Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Book Reviews of Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Don't let the subject matter deter you
Summary: 5 Stars
When I heard about the subject matter of the novel "Middlesex", I have to admit that it sounded weird to me and the subject matter alone almost put me off from reading the book.
I soon realized that I was uncomfortable as the dickens about reading a book about an hermaphrodite. Questioning myself even further, I asked myself how a 529 page book about an hermaphrodite won the Pulitzer Prize and had been chosen by Oprah for her book club. But now that I have read the book, I have discovered that this work is an accurate study of genetics in story book form AND an epic of Greek proportions and grandeur set not only in ancient Greece, Turkey, but in Detroit no less!
Detroit now has a favorite son in Jeffrey Eugenides.
The book is a great read, a classic with beautiful poetic verse. It is funny, poignant, touching, compassionate, educational and imaginative. It stretches your understanding of subjects that maybe you were at first not very comfortable hearing about; let alone read. The book is laid out as a modern Greek epic in the style of the ancient epics reminiscent of the Iliad and the Odyssey. You will learn more than you ever thought you would about ancient Greek mythology.
Along the way you will meet the endearing Stephanides clan and follow their tragic/comedic path from Turkey/Greece to America (settling in of all places Detroit). This family chronicle will introduce you to their history, their genealogy, their genetic make-up, their family ties, their fears of immigration and their assimilation into the American way of life. You will meet Desdemona, Lefty, Father Mike, Zoe, Sourmelina, Milton, Tessie, Chapter Eleven and finally Calliope Helen Stephanides.
From the very first line of the novel, "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkable smogless Detroit day in January 1960, and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974,"..the reader suspects that he is in for an interesting adventure of epic proportions.
The discoveries that Calliope makes along the way in uncovering "her" true self are told with great delicacy by a master storyteller. And the startling choices she makes before Cal finds "his" way home again take the reader on a breathtaking journey which you will not forget.
The Los Angeles Times summed up what this author has been able to do with this uncomfortable subject matter, "Eugenides has taken the greatest mystery of all-What are we, exactly, and where do we come from?---and crafted a story that manages to be both illuminating and transcendent."
All that I can say is, "Don't miss this book." It was well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize and it will keep you up at night turning the pages. You will be hooked by each hidden detail of the Stephanides past.
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
Bentley/2007
Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: very interesting story
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a story about three generations of the Stephanides family. Told by a very interesting person Cal Stephanides.
The first generation is Cal's grandmother Desdemona Stephanides. She lives with her brother Lefty in a small town in Turkey that was traditionally Greek. She raises silk worms and he sells the silk in the nearby town. Their parents were killed earlier and they try to fight an attraction that they have to each other. When the Turks invade they decide to go to Smyrna then on to Athens and America to live with their cousin Lina. While in Smyrna they get stuck when the Turks set fire to the city. During this time Lefty asked Desdemona to marry him if they survive. They are able to get out by pretending that they are French and manage to get on a ship. On the ship they pretend that they do not know each other and eventually get married. They arrive in Detroit to live with their cousin Lina and her husband Jimmy Zizmo. While they live with the Zizmo's Lefty works for Henry Ford, gets drown into Jimmy's bootlegging schemes and both Lina and Desdemona get pregnant on the same night, and soon after the birth of Lina's baby daughter Jimmy disappears.
For the first couple years of Milton Stephanides and Theodora (Tessie) Zizmo's lives they are raised together in the same house. Then Lina and Tessie move nearby. As they grow up they are still close (Tessie calls Milton's sister Zoe her daughter at first and spends a lot of time with the family growing up) Then when they are teenagers they find themselves attracted to each other. Milton plays an instrument and uses it to seduce Tessie even though she is involved with Mike, a minister in training at the local Greek Orthodox seminary. Tessie and Mike get engaged and Milt is not happy, so he enlists in the navy during WWII. While Milt is serving Tessie realizes that she loves him and shortly afterward they get married.
Calliope Helen Stephanides was born about 15 years after "her" parents marriage and five years after th birth of her brother Chapter Eleven. She thinks herself a normal girl besides the practice kissing with a friend when she was in Elementary School and the girl she befriends whom she calls "The Object" as in the object of her affections. They spend a lot of time together the summer they are 14, and despite loosing her virginity to the objects brother commence on an affair. Shortly afterwards Callie is injured and the doctors find something fascinating. This leads Milt, Tessie and Callie to Dr. Lucas in NYC. What they find there is that Calliope is genetically a male, but is missing something on the fifth chromosome that makes him look like a female. After some miss understandings Callie becomes Cal and runs away leading to some very interesting adventures and experiences for the family.
All this is told by a 41 year old Cal, who is involved in the foreign service and lives in current day Germany.
A very well written interesting story that catches you from the very first sentence.
Book Review: amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I first picked up this book b/c of it sounded "eh" and I've heard nothing but amazing reviews about it. Also b/c it took place in none other than Detroit. Who if you know me at all, I LOVE Detroit, and even more so since I've moved away from home.
With moving away from Detroit this year which is everything I know and everyone I know is there I found this book very comforting in the fact of he was very descriptive of Monroe St.(which is where bars are at now and where I went to go drink) or talk about a few things that are true. The pink nights with the sky, though it's not as pink as he said it is now maybe it was then but not as pink or now that i think about it, it is a little. And just how he said everything about Detroit was true and in place and there and I can see it in my mind. To me, it was like a big warm blanket as I read on as he talked about the city. Talking about Greek town, though I know it's not the same as the years that he's talking in the book, still was just like s flash of warm memories and just being there and that feeling came back to me.
At first I really didn't like the book. It took a promise to Rhian that I would try it one more time, after 3 times of not being able to get into the book. I really wanted to enjoy it too b/c of well I bought the book(I hate buying new books and not liking them) and b/c of it seems really amazing but it was just Blah. At first it is kinda blah and a lot of family history that goes on but now that I read the whole book I think that it is really needed. Or at least to get a feel for the family and just lets you really get to know them.
I thought and felt that this was very personal and added to the greatness of the book.
As well as I also loved that it was kinda like gloves off totally honest and open about how she felt, about The Object and all. I mean this is a topic that I think everyone wonders about but no one really talks about it. I was talking about it to a co-worker about how would you feel going through this, what would your emotions be when finding this all out and this book just kinda opens that doorway and opens the door way to peoples minds to letting people really letting them be who they are which this shows that we have no control over. Which I've always said and highly agree with.
Although I was kinda confused of why she called her older brother "Chapter Eleven" through out the whole book and had to Google who he even was b/c I kept getting confused. At first I honestly thought he was the dog b/c Eugenides didn't say anything like any acts that only humans would do so I thought he was the dog. ha ha.
I honestly think this is a MUST read and everyone who reads it will love it. They may be in a state of "Wow, this book is really shocking/honest/ not my style" but at least try it.
Book Review: Amazing, Unique Epic
Summary: 5 Stars
Middlesex is the story of the Greek Stephanides family. Narrated by Calliope (later Cal due to a genetic hermaphroditic condition), the story is a discovery of the reasons why Calliope becomes Cal, but is also the story of one family's journey. The narrative is omniscient and starts with Cal's grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, who live in Turkey and are also brother and sister. Greek-Turkish wars force them to leave and negate reasons for not marrying each other. They emigrate to America and make their way to Detroit, where they meet up with a cousin. Desdemona and Lefty eventually have children and work on becoming settled in the New World. One of their children, Milton, marries another cousin, Tessie. The product of this union, with their recessive genetic flaws, is Calliope. At birth, Calliope appears to be a girl and is raised as one. After the family narrative more or less concludes, the focus shifts to Calliope, her childhood, and her teenage years, when her self-discovery takes place and we come full circle back to Desdemona and Lefty's incestuous coupling.
This book is wonderful and rich and I had a lot of trouble putting it down. I loved Cal's voice and the approach to the narrative, omniscient and sometimes speaking to the reader. Jeffrey Eugenides gives a complete picture of each character, even minor characters, so that the reader understands their motivations, flaws, emotions. Although the reader knows from very early on that Calliope becomes Cal (in other words, the end result), the journey is the real jewel here. I read voraciously just to find out what path we would take to get to the conclusion. One also gets a strong sense of place in this book, as the places the characters inhabit are almost characters themselves. From Desdemona's cocoonery in Turkey to the Stephanides home, Middlesex, in Detroit to the city of Detroit itself, you can almost smell, taste, and hear the settings. Eugenides also weaves a multitude of historical events into the story, including the Greek-Turkish wars, Prohibition, World War II, and the Detroit Riots. From characters to time to place, this is an extremely tightly wrought, fascinating book.
My only problem with the book was very small. Cal's brother is called Chapter Eleven throughout the book and the reason for the strange nickname is never explained. Cal explains why he calls a female friend with whom he is in love "the Obscure Object," but never explains why he calls his brother Chapter Eleven. I thought it may have to do with running his father's business, but that wasn't it, and the character didn't seem significantly bankrupt in any way to me, if it was a metaphor. I hope I didn't miss something; I found that to be the only flaw in this beautiful, riveting story.
Book Review: A Beautifully Woven Tale of Raw Emotion
Summary: 5 Stars
When I read the summary of Middlesex and saw that it was about hermaphrodites, I was not disgusted, but more creeped. The thought of this genetic condition was not very enticing. Even though I knew what a hermaphrodite was, I still couldn't shake the feeling that it was a new concept. This is probably because it is something (at least in my life) that is not much thought about. We hear about homosexuality between men and women, but hermaphrodites were a single-sided fact in my mind that represented a kind of horror to me.
At the start of the book, Cal (main character and narrator) immediately unveils his secret. While a guilty curiosity seeps into your mind, Cal pulls away and throws you into the past. And so the story is set. With small interruptions of the "present", Cal weaves the story of his family. He explains that only by tracing his genes can you gather a full idea of how inescapable his secret was.
The book then proceeds to go from the childhood of Cal's grandparents and escalates to the near present day.
By the time you reach the end, you feel that you know the characters as well as you know your family. You laugh with them and you feel their sadness. When I finished the book, my idea of hermaphrodites was completely changed. I had sympathy for them and now when I think about my past views, I am ashamed of how I had considered the condition.
If you are seriously not wanting to read it because of the idea of hermaphrodites, you should reconsider. The book is more of a real-life kind of story about a Greek immigrant couple that moves into Detroit and their lineage. Hermaphroditism is played very well and is not a dominant player in the book. Cal mentions that emtions should not be one word because any single word for an emotion is too broad. For instance, happiness can be felt in many ways and there is many different ways of feeling happiness. His idea of a better described emotion would be something like "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants." Much like this, hermaphroditism is just the means to express to the reader the raw emotions that accompany the confusion of your unknown self and the fragile hope of someday finding yourself.
The writing in the book is extremely amazing. Cal's brief moments of philosophy are sprinkled throughout the book and are actually very good. The words seem to tap into emotion because Eugenides has been able to bring forth sadness and laughter (there are actually some funny parts, and I never thought a book could make me laugh) and sympathy.
I really hope this book becomes a classic because it deserves to be read by everyone. Not just the people living today, but future generations.