Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club)
May 31, 2008
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Customer Review: A confused hermaphrodite within a confused family
“Squinting in the dim light, my grandmother looked down to see the front of her tunic visibly fluttering; and in that instant, as she recognized the insurrection inside her, Desdemona became what she’d remain for the rest of her life: a sick person imprisoned in a healthy body” (pg. 20).
“Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we’ve all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds” (pg. 95).
“But there was something else I wanted to mention about those babies. Something impossible to see with the naked eye. Look closer. There. That’s right:
One mutation apiece” (pg. 125).
“Though he’d never been religious, he realized now that he’d always believed in the soul, in a force of personality that survived death. But as his mind continued to waver, to short-circuit, he finally arrived at the cold-eyed conclusion, so at odds with his youthful cheerfulness, that the brain was just an organ like any other and that when it failed he would be no more” (pg. 263).
Customer Review: Detailed and Interesting Novel
Middlesex is about a young hermaphrodite and his change from one sexuality, to another. This book jumps around telling stories from three generations of this Greek-American family. Because Jeffrey Eugenides writes about a rarely talked about subject, the reader receives some shocking details and interesting facts that the reader would have never thought of before. Throughout the entire book there are three main ideas being discussed, genetics, relationships, and sexual identity.
This book was really enjoyable. I had a lot of trouble taking breaks from reading this book. I always wanted to know what happened next. Hearing from other people about the book, as well as reading the back of this book, I figured it would be about Calliope and her transformation. Although for more than the first half of the book I found myself reading the history of this Greek-American family, their travel from Europe to America, their ideas of the great American dream and their struggles to live it. Although, throughout the first half of the novel, I always found myself yearning to know how Calliope felt and to hear about her full story. The reason I liked this book so much is because of the way the author pulls the reader into the book and really puts the reader into the lives of the characters. I liked being able to feel as though I was in the room with these people. Jeffrey Eugenides writes in so much detail I can just see myself being in the characters’ shoes.
Jeffrey Eugenides builds up the story before he even tells it. Such as towards the beginning of the book Jeffrey writes “When this story goes out into the world, I may become the most famous hermaphrodite in history.” This way of writing makes you feel confident in finishing the book as well as convinces you to keep reading because there always seems to be something better ahead you don’t know about yet. Another thing Jeffrey Eugenides does is, write from the perspective of a Naïve Narrator and therefore when reading this book you are ignorant of what is going on. Then something comes as a big surprise and it pulls you in and makes you want to read more.
I would definitely recommend this book to others. Not only because it is such a page turner, but because it is such a beautifully written book, full of exciting details and insightful metaphors. This book I believe can be really enjoyable to many and educational as well. This book is a perfect example of unique writing and it really gives you a different perspective on other authors’ writing styles.
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