Middlesex in Classics Without All the Class

Jan 08, 2010 James rated it really liked it

Shelves: favourites, generally-general

While very imaginatively written, lyrical even, my interest kept waning, hence my epic reader's block stretching to four-plus months. But the best thing about it was it was very easy to jump back into. Most parts seemed set to ramble on for pages, till the end of times, but that's where it gets its charm, I think. Or I could only be trying to justify the too-long time spent, or wasted, and seeing silver linings where there are none. Still, though: genuinely enjoyed the majority of the book, and ...more

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Sep 02, 2009 Kayla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed, 1001-read

4.5 Stars

Epic is the perfect word to describe this book. Cal is an all-knowing narrator, going into great detail of his grandparents' and parents' lives, which he could not possibly know (having not been present), but you never doubt what he is telling you. You go on the journey with him, from the first appearance of the genetic mutation that cropped up due to his grandparents' incestuous relationship to its culmination in Cal's own body, causing him to be born a hermaphrodite.

Eugenides gives ea 4.5 Stars

Epic is the perfect word to describe this book. Cal is an all-knowing narrator, going into great detail of his grandparents' and parents' lives, which he could not possibly know (having not been present), but you never doubt what he is telling you. You go on the journey with him, from the first appearance of the genetic mutation that cropped up due to his grandparents' incestuous relationship to its culmination in Cal's own body, causing him to be born a hermaphrodite.

Eugenides gives each generation of the Stephanides family their due. The reader gets to know the very interesting stories of Lefty and Desdemona's immigration from their burning village in Greece to America's Motor City. The author gives a grand history of Detroit, the beginnings of car factories and division of labor, and the riots of 1967. I can see why Middlesex is considered a good candidate for the title of Great Amerian Novel. I had never read anything that went into such descriptions of Detroit and its pink nights. Usually, when Detroit crops up as a setting in a book, the author pulls a Forrest Gump, merely naming the city and then leaving the reader with "and that's all I have to say about that." I enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Michigan's largest city.

The book continues slowly through the Stephanides' marriage and the birth of Cal's parents, his father being the son of Lefty and Desdemona while his mother is the daughter of Lefty and Desdemona's cousin, which means (you guessed it) Cal's parents are second cousins. This was the second pairing that defined Cal's fate. Of course, no one knew about Cal's intersexuality until he reached puberty, so for quite some time Cal was raised as Calliope.

Once Cal reached age thirteen or so, I started to get impatient for Cal to finally make the big discovery that the book was leading to, and this is the reason for the half-star deduction. The story really started to drag for me around page 350 or so. Cal began to count down to the day when he would be going to the doctor's appointment to check things out and I would start getting excited, thinking We're finally going to get there in this next section, only to be roadblocked with Cal describing each day of that last week in detail, taking up precious pages. But once everything was revealed, I was again hooked to the story and I couldn't read fast enough. I found Cal's psychological growth going from female to male fascinating, and I ended the book very satisfied.
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Jun 05, 2010 Kay Prime rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbt, 1001, fiction, fiction-historical, the-halves, gender-politics

This is the story of an immigrant Greek family over three generations with our narrator as the end product. It is important to understand that going into the book. I came for the spectacle of hermaphroditism only to realize that Cal is a person with a history and not a spectacle. He just so happens to have the added difficulty of intersex as part of that history.

Once I stopped expecting the book to be about a hermaphrodite, I really got a chance to enjoy the story. I appreciate that it is writte ...more

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