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Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides

3.83 · rating details · 206,592 ratings · 12,692 reviews

"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 l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."

So begins the breathtaking st...more

Paperback, 529 pages

Published September 16th 2003 by Picador USA (first published 2002)

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Jul 29, 2007

Trina rated it

Shelves: fiction

I got off the bus from Bumbershoot around 1 AM, exhausted. Convinced that even the cars speeding past my window couldn’t keep me from this night’s rest, I opened the door to a stench of exceptional vileness. Not a dead stench, or a spoiled food stench. This was the stench of sewage. From a spot in the center of the living room I surveyed the apartment and discovered the source: the commode and the area around it were covered in yuck. I dialed up the landlord. The exchange went something li...more

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Jul 14, 2007

Peter added it

Don't judge a book by its cover.

I'd seen this book on the shelves of a number of friends and in the arms of a number of travelers, so I decided to pick it up. The title, "Middlesex", suggested English countryside to me. On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quote on the back began "Part Tristram Shanty, part-Ishmael..." So I came to the foolish conclusion that this was some 19th century English seafaring novel. (Typical.)

I couldn't ha...moreDon't judge a book by its cover.

I'd seen this book on the shelves of a number of friends and in the arms of a number of travelers, so I decided to pick it up. The title, "Middlesex", suggested English countryside to me. On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quote on the back began "Part Tristram Shanty, part-Ishmael..." So I came to the foolish conclusion that this was some 19th century English seafaring novel. (Typical.)

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Middlesex is the story of a hermaphrodite who grew up as Calliope but discovered in her adolescence that she is actually more Cal than Calliope. More specifically, Middlesex (the title takes on a new meaning now) is the story of three generations of a Greek family and the incestuous genetic and social history that enables the existence of Cal, who narrates the story.

The novel is epic. It spans nearly a century and traces the Stephanides family from battle-torn Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, across an Atlantic voyage, from the street corners of Detroit, through World War II, and out to the suburban haven of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The novel incorporates details upon details from all different spheres of life, dropping name brands from different time periods and regions and incorporating specialized jargon from a wide range of fields--Jeffrey Eugenides must have done an immense, immense amount of research during the writing process.

And the scope is as broad as the focus is often narrow. Over the course of 20th century, the Stephanides family responds to and participates in political, social, and cultural movements, and through them, we feel not only the sweep of a small Greek enclave, but also the sweep of a nation's growth as it engages Prohibition, World War II, the idealism of the 50s, the revolutions of the 60s and 70s, and more. The story is as much about the conflicts within a country as it is about a family trying to face its secrets, past and present.

Through it all, Cal, as a narrator, is clever and endearing. A story about a hermaphrodite sounds freakish at first, and there are moments in the novel when Cal faces the visceral or fearful reactions that might instinctively rise in anyone. But, from page one, Eugenides clears the air, setting us on a fresh foundation, and we discover a character who faces familiar childhood and adolescent trials and tribulations--we discover the humanity of a character one might otherwise find defined as a monster.

Do I recommend it? Yes. It's a good tale for the modern age.
Would I teach it? Not likely. At 527 pages, it's just too long.
Lasting impression? Epic. I'll remember it for the incredible depth and breadth of knowledge it demonstrates. This novel impresses upon me the amount of research that an author must do to prepare for a serious work.
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Oct 06, 2008

Andrew rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This would have been better as an NPR story or an episode of "This American Life" than a novel. Or maybe if someone other than Eugenides had written it. An interesting idea, and a few engrossing sex scenes (I like the "crocus" and the peep-tank, and the whole long flirtation with The Object drew me in completely), and a nice two pages toward the end when Julie accepts Cal for what he is. But the prose was awful: frequent maneuvers like "And me? That's simple. I was ...moreThis would have been better as an NPR story or an episode of "This American Life" than a novel. Or maybe if someone other than Eugenides had written it. An interesting idea, and a few engrossing sex scenes (I like the "crocus" and the peep-tank, and the whole long flirtation with The Object drew me in completely), and a nice two pages toward the end when Julie accepts Cal for what he is. But the prose was awful: frequent maneuvers like "And me? That's simple. I was . . . " are really unacceptable. And "Sing, Muse, of Greek ladies and their battle against unsightly hair!" is about as funny as poop.

Except for the incest, the long family-history plot was like a mashup of immigrant dramas from cable TV: Greek family barely escapes home country to make it to the United States, where they wander through 20th century history in a dull procession of unmotivated Gumpy forays into Wikipedia that have no effect whatsoever on their character development. (Now we'll shove these characters through Prohibition! mass production! the Detroit race riots! The partition of Cyprus! San Francisco hippies! the tragedy of Michael Dukakis's helmet moment! and . . . the founding of the Nation of Islam!)

The incest part of the story was good in the beginning -- the early love scenes between the grandparents are wonderful -- and then impressively tedious (Desdemona feels guilt! and then . . . she feels guilt again!). The metaphors are embarassingly bad: The hermaphrodite lives on a street named Middlesex, and eventually finds reconciliation of the two sides of herself in Berlin after reunification. Why not have Desdemona live on "I Feel Guilty For Fucking My Brother Boulevard"?

Cal remains completely undefined as a character, except in terms of her understandably tough time figuring out her own sexuality; I couldn't come up with more than one adjective to define her, and "confused" isn't much of a character. Everyone else in the book fails to exist at all. Jimmy Zizmo turns out to be the founder of the Nation of Islam? Eugenides says self-importantly that "you've probably guessed" that -- no! Not only did I not guess it, it doesn't make any sense, logical or emotional, and it's completely uninteresting. Why not have him turn out to be Richard Nixon? Uncle Mike turns out to be a psychopath who extorts his own family? Why? Who cares?

Cal's lack of voice or character is the worst thing: if you write a book about someone who lives in a world that's somehow dramatically different than your reader's -- a world where gender is fluid, undefined -- you should show us that world. Cal has no voice, no face, no identity. What voice there is is completely inconsistent with her behavior -- the current Cal is reticent, shy, depressed, lonely, and retiring; our narrator is open, boisterous, discursive, ironic, omniscient for no particular reason, and irritatingly jokey.

And the book no more has ideas about sexuality than it does about Cal's character. As one reviewer said, the most disappointing thing about the book is it ends up reinforcing stereotyped, dumb ideas about gender (like "Breasts have the same effect on me as on anyone with my testosterone level" -- as if there were no gays). Callie's pursuit of The Object doesn't make her question categories, it just convinces her she's a boy. There is no middle sex here; there's no middle ground; it's more gawking than Tiresias-like insight. (less)

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Sep 14, 2007

Kelly rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Would have given this book two more stars except for one resounding disappointment I can't get past. I thought that one of the most important aspects of the book was entirely skipped over by the author without any explanation.

*Spoiler Alert* It's probably not a spoiler, but what I have to say may alleviate some of the intrigue - you have been warned.

I really, really, really wanted to know why Calliope 'chose' to live life as Cal once she learned that she was a biologi...moreWould have given this book two more stars except for one resounding disappointment I can't get past. I thought that one of the most important aspects of the book was entirely skipped over by the author without any explanation.

*Spoiler Alert* It's probably not a spoiler, but what I have to say may alleviate some of the intrigue - you have been warned.

I really, really, really wanted to know why Calliope 'chose' to live life as Cal once she learned that she was a biological male. It was, arguably, the most important and perhaps only choice she->he had in the entire book, and the author just skips that part. This transitionless transition to living as a male stands in stark comparison to the rest of the book which does a competent job of developing each of the main characters throughout their lives...and for every other seemingly inexplicable action the reader understands the characters enough to know WHY they acted in a certain way.

The Calliope->Cal change is so abrupt in the book, and lacks any of the personal insight that the rest of the book teems with...it's almost like the author got tired of writing by the time the transition comes about (quite late in the book), and he just wanted to be done with it. Perhaps the author didn't expand on the "choice" to live as Cal because his point is supposed to be that it really wasn't a choice. But I would even have liked to know why Calliope didn't think living as Cal was a choice and was instead a biological or personal inevitability...but no aspect of her choice/lack of choice was addressed.

Inappropriate foreshortening aside, I do think that the writing is often quite eloquent. I certainly would have appreciated fewer of the cliche metaphors for change/new beginnings/etc. The author does take the obvious to new heights, however, when he would state for the reader too obtuse to understand that the egg being described actually represents an immigrant beginning life in her new land by ending the paragraph with something like, "...you see she was that egg." (less)

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May 17, 2008

Jason Pettus rated it

· review of another edition

(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 label

Book #15: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

The story in a nutshell:
The tale of "the most famous her...more

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Beth A Jason~a ha, your review helps explain why I read the first 1/3 of this book, got involved reading something else, then let "Middlesex" langu...more
May 22, 2008 06:00am

Susanna Jason, I was completely flummoxed when I finished this book. "The Pulitzer?" I kept saying to myself. "Why?"

I couldn't...more
updated Aug 03, 2008 10:54am

Myth Susanna
As I was reading Middlesex I began to wonder what this struggle would've really been like for a person actually going through the experien...more
Feb 11, 2009 05:07am

Jul 06, 2007

Trevor rated it

"When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine Stark. Luce didn't care about criminally smitten grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets. To a certain extent, I understand. I even agree."
I agree too. This quote comes from page 263 and is really where the story picks up and gets into the subject the book promises--Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. Honestly, while the first 263 pages were inter...more"When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine Stark. Luce didn't care about criminally smitten grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets. To a certain extent, I understand. I even agree."
I agree too. This quote comes from page 263 and is really where the story picks up and gets into the subject the book promises--Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. Honestly, while the first 263 pages were interesting and had some important developing points, it could have been distilled a great deal. Eugenides is a great, fluid writer--very witty. But dang, he's wordy. I guess after reading several books by Cormac McCarthy I'm bound to get distracted by verbosity. I'm not saying I don't like long--my favorite book is The Brothers Karamazov--I just don't like all the superfluous words.
Still, the book is compelling so far. I'm not as driven to read it as I think I should be, but I don't find myself putting it down after every paragraph to check my email either.

UPDATE: I have finished the book. In the end, I felt like it didn't deliver. I see a lot of connections Eugendides is making about identity, but they didn't seem developed. In fact, there were many symbols throughout the book that were very clever but ultimately seemed to be only that--a device used to show cleverness and not to really further the plot. Another problem I had with the book was the fact that Eugenides tells too much about his characters and yet I still feel like it is underdeveloped. For example, he has great characters in mind and some great episodes to show how they feel, but then he simply runs through the story and then tells you how the character felt--I wanted to feel how the characters felt.
I enjoyed two things about the book. First, the Forrest Gump-like trek through American history. There are really some fascinating episodes in this book. And Eugenides does an excellent job ellaborating on them. Sometimes I felt like he should have written an essay on American history rather than this novel. The second thing I enjoyed was Eugenides sly, clever writing. I know that above I said that some things seemed to be there just to showcase the author's wit, but some of those things were really clever and enjoyable. The writing kind of reminded me of Jim Carrey's acting: at moments it was brilliant, hysterical, and spot on; but at other moments it was just too much, needed to be toned down, better controlled.
As I said, this book didn't deliver for me. I liked it because of its promise. The idea is fascinating. However, as talented as Mr. Eugenides is, a little more control would be nice.(less)

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May 28, 2007

Taylor rated it

Recommends it for: everyone with an open mind, and even some of those with closed ones.

Shelves: fiction, favorites, buy, recommended, borrow-ed-or-ing, desert-island-picks

Mr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading Middlesex.

I passed on this book for a long time. I kept picking it up in bookstores and putting it down. I've seen quotes from it everywhere, all of which were beautiful, and kept hearing wonderful things about it from friends. To be perfectly honest, what kept me from picking it up in the subject: a hermaphrodite. I think of myself as someone with an open mind, but the thing is that I just wasn't sure ...moreMr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading Middlesex.

I passed on this book for a long time. I kept picking it up in bookstores and putting it down. I've seen quotes from it everywhere, all of which were beautiful, and kept hearing wonderful things about it from friends. To be perfectly honest, what kept me from picking it up in the subject: a hermaphrodite. I think of myself as someone with an open mind, but the thing is that I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to relate to much in this story. I made a very foolish assumption, and I'm quite embarassed about it.

Middlesex is a slow burner (my new favorite term). It begins with the story of Cal/Calliope's grandparents, which seems unnecessary in the beginning, but which makes more sense with each passing page. The story then passes on to the parents, then Cal.

A couple pages in, Eugenides describes a rather gruesome scene, and this was my signal that this is a no-holds-barred kind of author. He goes there. (This isn't to say that the book is filled with gruesome moments, just that he's not afraid to use them when he must.)

To address the smoking gun, so to speak, yes, the main character is a Hermaphrodite. Though the reader knows it throughout the book, the main character doesn't know until they're older. It seems incredulous, but Eugenides makes it work, and makes this believable. He was smart to do things this way, because I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Calliope to discover the truth. And, most likely, he keeps a lot more not-so-open minded readers this way.

There's a very frank beauty about this book - he doesn't gloss over anything, but despite the many struggles of the three generations, he doesn't feel it necessary to make his reality very bleak, either. Even when the book is at its darkest, most depressing, you're filled with sadness, but also with hope.

The other great thing about Middlesex, aside from its incredible cast of characters is how well it captures society in history - first in Detroit in the '20s (a more bleak picture than '20s of The Great Gatsby), then the '60s. The '20s are focused on the invention of the automobile - the people putting them together as opposed to the people driving them, and the impact that being part of an assembly line and big business had on people, and of course, prohibition. With the '60s, Eugenides tackles race so marvelously - the chapter about the Detroit riots is probably the best in the book, for all of the anxiety and imagery that he evokes. This book is really just as much about middle class America and family ties as it is about sexuality.

Don't make the mistake that I made by continually passing on this book - read it!(less)

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Sep 11, 2007

Jason rated it

If I didn't hate putting books down so much, I never would have found out how thoroughly unimpressive this really is. I almost never have the urge to just stop reading a book, but this book managed it. In fact, there is not another instance in memory (not including books like Ann Coulter that I give disgusted glances at in the store).

Eugenides' writing is verbose, uncontrolled, and surprisingly content-less given its weighty appearances. I actually found the family story more engaging. It wo...more

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May 12, 2008

Stacey rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: audiobook lovers

Recommended to Stacey by: audible.com reviews

Shelves: audio, all-time-favorites, contemporary-fiction, on-my-shelves-hardcovers

I've read quite a few reviews of this book saying that it was patchy in places, or it bogged down in the historical parts, the character not being believable in others, etc.

I have not read the novel, so perhaps this is true. As an audiobook however, it was magnificent. The story was compelling, the history inseparable from the development of Calliope, and the voice of the reader - Kristoffer Tabori - was genius. His character variations made an interesting concept into a fascinating...more

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Apr 13, 2008

Kim rated it

Shelves: contemporary

This book has all the major players....

Incest, war, teenage girl-on-girl experimental sex, deadheads, undescended testes, and a 2 inch penis.

Yep, it took me all of one chapter to realize that Middlesex was referring to something besides a county in England.

Best Part: Answering Maurice's question "What's that about?" then watching him squirm and cross his legs in obvious pain.

Worst Part: Glaring Oprah sticker on the cover telling m...more

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Feb 26, 2008

Martine rated it

Shelves: modern-fiction, north-american, family-drama, glbt, psychological-drama

I'm torn on this book. On the one hand, I loved the story, which is, as another reviewer put it, 'the greatest, most incestuous Greek epic since the Iliad'. On the other hand, I had serious problems with some of the writing. I haven't seen my quibbles mentioned anywhere else, so I guess I'm alone on them. Or am I?

In a nutshell, Middlesex is the story of Cal, a Greek American who was born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl before finally realising he was boy as a teenager. In about ...moreI'm torn on this book. On the one hand, I loved the story, which is, as another reviewer put it, 'the greatest, most incestuous Greek epic since the Iliad'. On the other hand, I had serious problems with some of the writing. I haven't seen my quibbles mentioned anywhere else, so I guess I'm alone on them. Or am I?

In a nutshell, Middlesex is the story of Cal, a Greek American who was born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl before finally realising he was boy as a teenager. In about five hundred occasionally brilliant pages, Cal traces back his family history (which is rife with inbreeding) to see how he came to be the sort of almost-male he is. In so doing, he not only paints a loving picture of the memorable and colourful Stephanides clan, whose men have rather special ways of wooing women, but of a changing world, all the way from the Greek part of early-twentieth-century Turkey through mid-twentieth-century Detroit to post-Wall Berlin. What with its focus on different conflicts in different eras, the book is quite epic in scope. Yet it is also quite personal, with the social and racial conflicts played out in the world at large reflecting the much more private conflict that is going on within Cal. Both the epic and the intimate aspects of the novel are funny, poignant and tragic, and for that Jeffrey Eugenides deserves applause. Lots of it.

But. But. But.

I have to admit to finding Eugenides an awfully inconsistent writer. While he undeniably has a flair for story-telling, he also has a mad tendency to change tenses and perspectives, to the point where it actually quite took me out of the story. I dislike stories which switch back and forth between past tense and present tense within a matter of paragraphs at the best of times; if these stories also come equipped with narrators who constantly switch points of view, I get annoyed. And this is exactly what happens in Middlesex. Not only is Cal an omniscient first-person narrator who shares with the reader details from older relatives' lives which he has no way of knowing, but he also has a maddening tendency to randomly refer to himself in the third person, which results in sudden bursts of 'Calliope this' and 'Calliope that' in what is essentially a first-person narrative. To a certain extent, I can see why Cal would do this, looking back from a distance at a person he used to be but no longer is, but still, I found it annoying, so much so that I occasionally found myself wanting to scream at the narrator to drop all that third-person shit and stick with the first person, for God's sake. I don't like feeling like shouting at narrators, so that's where one star went. The other one I deducted for the weak ending, which felt rather rushed to me after the perfectly lavish set-up. Is it me, or would Middlesex have been a better book with slightly more information on what happened to Cal between the ages of 17 and 41? With an actual, you know, ending and all that?

I'll stop complaining here to end on a positive note. Despite my quibbles, I enjoyed most of Middlesex -- especially the first half, which is superb. I quite like Eugenides' brand of modern mythology, so I think I'll give The Virgin Suicides a shot, too. I rather liked the film, so I'm actually quite surprised I haven't read the book yet...
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Apr 20, 2009

Becky rated it

Recommended to Becky by: Jon

Shelves: 2009, reviewed, tear-jerkers, historical-fiction, lgbtq

This was my first book by Eugenides, and I wasn't sure what to expect really. I expected a coming-of-age story, yes, but not like this.

This book has a little bit of everything. Part memoir, part family tree, part medical case study, part sexuality enlightenment, part love story, part cultural history and identity revolution... Eugenides could have called his book "Baklava" and been perfectly accurate. There are many layers to this story, each one adding their own little bi...moreThis was my first book by Eugenides, and I wasn't sure what to expect really. I expected a coming-of-age story, yes, but not like this.

This book has a little bit of everything. Part memoir, part family tree, part medical case study, part sexuality enlightenment, part love story, part cultural history and identity revolution... Eugenides could have called his book "Baklava" and been perfectly accurate. There are many layers to this story, each one adding their own little bit of deliciousness to the whole. :)

This story was really touching in a "This is my life & I'm just telling my story" kind of way. I didn't feel like Eugenides was trying to plunge his hand into my chest to tug at my heart-strings, but they were tugged nonetheless. At times, especially towards the end of the book, I was literally on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen. When Callie looks herself up in the dictionary, I couldn't help but be heartbroken for her.

I remember being a 14 year old girl and going through adolescence and puberty. It was hard enough without the added anxiety and strain of not knowing who you are. Calliope is one of the best characters I've read in a long time. Even through her fears and uncertainties about herself, she remains true to the essence of who she is underneath and refuses to let others decide her fate for her.

One of my favorite things about this story was the narrative. Eugenides prepares us for this with his first paragraph, stating that Calliope was born twice: once as a baby girl, and then again as a teenage boy. Cal's narrative shifts between first person narrative (when he speaks of himself as male) and third person (when he speaks of Callie as female, and when relating details about the family, their history, etc). I really felt that there was a defining line between Callie and Cal, and that while they ultimately are the same person, they were also two unique people living a single life at different stages.

Cal's omniscient recounting of events was sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always honest and brave. At least it felt that way to me. I really felt for Cal and wanted him to not only be accepted but to be truly loved. He is definitely a character worthy of love in my opinion.

This was a great story. There are some slow moments, but even during these, Eugenides writing carries the story. I would definitely recommend this book. Thank you for recommending this one, Jon!(less)

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Nov 25, 2007

virna rated it

Recommends it for: Oprah fans, Avid readers

Shelves: immigrant, pulitzer, oprah, award-winning, greek, novel, gender-identity

Jeffrey Eugenides uses Calliope as his Muse – according to the Greek mythology, she’s the Muse of epic poetry –, as a narrator of his story. He must be a fan of the Greek myths as the novel’s full of allusion to Homer and the Illiad. The narrator eloquently unfold the story behind Calliope’s transformation, like the Chinese Princess Si Ling-Chi, as Eugenides puts it: upon discovering the unraveling of a silkworm cocoon that fell into her teacup, handing its loose end to her maidservant, who in t...moreJeffrey Eugenides uses Calliope as his Muse – according to the Greek mythology, she’s the Muse of epic poetry –, as a narrator of his story. He must be a fan of the Greek myths as the novel’s full of allusion to Homer and the Illiad. The narrator eloquently unfold the story behind Calliope’s transformation, like the Chinese Princess Si Ling-Chi, as Eugenides puts it: upon discovering the unraveling of a silkworm cocoon that fell into her teacup, handing its loose end to her maidservant, who in turn took the loose end through the Forbidden City, and into the countryside a half mile away before the cocoon ran out. Eugenides breaks his novel into four parts, and retraces the journey of Cal’s grandparents from Asia Minor to America.

The first part belongs to Desdemona and Lefty, retelling their love story. The second begins with their new life in Detroit, when Lefty was unfairly forced to give up his job in the Ford Motor Co. and went to work for his cousin’s husband, Jimmy Zizmo, to help him smuggle liquors from Canada into the country. Calliope enters the story in the third part, being born to Milton and Tessie. On the day of her birth, her grandfather Lefty had a stroke, and incident that brought Desdemona both sadness and relief, as Eugenides writes ‘Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.’ The narrator grew up against the backdrop of the 1967 riot that set her father’s first business, the Zebra Room, into blaze, but ironically brought them up from the ruins as the three insurances that he’s been holding finally paid him up enough money to let him start another business and bought a new house in Middlesex, away from what was left of Detroit. In Middlesex, a house without normal doors and lots of windows, the narrator finally begins to learn about herself, and the opposite sex. In that very house she realized that she’s standing between two opposite poles, male and female, the middle of both sexes, and she’s neither. Milton and Tessie eventually discovered Calliope’s condition of being a hermaphrodite in the final part. The narrator enters his own story intermittently, as Cal or Calliope brought the readers in and out of his present-day time, the present being the time he is forty-one and mulling over his recent meeting with a Japanese-American lady in Berlin, the love of his life after the Obscure Object. Eugenides expertly describes Desdemona's love story as she is also the main character who always appears in almost every chapter, as she holds the key of Cal’s physical condition.

As readers go back to the first chapter, some of the story’s key elements that are mentioned in the beginning can be finally put together into a beautiful story of one’s life journey. It’s no surprise that the writer spent 9 years to finish the novel, and eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for his work in 2002. One of Eugenides’ strength comes from his Greek roots – he freely uses the Greek mythology as a tool to weave his story. He doesn’t leave a room for the slightest gap, every chapter is full to the brim with physical and emotional details about his characters, the story settings and many relevant information. Finally, he never allows his readers to take pity of Cal’s condition, rather he takes them to identify with his characters, because in the end, we are humans after all, regardless of our physical conditions.
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Aug 08, 2007

Erin K rated it

Recommends it for: Not sure

I started reading this book with high hopes because of all the great reviews I had read and heard. Not sure why the rave reviews. I definitely found the book interesting but at the same time disturbing and hard to read at times. The whole incest thing didn't do it for me and it wasn't until the end of the book when the book touched on the scientific explanation of the childs condition did I find it interesting to read. The writer spent way too much time on some of the family history which did no...more

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Jul 31, 2008

Maureen rated it

This Greek family saga, as narrated by a hermaphrodite, has many pages, but I flicked through them easily like so many moistened labia. Moments of tragedy lay concealed within, like undescended testes, but warm humour dominated, swelling forth like a budding penis.

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Mar 20, 2009

Alison rated it

Shelves: rgbookclub

"Why?" she kept crying softly, shaking her head..."Why did you run away, honey?"
"I had to."
"Don't you think it would have been easier just to stay the way you were?"
I lifted my face and looked into my mother's eyes. And I told her: "This is the way I was."

Most people know that Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Middlesex" is the story of a girl who was "born twice"--...more "Why?" she kept crying softly, shaking her head..."Why did you run away, honey?"
"I had to."
"Don't you think it would have been easier just to stay the way you were?"
I lifted my face and looked into my mother's eyes. And I told her: "This is the way I was."

Most people know that Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Middlesex" is the story of a girl who was "born twice"--first as a baby girl and later as a teenage boy. Our narrator was born with 5-alpha reductase deficiency, a genetic mutation leaving some affected individuals with ambiguous genitalia. As we journey with him through his happy childhood, and painful and confusing adolescence, his voice is endearing and his feelings, put to paper, are more familiar and universal than you might think.

Our narrator doesn't get to his own story until more than halfway into the book. The first half takes us back to his grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, as they fall in love against the backdrop of the 1922 war between Greece and Turkey and flee to start a new life in America. Later we learn of his parents, Milton and Tessie, as they grow up and wed during an era of economic recession and race riots in Detroit. The homeplace that they buy and where our narrator spends his childhood is called "Middlesex", which I believe was meant to symbolize more than just a house. Its description is that of a country, a society re-defining its norms...

Though we had ruined it with our colonial furniture, it was still the beacon it was intended to be, a place with few interior walls, divested of the formalities of bourgeois life, a place designed for a new type of human being, who would inhabit a new world. I couldn't help feeling, of course, that the person was me, and all the others like me...

As these three generations gain and lose the "American Dream" time and time again, I was reminded how history seems to repeat itself. Life in suburbia and during a Recession in the 60's...war...strained race relations all sounded familiar, as these are some of the same problems facing modern Americans today. Will we ever evolve past some of these issues? Or will they always come around again, generation after generation?

The real star of this novel is the narrator and his voice--so I guess the true star is the brilliant writer Eugenides for this amazingly-written, endearing family saga. I have read several Pulitzer Prize winners that have left me untouched, however... I wish they could have given him this one twice.

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Jan 30, 2012

Shovelmonkey1 rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: 1001 book readers

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, read-in-2010

Jeffrey Eugenides is another author with whom I was given a blind date via introductions from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. Following the blind date - a little awkward at first but I really liked his style in the end - I have had subsequent dates with The Virgin Suicides and also enjoyed that very much. I won't give you any more detail as that would be too much like a kiss-and-tell and this is Goodreads, not the News of the World.

Middlesex is a trans-continental, trans ...more

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Jul 25, 2008

Christy rated it

I enjoyed reading Middlesex, but I'm not sure it succeeds as a work of literature. As the book went on, it became clear that it was all a buildup to the climactic moment when Cal discovers the genetic truth about himself. In this context, all the secondary plot about the grandparents and the parents felt like an obstruction to the real story. The focus on the previous generations stole the focus from Cal the narrator, and it was the narrator I was interested in. In digging for information ab...moreI enjoyed reading Middlesex, but I'm not sure it succeeds as a work of literature. As the book went on, it became clear that it was all a buildup to the climactic moment when Cal discovers the genetic truth about himself. In this context, all the secondary plot about the grandparents and the parents felt like an obstruction to the real story. The focus on the previous generations stole the focus from Cal the narrator, and it was the narrator I was interested in. In digging for information about Cal, the book teeters on the salacious, teasing the reader with weird scenes in which Cal's condition is nearly discovered but for the intervening hand of chance/fate. It was mildly disappointing to realize that the big payoff in this promising book is supposed to be a detailed description of Cal's genitalia.

As for the role of fate and genes-as-fate, Cal seems to focus on his incestuous heritage to prove the nature side in the nature v. nurture debate, but in the end, it was Cal's choice to change his life as he did. His choice in essence eschews the debate altogether; he abandons the female identity of his childhood but is careful to emphasize that he is far from a typical male. The novel explores the development of an outsider and a modern-day Tiresias, but even this theme is undermined by the sorely underdeveloped "present day" plot line with Julie. The eternal outsider may find companionship after all.

I think the character of Cal would have been better served by more development of his transition in identity and less focus on his grandparents. That is, what happened after Cal went home.

There were definitely little details I enjoyed, such as Cal consistently referring to his brother as only "Chapter Eleven" and to a formative love interest as "the Obscure Object" and "the Object." Little narrative delights like these kept me going even when I was frustrated with the direction of the novel as a whole.

As an aside: I have decided that the use of "wine-dark" as an adjective in modern fiction is an extremely cheap shortcut to seeming Homeric.(less)

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Apr 29, 2008

Ferina rated it

Shelves: fiction

Calliope Stephanides, menjalani kehidupannya selama 14 tahun sebagai seorang perempuan. Ia tidka menyadari ada keanehan dalam dirinya, sampai ketika ia beranjak dewasa, ia menyadari dirinya berbeda dengan teman-teman perempuan lainnya. Di usia dua belas tahun, ia belum mendapatkan menstruasi, berdada rata dan bertubuh lebih kurus dan jangkung. Di atas bibirnya, mulai ditumbuhi rambut tipis. Dan, ia lebih cenderung menyukai teman perempuan dibanding laki-laki. Keluarganya, terutama ibunya, Tessie...moreCalliope Stephanides, menjalani kehidupannya selama 14 tahun sebagai seorang perempuan. Ia tidka menyadari ada keanehan dalam dirinya, sampai ketika ia beranjak dewasa, ia menyadari dirinya berbeda dengan teman-teman perempuan lainnya. Di usia dua belas tahun, ia belum mendapatkan menstruasi, berdada rata dan bertubuh lebih kurus dan jangkung. Di atas bibirnya, mulai ditumbuhi rambut tipis. Dan, ia lebih cenderung menyukai teman perempuan dibanding laki-laki. Keluarganya, terutama ibunya, Tessie Stephanides, juga mulai khawatir mengapa Calliope belum juga datang bulan.

Suatu hari, ia mengalami sebuah kecelakaan, dan dokter yang memeriksa menemukan adanya sebuah keanehan. Calliope pun dibawa ke dokter lain di New York untuk pemeriksaan lebih lanjut. Terungkaplah sebuah fakta bahwa Calliope adalah seorang Hermaphrodite alias berkelamin ganda. Saran Dr. Luce agar Calliope melakukan operasi ternyata ditolak.

Mulailah babak baru dalam kehidupan Calliope sebagai Cal Stephanides.

Buku ini lebih mirip sebuah memoar, sebuah kisah kehidupan seorang Cal Stephanides. Cal menuturkan sejarah keluarganya, awal mula terjainya kelainan genetis yang memungkinkan terjadinya sosok seorang Cal Stephanides.

Sejarah dimulai di sebuah wilayah di Yunani. Desdemona Stephanides tinggal bersama adiknya, Lefty Stephanides. Desdemona benar-benar mengabdikan hidupnya untuk merawat adiknya, sesuai janjinya pada ibunya. Bahkan berulang kali Desdemona mencarikan jodoh untuk adiknya, tapi Lefty ternyata tidak tertarik pada mereka.

Ternyata, tinggal hanya berdua, tidur bersebelahan, menimbulkan keanehan pada diri mereka. Rasa sayang, rasa tertarik bukan lagi semata karena mereka saudara kandung, tapi lebih dari itu. Rasa sayang yang timbul lebih arah rasa terhadap seorang wanita dan laki-laki.

Menjelang pelarian mereka dari Yunani ke Amerika akibat penyerbuan Turki, Lefty melamar Desdemona. Desdemona merima lamaran adiknya. Di kapal yang membawa mereka ke Amerika, Desdemona dan Lefty memainkan scenario sebagai pasangan yang baru saling mengenal dan jatuh cinta dalam di dalam pelayaran itu. Mereka pun menikah di kapal itu.

Di Amerika, mereka tinggal di rumah sepupu mereka, Sourmelina. Tidak ada yang tahu bahwa mereka adalah kakak beradik, kecuali Sourmelina.

Ketika hamil, Desdemona sempat diliputi kekhawatiran akan melahirkan anak-anak yang tidak normal. Tapi, ternyata hal itu tidak terbukti. Milton dan Zoe lahir dengan sehat dan normal. Tapi, kekhawatiran itu timbul lagi, ketika Milton tertarik ada Tessie, anak Sourmelina. Meskipun, Desdemona sudah menjodohkan Tessie dengan Mike, seorang calon pastur, Milton dan Tessie pun akhirnya menikah. Mike pun akhirnya menikah dengan Zoe.

Dari Milton dan Tessie, lahirnya Calliope Stephanides. Menurut ramalan sendok Desdemona, jenis kelamin si jabang bayi adalah laki-laki. Tapi Milton dan Tessie tidak mau percaya begitu saja, karena mereka berdua mendambakan anak perempuan setelah anak laki-laki pertama mereka, Chapter Eleven. Tapi, oleh Dr. Phil, dokter yang menangani persalinan, ditegaskan bahwa bayi itu berjenis kelamin perempuan. Berakhirlah masa kejayaan ramalan sendok Desdemona.

Calliope pun menjalani kehidupan sebagai seorang perempuan. Keanehan di awal masa remaja dianggap sebagai tanda bahwa pertumbuhan Calliope lebih lambat dari teman-temannya.

Dalam novel yang dibagi dalam empat bagian besar ini, Eugenides menjadikan Cal sebagai penutur. Bagian yang unik adalah waktu Cal cerita tentang ‘antrian’ di alam ‘sana’ sebelum akhirnya pemenangnya adalah Chapter Eleven. Bukan hanya itu, Eugenides juga dengan teliti dan sabar menguraikan sejarah selama rentang waktu 50 tahun. Benar-benar sebuah cerita yang menguraikan perjalanan keluarga selama 3 generasi.
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Mar 18, 2009

Bree rated it

Shelves: 2000-2005, fiction

I was halfway through and decided I really couldn't finish this book. I found the writing irritating and I couldn't wrap my head around most of what the narrator was talking about, let alone how it jumped around and he/she would say "but more of that later" or whatever. It just grated on me. I'm sure now that the narrator is actually IN the story it would get better, but I just couldn't handle it anymore...and I gave up.

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Sep 26, 2007

Jessica rated it

Recommends it for: intersex readers who are amused by big quirky ethnic families

People love this book. I could not read this book. I could not get four pages into this book. It just annoyed the living crap out of me.

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Aug 11, 2011

Angus rated it

Shelves: pulitzer-prize, blogged

Disclaimer: This is not a review. This may have spoilers. Read at your own risk. Visit original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

When I first heard of this novel, I thought it would be about town life. I think there is a place called Middlesex. I imagine it is a British suburb, somewhere in the outskirts of England.

I asked my cousin, who was then in Japan, to buy me a copy of this. Why would I ask someone to buy me a book without even knowing what the...more

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Sep 10, 2007

Samantha rated it

Recommends it for: very few people

I have to admit I was sorely disappointed with this book. I expected… well… greatness! It won a Pulitzer for God’s sake! I guess the Pulitzer Prize must be more political than I thought, because I cannot for the life of me understand what about this book’s writing was particularly ground-breaking. Sure, the subject matter is flashy, but I felt that the “epic scope” this novel was trying to achieve fell rather flat. The book's prose was not amazingly poetic, nor was the novel’s construction. I fe...more

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Aug 31, 2007

Lane rated it

I should probably reread this. I should definitely explain the two stars, especially since the first half or so of this book, the sections set before the birth of the "main" character" really engaged me. OK, I'm really tired of the family-secrets-will-out-and-in-really-fucking-unexpected-ways theme...but Eugenides hooked me for a long while and I didn't mind. But the last section of the book, the section that made it "controversial" (yawn) bored and annoyed me. (Real...more

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Aug 26, 2007

Jeff rated it

Recommends it for: People who love to breath.

Okay, seriously: I loved this book. It was big sweeping, heartfelt, funny, sad, it had everything you could want in a book, or hell even a lifetime. I wanted to read it forever and ever (but then none of the other books would get to play).
I’m not kidding when I say, “You should read this book.” And yeah, I’m talking to you, the red head.
I know, it’s not like I’m going out on a limb here. It won the Pulitzer. It won best book of 2002 from The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune,...more

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Oct 13, 2011

Lauren rated it

Recommended to Lauren by: Erin

Shelves: book-club, kindle

I was skeptical about this book at first. I really only read it because it was a book club pick. In fact, 100 pages in if someone would have asked me if I liked it I would have immediately said “nope!” But it grew on me. I became fascinated with Cal’s story intertwined with his family history. We follow a gene mutation in order to describe the narrator’s peculiar and rare condition. Starting at his grandparents on a small island in Greece which continues on to his parents in the then booming cit...more

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Jan 04, 2008

Galen rated it

Although I'm not a compulsive book-finisher, i tried multiple times with this story because a number of friends raved and raved about it. Ultimately I abandoned it. I couldn't stand the premise and felt no sympathy for the characters and their contrived and grotesque incestual predicament. Sometimes a story gets stretched so far out of this world through plot and character manipulation that it loses its last thread of authenticity. this one fell victim.

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Nov 09, 2009

Logan rated it

Shelves: 1001-list, fiction, families_suck

It’s always a bit of a gamble for me to pick up a book that has made the rounds of the awards circuit, especially when it’s a Pulitzer-winning Oprah book. The thing about award-winning novels is that they’re rarely mediocre. I always tend to find myself either absolutely blown away by them or shaking my head in wonder that such a travesty should ever find print, let alone win the Pulitzer or Man Booker (I’m looking at you, Blind Assassin and Line of Beauty). Still, even if I find myself loa...moreIt’s always a bit of a gamble for me to pick up a book that has made the rounds of the awards circuit, especially when it’s a Pulitzer-winning Oprah book. The thing about award-winning novels is that they’re rarely mediocre. I always tend to find myself either absolutely blown away by them or shaking my head in wonder that such a travesty should ever find print, let alone win the Pulitzer or Man Booker (I’m looking at you, Blind Assassin and Line of Beauty). Still, even if I find myself loathing the book, at the very least it has spurred an emotional response, so I find myself returning to this well again and again for reading material.

Fortunately there are books like Middlesex out there, proving that this is not as foolhardy of a game plan as it may sound. In the nearly 8 years since it was first published, I have seen this book’s telltale black and white cover staring up at me again and again from atop pendulous stacks of used copies. I would always look at it for a few minutes, reread the blurb on the back, and then put it back down with a regretful “not today, Eugenides.” If so many people were ditching their copies of it then how good of a read could it be? This was the premise that I labored under for years, until last week when a copy just happened to drop into my hands at the exact moment when I had nothing else to read.

I have never been happier to have run out of books, as it would have likely taken me another eight years to get around to reading this eminently enjoyable book. Part magical realism, part confessional, part coming of age tale, part immigrant story- this book is a beautiful amalgamation of all sorts of literary tropes. Most enjoyable of all though, is the narration of Cal/Calliope. Starting with the incestuous pairing of her paternal grandparents, Cal traces the genealogy of the hermaphroditic genetic mutation that lurks within her family until it finally makes itself known within him when he hits puberty. Following this gene the reader is treated to the Turkish sacking of the Greek metropolis of Smyrna in the last days of WWI, a portrait of Detroit at the beginning of its long industrial history as her grandfather toils within Ford’s sweatshops, preparations for the invasion of the Japanese mainland in WWII, the “police action” of the Korean War, the 1967 race riots that rocked an already imperiled city, and the sexual revolution that helps Calliope come to grips with her odd genetic heritage and begin to live in his true identity, the man Cal.

Always interesting, especially when Eugenides declaims at length about all of the various gender abnormalities that the genetic soup has tossed out through the ages or the ways in which these people have been integrated into their societies. It’s completely fascinating and I find myself wanting to read far more on this subject. My only possible complaint was that the ending seemed rushed. After spending several hundred pages recounting the family history that made possible Cal’s creation, we get to spend hardly any time at all with Cal the character. I wanted to know what happened between Cal and Julie Kikuchi, as well as what happened to Chapter Eleven (Cal’s brother) or the Obscure Object (the nameless first love of Calliope). The book gave detail after detail, but all I wanted was more. By any rationale that makes Middlesex an incredible success and Eugenides an author that I will definitely be following the career of.
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Jun 27, 2008

Jennifer rated it

· review of another edition

I wanted to like this way more than I did. One of those books you read because you've already invested so much time so you might as well finish. On the "good-bad"/"lame-awesome" scatterplot, I put it in the same quadrant as I put it in the "technically good but lame" corner. It was probably a good thing when I misplaced my copy of it for all time. If anyone wants to tell me how it ends, I'd welcome that.

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Dec 20, 2008

kthread rated it

· review of another edition

About a month ago, online buzz surrounded a "gender analyzer" tool designed to determine whether a Web site was written by a man or a woman.

I was reminded of the flurry of indignation and amusement caused by the tool (on my personal site: "We guess http://kthread.com is written by a man (58%), however it's quite gender neutral. Is this correct?") in the review my friend David posted of Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex the other day:

Despite the fact that...more

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About Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer of Greek and Irish extraction.

Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan, of Greek and Irish descent. He attended Grosse Pointe's private University Liggett School. He took his undergraduate degree at Brown University, graduating in 1983. He later earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stanford U...more

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Books by Jeffrey Eugenides

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Hebitonbo No Kisetsu Ni Jisatsushita Gonin Shimai

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Quotes from Middlesex

“Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. ” — 364 people liked it

“I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It's not the best way to live. But it's the way I am.” — 122 people liked it

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