, its fans say -- because Eugenides has a naturally clear yet engaging writing style, telling funny and sad stories that many people can relate to but always in a highly original way. The signs are clear that this will eventually be considered a classic anyway, fans claim, so we might as well start treating it like one now.The argument against:Now, there's a much different argument to be spelled out by this book's critics; they'll claim that Middlesex is actually two novels mashed together, with it being obvious that Eugenides started by writing a tight, inventive, very delightful 150-page novel about the hermaphrodite main character him/herself, currently serving as the last 150 pages of this 550-page book. Ah, but then someone like Eugenides' agent or publicist must've said something like, "Jeff, baby, we can't sell this as a potential Pulitzer winner if it's only 150 pages! And hey, don't you know how hot quirky epic novels about the immigrant experience are these days? So why don't you, I don't know, tack another 400 pages onto the beginning of this, 400 pages that have absolutely nothing to do with your original novel but is instead a sitcom-worthy look at the utterly stereotypical lives of the generations that came before the hermaphrodite, a story so hackneyed and obvious that we might as well retitle the book My Big Fat Greek Film-Rights Paycheck? Yeah, that's the ticket!" And thus do you end up with this mishmash of a trainwreck, the critics say, something not quite a clever magical-realism tale for the hipsters and not quite a heartwarming family tale for the Oprah mouthbreathers, that only won the Pulitzer in the first place because of the political correctness of the Millennial years.My verdict:So first let me admit that I had no idea this book had been written in 2002, until I sat down to actually read it; there's been so many amazing things said about it in the last few years, after all, I had mistakenly assumed that it was 40 or 50 years old at this point, a mistake I won't be repeating in the future. And indeed, this is why those who love "classics" lists love them with such an intensity, and why the most important criterion for all these lists seems to be whether the book has stood the test of time; because just to use today's book as an example, in this case the critics are right, with it hard to tell if this book didn't get the accolades it did simply because the academic community in the late 1990s and early 2000s was searching so desperately at the time for weighty family sagas about the immigrant experience, written by people of color with immigrant backgrounds who just happened to have academic cred (which Eugenides has -- he's a literature professor at Princeton, just like our old friend Joyce Carol Oates).In 50 years, will people look back on books like this one and sadly shake their heads, asking each other, "What were all those PC freaks at the turn of the century thinking, anyway?" It's hard to answer a question like that right now, a mere half a decade since the book came out in the first place (although I have a strong suspicion what the answer will eventually be); and this is why books that are less than 30 or 40 years old generally are not considered for such classics lists, because it's simply impossible to gauge ahead of time how well they will stand up over the decades. It's why I'm giving Middlesex today a definitive "no" to the question of whether it's a classic, and even warning readers that it's not a very good novel in general either, especially for a Pulitzer winner. A real disappointment today, probably my biggest since starting this essay series back in January.Is it a classic? No
What do You think about Middlesex (2003)?
Middlesex has been stacked in a pile of books I like to refer to as my "Jumanji" books. The two main child characters in the film Jumanji begin a creepy, larger-than-life board game that results in the "Little Man Tate" boy disappearing, and the the young girl running away in horror, putting an abrupt end to the game. Though stowed away in the attic soon after the occurrence and forgotten, a distant jungle drum beat still emanates from the board game, forever beckoning that someone continue the game, and finish what was started. That pretty much sums up my avoidance dance with this amazingly beautiful book. I first began this audio book in 2007, and got so carried away in the language and pace of the narrative, that I knew I wanted to dedicate more time and attention to it, for fear of missing any details. I returned the book to the library and bought a physical copy from my local used book store. Since then, Middlesex has sat in that pile of "Jumanji" books, forever beckoning me to finish what I started. Sure it's made it's way into my purse a few times, and followed by a few false starts, but nothing lasting. Even the cajoling from well meaning friends in that "I can't believe you haven't read that yet!" voice didn't help. So finally, after 7 years, I broke down and bought the audio book and downloaded it to my phone last week, so that I could take it and the Stephanides family with me everywhere. What a journey we've had! "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." So begins this sweeping family saga of three generations of Calliope/Cal's family beginning in Asia Minor on through to Detroit, and finally ending in Berlin spanning the 1920s to present. Through this historical narrative, we learn about the Stephanides family and their dark family secret. Told in a sort of whimsical voice, with Woody Allenesque aside interruptions, it's hard not to get swept up in the story and totally lose yourself, or to find yourself laughing out loud, or rolling your eyes incredulously. I can easily believe that this book took Eugenides 9 years to finish. It is such an epic read, and each sentence packs a sensual punch. There are a handful of books that have left me this happy and disoriented...also incredibly sad to turn the last page.It's worth noting that the narrator, Kristoffer Tabori, is one of the best voice actors I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. How good is he, you may ask? Audible.com only has a handful of weird books for which he is credited on. The selection seems to be limited to children's horror stories, funky sci-fi, and self-help books. Oh well, that's dedication. I hope the Tales from Lovecraft Middle School books are worth it, because guess who'll be listening to them here shortly. As for the rest of my "Jumanji" books? I'm hoping to tackle a few more this year. The Time Traveler's Wife, Cold Mountain, Into the Woods, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are at the top of that pile. I can already hear you, dear friend. "You haven't read those yet? Whatsamatterwithya"? I know! I'm hopeful.
—Eve
For some unfathomable reason, I decided to start working Pulitzer Prize winning novels into my regular reading. I'd already read several, and it just seems like a good idea. Middlesex wasn't exactly what I expected. Heck, I'm not really sure what I expected. What I knew was that the protagonist was a girl who discovered that she was really a boy at the age of 14. What I didn't expect was a warm, loving, often funny family saga. Jeffrey Eugenides quite clearly has a fondness for his Greek heritage and treats his characters with a great deal of affection. Middlesex reminded me a lot of The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. While it's not as zany as Irving's work, it has that same affectionate quirkiness. It's hard not to like the characters and feel sympathy for them even when they're doing the wrong thing. I thought Eugenides' use of a first-person omniscient narrator was probably the most daring aspect of the book. For some reason, the incest, the sexuality and the gender confusion weren't in the least exploitative or titillating. I came away feeling like I understood what it must really be like to be a man who was raised as a girl. I felt I understood the Greek immigrant experience. I loved the back-drop of twentieth-century Detroit and how the setting was as much a character as the people. I felt like Lefty, Desdemona, Milton, Tessie, Chapter Eleven and Callie were my family and I loved them like family, quirks and all. This was definitely worth reading.
—Sandi
What a big pile of everything this is!I like books like Middlesex, one's that stretch over generations, capturing historic moments in time from different perspectives and encapsulating an era. But sometimes they can be too busy, and Middlesex is toooo damn busy.Part of the problem is that the transgender struggles of the main character are plenty of story to work with, so there's no need to tie in an immigration from the motherland tale or set it against the 1960s Detroit riots as a background. All that extra makes this great book too fussy. Certainly a setting is needed. But there's backdrop settings and then there's settings with curtains, drapes, murals, and suddenly it's smothering the bloody scene!Having said that, Middlesex is still a fun, intriguing read. Though perhaps it's not the "instant classic" it's been made out to be. Frankly, I'm surprised it won the Pulitzer. But read it and you'll probably enjoy it. Don't read it and you'll get on just fine.
—Jason Koivu
