Middlesex (2002)

Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003)

This book is not about what you think it's about. It's the story of a family. The first half is mostly about Desdemona and Lefty migrating to America and starting a new life.

If you're in this to read about a man who was born a girl, the struggles of gender identity, ostracization, bullying, sexual development... This is not the book you're looking for. It's very disappointing in that area. You wanted to see real, authentic LGBTQIA feelings? Too bad; this is fiction. I thought it was an autobiography when I started it...

But the writing style makes up for that. Cal is a beautiful writer. I'm not usually a fan of descriptions -get on with the story, God damn it!- but he is a master of them. He could write about a bare wall and I'd enjoy it. (He didn't.)

Still, I can't rate this book. 4 stars if I hadn't been looking for something else; the ending was ridiculous. 2 stars because I feel like largely ignoring the intersex struggle was insulting. Not 3 stars.

Great in parts, had difficulty reading it in any great lengths. ( )

I'm really glad I stuck with the book. My interest in it would rise and fall as I'd read it. I'd absorb 50 pages without moving, and then not pick it up for 3 days. It was strange that it would grab my interest and lose my interest several times over. But overall - I really enjoyed it. ( )

I read this book years ago, and I know that I loved it because it made the cut when I did a huge book purge back in 2012 (as in I got rid of over 1500 books…many went to good homes and the rest to the local library, from which I’m sure I probably purchased some of the same books back cause you know…my mind doesn’t always work right!lol).

So when it was listed as part of the January book for an Instagram group read, I was happy to pull it off my shelf.

….and it was just as good as I remembered, with the added bonus of understanding certain things better or more thoroughly.

SPOILERS AHEAD:
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For instance, I totally missed that the title of “Middlesex” was also the name of the street, the house, as well as a play on the word intersex. The story grabs you right from the beginning in one of the strongest beginning sentences I’ve ever read: “I was born twice, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” - The protagonist, Cal, goes on to list all the other things he is, which establishes right away that Cal is more than just his sex. I loved that!

This story is about family, history, immigration, the secrets that we carry and the burden of carrying them, the choices that we make, right or wrong, and their repercussions. It is also about reinventing ourselves and living our own lives, which can be at odds with societal convections or taboos. - There is room for ambiguity not just in bodies but in beliefs and conventions.
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I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative style used to provide this epic span of different generations, and it amazes me how well the author was able to incorporate cultural, political and social issues in a way that allows you to understand the outside culture as well as the “inside” family culture, as we move along the story.

As to the word “hermaphrodite,” I wanted to know why the author had used it as opposed to “intersex” and since I wasn’t sure as to when the terminology changed, I looked up a Q&A the author did in 2007, (Oprah ) in which he answers the question of why he was not more sensitive to terminology. The author explained that he uses the word “intersex” when making reference to actual living persons, but that Middlesex came out of the Greek mythology story of Hermaphroditus, which he retold in a modern way. Therefore, when he uses the word “hermaphrodite,” he is making reference to the literary character. Reference is also made to The Intersex Society of North America co-opting the word “hermaphrodite” as a way to reclaim it which is why Cal/narrator also uses the word. He states, “It’s paradoxical: Cal can say “hermaphrodite” but I can’t. or Shouldn’t.” He goes one to say that people should be aware of the proper term, which was becoming more widely known at the time the book was released. The author’s use of Greek mythology is evident from the first page when he makes reference to Tiresias (blind prophet in Hades that helps Odysseus see the danger up head in his journey).

I’m glad I had this opportunity to reread this wonderful book! And glad that I didn’t hate it this second time around (it happens…sometimes I outgrow certain books…reading is subjective and situational after all)
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Some quotes I liked:

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”
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“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.
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“There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.”
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“Just like ice, lives crack, too. Personalities. Identities.”
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“The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It’s a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison.”
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“It’s often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, “St ( )