Middlesex
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Middlesex - why can't I enjoy this book?
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Kelly
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Jul 09, 2008 07:50AM
I have tried to read this book twice and I agree, I just can't get into it. So many people love this book. I'm going to try again soon.
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I'm reading this now and it just doesn't work for me, I can understand that it's inventive and imaginative but there seems to be a way in which the general tone is not a searching voiceasking questions about sexuality and generations and history but rather, sort of supercilious and surface abd often it doesn't feel like it explores these issues with emotional depth. That alienates me a lot. I think it's extraordinary in its way of entertaining and keeping that energy going and I really admire the author's talent to do that, but since it also was directed toward some very large questions, and even started off with a reference to Homer--I think it didn't offer that deeper level or meet my expectations. I would have had lower expectations and enjoyed it if not for the hype, though.
ok, so it took me four years, but i got through it. finally. glad i was able to finish. couldn't hunker down, read slowly and totally absorb this book -- it had to be a quick read. second half, with the main character attempting to figure out an identity, was more compelling for me (similar to alexandra above).
I loved the narrator's voice and was hooked on the whole funny/tragic family saga (kind of reminded me of Angela's Ashes), from the get-go, so when it got to the more graphic inter- sex and gender issues, I felt I knew the narrator really well, and saw it all coming so it wasn't as uncomfortable as you might think.
The part set in the present tense was okay, but what really drew me in was the part set in Greece and Turkey - which is odd, because I normally dislike books that suddenly take you into the past. The author's terrific voice got me over that snag and then I thoroughly enjoyed it.Thanks to those who recommended Kavalier and Klay; it's on my "to read" list now.
I loved this book. I devoured it. Perhaps it is because I could relate to the character. No, I am not a hermaphrodite. I am a lesbian. There are so many different types of sexuality. I learned as I read. But it was interesting to read the history of the family along with the history of culture. I loved the jumping back and forth in time. I also know a few greeks so that grabbed me as well.There was adventure, body loathing, sexuality, coming of age.
I will most likely read it again.
This is not a true story.
This is not an easy story to read. I also liked it for the author's willingness to explore a topic that is surrounded by taboos in our culture. Parents and children in this situation have a full spectrum of emotions for which we have few outlets. I learned so much about my fellow travelers, and appreciate having my outlook broadened.
i like the historical references in it. i also like how the author ties events from the beginning to events happening later in the book on a consistant basis.
There is a passage in which Eugenides, speaking of Dukakis, say that the American people were not ready to elect a man with three vowels in his last name. Leaving out Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Harrison, Van Buren, Buchannan, and sometimes Kennedy. Roosevelt has four. It's a quibbling point: we know what he means -- the country wasn't ready for an "ethnic" name, or one that subliminally suggested feces. But, the little lapses of intellect he indulges in for the sake of light wit are indicative of a sort of shoddiness in the novel's level of insight in general. Its literary veneer peels right off. Granted, it is a sophisticated, or at least morally confused, tale. The fine middle pages make the rest of the novel seem uneven, even silly. A brilliant novel could have been written about the childhood and adolescence of a hermaphrodite in Grosse Pointe. An interesting novel could have been written about the Greek Immigrant experience in Detroit in the 2oth Century. A bizarre short story could have been written about an alternate history in which the Nation of Islam was founded by a creepy Greek Bootlegger. But slapping them all together in one huge "ambitious" novel is just sloppy. Eugenides can bring us into the sensuous world of the old-money lakehouse. His evocation of other environments is thin. And yet the book was widely praised and won presitgious awards. I am forced to surmise that the timely literary treatment of edgy, naughty themes such as the arbitrariness of gender, incest, and underage sex, much of it gleefully graphic, is responsible for the novel's popularity. I certainly hope people were not impressed by its low-wattage exploration of race relations, (complete with a little girl befriending a street corner agitator). This is what has become of the Post Modern novel: its fun to go beyond good and evil.
Guy, what makes this a great book is not the "edgy, naughty themes" -- they are not edgy or naughty-- they are interesting and insightful. I feel that your review of this book actually describes your review. It shows a lapse of intellect.
Val, how can a theme be insightful in and of itself? The way a theme is treated could be insightful, but Eugenides treatment of gender is not.
Guy, First, I think you're note to Val about themes depends on your definition of the term. My definition of theme has developed into "the position taken by the author on the literary work's subject, or topic." This is a definition derived, through a long line of intellectual ancestry, from Aristotle. In that context, a theme CAN be insightful.
I feel that you're trying to make your opinion about insight into a broader "truth" that isn't really a truth at all.
I found Eugenides's insight into gender as related to family and society to be a fascinating commentary tracing social changes over the course of the 20th century. Sorry that you didn't find it to work that way for you, but please don't try to tell those of us who enjoyed the book for elements other than "edgy, naughty themes" -- you know, not everyone thinks like you -- that we don't know what were talking about. I thought that his environments -- Smyrna and the area surrounding it, Detroit at different stages of its 20th century history, San Francisco during a transitional time in that city's history; and even Cal's parents' home -- were all described with enough detail that they are still memorable to me months after reading the novel. Its tale of a race riot in Detroit, especially, gave me a better picture of that time and place than have many books. I recognize the book's depiction of both Detroit and San Francisco from my time in those cities.
Fortunately, your overconfident opinions haven't ruined my memories of a strong novel.
Michael, leaving tones of confidence or over-confidence out of the discussion, I think that this nearly universally praised novel has serious flaws that its fans overlook or simply forgive, and people who don't like the novel don't care enough about to really discuss -- people who don't like novels with this kind of popularity usually just get out of the way. In the in interests of a good conversation, I have engaged. I propose that in Middlesex a talented writer indulges in cuteness and fails to achieve a truly great novel. Serious criticism for decades now, from Luce Irigaray to Judith Butler has taken dead aim at gender with profound consequences. This novel has nothing to do with that. It is not the revolution. It is the t-shirt with Che Guevara's face on it.
But one does not have to be interested in the politics and psychology the novel sensationalizes to be disappointed. The novel's "description" of San Francisco is a good place to start. In terms of a fully realized environment, he doesn't even describe the park where our young protagonist was homeless and hungry, where a mugging and sexual assault take place. We are told there are large bushes, and lots of kooky people he didn't see in Detroit. The only way to recognize anything about the city would be to recognize what the back room of a peep show looked like in the seventies.
This novel doesn't really address huge issues, it decorates itself with huge issues. The Smyrna passages are an excellent example. Cormac McCarthy can write about a genocidal massacre, because he respects that genocidal massacres tear a hole in the flimsy world of fashion and style -- that they threaten the possibility of art. Eugenides' description of the massacre reads like a walk through a house of horrors at the fair. The episode ends with an evocation of laughable British stereotypes, conjured only to decorate the novel with the issue of the inhumanity of Imperialism. It sticks a post-imperialist button on its lapel. Decisions like that, and the novel is full of them, are bewildering. And damaging, because by the end of the novel, the novel has decorated itself with so much ideological flair, it comes off as either confused or tacky.
The way the novel deals with race is the Elephant in the room no one wants to deal with. The fact that he portrays the riot at all is taken as a great service we should all be grateful for. I beg to differ. Once again, the indulgence in cuteness is supposed to cover for the ultimate emptiness of the novel. The darling little girl who rides her bike to go find daddy behind a tank is not an image for the ages. It is an image from a children's book. A photograph of a Chinese student standing in front of a tank in an image for the ages. The only real conclusion to draw from Eugenides' description of the riot is that black revolutionaries and the federal government had a war and Greek Immigrants were inconvenienced. How are we supposed to take that, especially taking into consideration the continued upward trajectory of the Greek family?
The title of this discussion was "Why can't I enjoy this novel?" And I felt compelled to answer. I would invite you to review your memories.
What an interesting discussion. I'll just jump in and say that Eugenides is a powerful storyteller and there is great writing in Middlesex. A literary achievement, no doubt.What Eugenides does so well in the novel is write about the relationships between people. The secret courtship of Desdemona and Lefty, and Cal’s sweet, sweaty sexual awakening with The Object stayed with me for a long time after I finished the novel. But Guy’s criticism that Middlesex “doesn’t really address huge issues, it decorates itself with huge issues” is insightful, pinpointing for me why the novel fails to achieve true literary importance.
While Eugenides is a master at crafting interpersonal relationships, the relationships of individuals to history and their environment is flimsy. The historical backdrops are like fantastic stage sets--colorful and pretty but more or less two-dimensional and hardly sturdy enough to stand up to a strong gust of wind or any close scrutiny.
Perhaps this is a conscious stylistic decision. If memory serves, Cal likens himself to the great Greek poets, and a Greek epic, while historical, is less concerned with historical truths than emotional or universal ones. History serves as a device to tell the hero’s story and a vehicle for poetry and beautiful language. History operates similarly in Middlesex, but for me this detracted from the beautiful storytelling. A light touch is one thing but levity and genocide and levity and race riots do not lend themselves to emotional truths (at least not meaningful ones) or universal truths.
Amanda, Hard to say whether or not a light touch that combines genocide and race riots can or cannot lead to emotional truth. I think it can. I think humans have handled emotional truths throughout history with levity as a way of dealing with them and in literature, the darkness can be more compelling with a lighter tone offered as contrast.
I think one has to remember that this is "an autobiography" (yes, I know it is fiction, but we are pretending the protagonist is writing a memoir or autobiography). Even if writing as an adult, what the protagonist saw or experienced at age 7, 11, 14, etc., is the subject matter. The child's experience of the race riots was not through political or social eyes, it was through child eyes. I've come across several real memoirs where the child of 14 is philosophizing about deep issues through the adult head of the teller, and I have found it extremely jarring. Moreover, even as an adult reviewing either the socio-political issues of his/her home country or the gender-political issues of his/herself, the protagonist (aside from one rather rare characteristic) is just an average human being, raised in an average semi-urban American environment. He/she is not educated as an historian, doctor or psychologist. Were he/she to speak as such, it would be totally out of character. Does this do a disservice to the socio/political/gender questions touched upon? Perhaps. But the author wrote THIS book -- a fictional memoir of an essentially average American person. I'm sure he would not begrudge anyone who chooses to write the other book that many of you seem to want this one to be, but I don't think he had any desire to write it himself.
Yes, Jeanie--I agree. It would be jarring. This story told through the eyes of this child growing up is what makes this story for me.
Personally, I love it! I can't seem to put it down! For me, it's the wide range of history, the issues with his sexuality and how he explains what caused it, the confusion with his body and the discovery of sexual preference which led him to rethink who he might be. The way he had to reinvent himself in order to deal with his body and survive. I think it's a wonderful book that touches on a lot of issues with intersexed people and I most definitely love the way he swept through almost 100 years worth of history to get to his current life.Personally, I have to read this for a class, but really it's not a problem. I've had to read other books that have been a total drag for me, but this book is wonderful. If it hadn't been that I had 3 other classes to read and study for, I would've been done with it already.
I am reading it for my book club right now and I also can't really get into the book!
I read this book earlier in the year and for the life of me couldn't understand why so many people ravingly loved it. While passages are absolutely brilliant, the novel was on the whole uneven, and the ending much too abrupt. I do applaud Eugenides' daring. This was by far his biggest, boldest book, a sweeping history of the Greek experience in 20th-century America.But I think that, like with most things in this day and age, there is a bandwagon effect. Reviewers are blown away by anything that isn't straight up drab commercial writing, especially from a writer they have embraced. I can't speak for all those regular readers who loved it. I certainly respected the book, but do think it is overrated.
I tried SO hard to get into the story, but I just found it, well, boring. Too many details and I just couldn't get vested in the book. Maybe I will try again in the future.I also could not read more than 50 pages of Kav & Clay, so maybe I am an idiot!
I did, and they are verified.
Kavalier and Clay took me a second read as well -- and i was already a Chabon lover, but couldn't get through. Then, a couple of years later, I surged through, and found it to be rich, humane, and witty.Liked it more than Middlesex, btw, although I did love Middlesex's ending and its set pieces in San Francisco, the resort, and Detroit.
Took FOREVER to get through this novel! I forced myself to finish but I didn't care for it at all.
The entire issue of whether gender identity is physical or cultural or both was intriguing and suspenseful. How was this going to play out? What was Cal? Who was Cal? How would he be accepted by his culturally traditional/conservative family? How cultural/gender stereotypes blind and limit us? And, ultimately, how will we confront our worst fears?This was one of the best books I read this year.
Amen! I'm in on this conversation a little late :) but man, did I NOT enjoy this book. Felt patronized more than once. Did, however, appreciate some of the Detroit history/descriptions...the rioting scenes particularly. I guess I'll give the author that. And P/S did anyone want to barf at how desperately the book attempted to make incest into a love story? Come on. No dice.
I love the atypical characters in this book. If you follow the journey of the matriarch of the family from her incentous relationship with her brother too her histrionic reaction after his death, I believe you get a decent view of the range of mental health issues that may come up following having 2 children with your sibling. Euginedes always does a great job of writing the anti-family which when you think about most of had but we don't want to talk about.
teri wrote: "Ok, I'm on my second go-round with Middlesex, determined to read it because so many people I know have enjoyed it. First time I quit after first few chapters. This time I'm 2/3 through and it jus..."I gave it 125 pages and I still couldn't get into it, so I finally stopped reading it. Both my mother and my sister loved it, and I thought "what's wrong with me, why can't I like this book?" But I just could not get into it. I was bored to tears and reading those 125 pages was just painful. I didn't like the setting, the characters, and I so wanted to like it- the plot looked interesting.
I guess there are some people who like it, and those that don't and that's okay. There are plenty of other great books out there that I've loved and others hated. I guess it's just a matter of what interests the reader!
teri wrote: "Ok, I'm on my second go-round with Middlesex, determined to read it because so many people I know have enjoyed it. First time I quit after first few chapters. This time I'm 2/3 through and it jus..."this is one of those books that yo have to get through the part of the book tou start to get caught up in his life and it gets better and you then find yourself dying to find out how it ends. stick ith it it will get better good luck
this is shocking to me! One of my top five favorite books ever, just goes to show, some things are not for everyone. Shame since this is a very well written book, IMHO. So convincing in fact, I went and looked up the author after reading because I thought it was a loosely based autobiography. (It's not). LOL.
I forced myself to read this. I didn't like it, either
For those of you who can't get into reading Middlesex, try the audio version. I thoroughly enjoyed it but think I would have struggled with reading it.
I read this book for a book discussion group. I had to force myself to read up to the last 15 pages of the book. I had to skip a lot also. I would not recommend this book at all.
I did like this book. It was a slow read and a book that really needed to be read and not sped through. I think the minute details given by the author help to really put a vivid picture in my head. The way it was written in first person but written Omni presently about two generation before the narrator was even born was very interesting. I'm still left believing that the author must be or personally know an intersex person. It was just written so well and was so believable....and when Oprah had the author on her show he would not answer the question if he was intersex. Glad I read this one.
craige wrote: "What I am trying to understand is how someone could NOT be totally enthralled by this book. I was hooked from the very first sentence. "I feel the same way,Eugenedes does such an amazing job at telling the story but in a non in your face way about the subject.Amazing book.
I loved Middlesex, mostly because I thought Cal/liope was so very well portrayed. While I certainly haven't had a gender identification issue, I think it is more about everyone who feels she doesn't fit in. And that is pretty much all of us at one time or another.Still, no one else in my reading circle liked, or maybe even finished, the book.
And I expected to like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay but just didn't care for it.
Different tastes -- it's a good thing there are so many books to choose.
His sex didn't matter to me. The history of the story and the background in Detroit was great. His sex was a byproduct and nothing else.
I read the book a couple of years ago, but I remember really liking it. I wasn't sure I would, but the sweep of history really caught me up in it. I would definitely recommend it to other people. I liked the characters, but I really bought into the story; it seemed very 'real' to me.
teri wrote: "Ok, I'm on my second go-round with Middlesex, determined to read it because so many people I know have enjoyed it. First time I quit after first few chapters. This time I'm 2/3 through and it jus..."I am so glad I am not the only one that had a hard time with this book. I really couldn't get into it.
"his sex didn't matter to me?" The mixed/intergender sex was the whole point of the book. The story of how a girl became a boy at 14 was fascinating, and transcended all the other sometimes irrelevant exposition.
It's very odd that some people just don't seem to recognise what a great work of literature this book is. To those people I say this: stick to James Patterson.
Iain wrote: "It's very odd that some people just don't seem to recognise what a great work of literature this book is. To those people I say this: stick to James Patterson."While I really liked this book, I don't think that it means everyone should, and those who don't like it should "stick to James Patterson." I've read some literature that is considered great and that I just didn't care for. And probably some of the people who didn't care for this book loved some of the ones I didn't. Live and let live - we all love reading or we wouldn't be here, and we all have different tastes.
Deana wrote: "I'll tell you what worked for me. I liked the book because I was so curious about his life. Because the story is true, I've had a lot of questions about human sexuality. I think being born straight..."I am glad to see I'm not the only one who couldn't get into as I lay dying". I have tried 2-3 times to read it and each time put it down. you are right the chemistry just wasn't there. no point in continuing to force it. great insight
I would have to agree! I was so excited about reading it because I had heard so many great things and found myself to be bored and uninterested. I did read the whole book but was glad when it was over. I must be missing something!
I read this book years ago, but if I remember correctly, wasn't there a history of sexual identity problems in the family history? This is the author's reason ,in part, for going back to the grandmother's experiences in Greece.
I think one measure of a great book is when it polarizes. People in this stream seem to either love or hate Middlesex, but nothing in between. The same thing occurs with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- some people think it's the greatest innovation in thrillers, others get bored with all the tedious detail. Every book is a new discovery.Doing Max Vinyl
Just to clarify--this book is a great study of human sexuality and intersex conditions, but it IS FICTION. It's told in a first person autobiography viewpoint, which did seem confusing to me at first, but it's because Eugenides gives the character a great voice...Given his ethnic background you have to wonder whether he knew people with this syndrome or just thought it was a fascinating idea.
I think the problem is that we're all very invested in the main character but most of the beginning has hardly anything to do with him.Honestly, just read it without expectations and try to sympathize and relate to his parents. It's well written and the you can clearly see how one generation affects the next.
I wasn't a really big fan of the book either on my first read through.
Also, I wouldn't really read this for knowledge about or to learn anything about human sexuality. Eugenides just used it to emphasize sexuality as a theme in his story.
There are plenty of books out there if that is what you're interested in.
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