Book-It 'o9! Book #17
More of the Fifty Books Challenge! This was a library request.
Title: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Details: Copyright 2002, Picador
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out ot the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Why I Wanted to Read It: This turned up on a search for LGBT fiction and I remembered hearing good things about this book. Also, it won a Pulitzer so it has to be at least fairly good, right?
How I Liked It: When I realized Jeffrey Eugenides also authored The Virgin Suicides, my hopes sank a bit as I loathed that book. That was for naught since this is an amazing story, worthy of every gushing review that fills the first three pages. This book reminded me of Fall of Your Knees, one of my favorite books of all time and another cross-generational novel with exquisite prose and throughout characterization of its cast.
The book is told in the voice of Cal who without gimmick also speaks through his ancestors and family members with the same "talking aside" tone that Fall on Your Knees has. A much tougher feat for Middlesex since Cal's not only a character, he's also a framing device, but it works.
One of the customer reviews about this book I read beforehand stuck in my mind. "This book is about an intrasexual the way The Odyssey is about a guy and a boat." And that's true, to an extent. Cal's gender(s) are a small part of the book and all of the book at the same time. The delicate and fastidious plot structure allows for both realities.
Simply put, an elegant, engaging story (stories) with memorable characters and much food for thought.
Notable: There are a great number of themes to ponder in Eugenides's story of immigration and Americanization and the significance of gender reassignment into that, but I'm going to just note but one of the examples of the type of descriptive prose that peppers the book.
Of Callie's first kiss, practicing kissing with a neighbor girl a year older:
"The necessary special effects are not in my possession, but what I'd like for you to imagine is Clementine's white face coming close to mine, her sleepy eyes closing, her medicine-sweet lips puckering up, and all the other sounds of the world going silent-- the rustling of our dresses, her mother counting leg lifts downstairs, the airplane outside making an exclamation mark in the sky-- all silent, as Clementine's highly educated, eight-year-old lips met mine.
And then, somewhere below this, my heart reacting. Not a thump exactly. Not even a leap. But a kind of swish, like a frog kicking off from a muddy bank. My heart, that amphibian, moving that moment between two elements: one, excitement; the other, fear." (pages 264 and 265)
Beautifully written book, all 529 pages worth.
Title: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Details: Copyright 2002, Picador
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out ot the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Why I Wanted to Read It: This turned up on a search for LGBT fiction and I remembered hearing good things about this book. Also, it won a Pulitzer so it has to be at least fairly good, right?
How I Liked It: When I realized Jeffrey Eugenides also authored The Virgin Suicides, my hopes sank a bit as I loathed that book. That was for naught since this is an amazing story, worthy of every gushing review that fills the first three pages. This book reminded me of Fall of Your Knees, one of my favorite books of all time and another cross-generational novel with exquisite prose and throughout characterization of its cast.
The book is told in the voice of Cal who without gimmick also speaks through his ancestors and family members with the same "talking aside" tone that Fall on Your Knees has. A much tougher feat for Middlesex since Cal's not only a character, he's also a framing device, but it works.
One of the customer reviews about this book I read beforehand stuck in my mind. "This book is about an intrasexual the way The Odyssey is about a guy and a boat." And that's true, to an extent. Cal's gender(s) are a small part of the book and all of the book at the same time. The delicate and fastidious plot structure allows for both realities.
Simply put, an elegant, engaging story (stories) with memorable characters and much food for thought.
Notable: There are a great number of themes to ponder in Eugenides's story of immigration and Americanization and the significance of gender reassignment into that, but I'm going to just note but one of the examples of the type of descriptive prose that peppers the book.
Of Callie's first kiss, practicing kissing with a neighbor girl a year older:
"The necessary special effects are not in my possession, but what I'd like for you to imagine is Clementine's white face coming close to mine, her sleepy eyes closing, her medicine-sweet lips puckering up, and all the other sounds of the world going silent-- the rustling of our dresses, her mother counting leg lifts downstairs, the airplane outside making an exclamation mark in the sky-- all silent, as Clementine's highly educated, eight-year-old lips met mine.
And then, somewhere below this, my heart reacting. Not a thump exactly. Not even a leap. But a kind of swish, like a frog kicking off from a muddy bank. My heart, that amphibian, moving that moment between two elements: one, excitement; the other, fear." (pages 264 and 265)
Beautifully written book, all 529 pages worth.