Book Rec

[annundriel]

This evening I finished reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Both Dr. Berry and Natasha recommended it to me and I am so glad I finally got around to reading it. I would have read it sooner, but with all of the books I'm assigned for classes, this one was a little too close to that sort of thing to pull me in during the school year. Pleasure reading calls for the fluffier things.

For me this is one of those books that should be read by everyone. Or at least a majority of people. It deals with the kind of topic that I think more people need to be made aware or and learn to accept. Unlike Herculine Barbin where I couldn't really like the protagonist, I found myself really liking Callie/Cal. In HB it felt like there was something of a disconnect between the two sides of Herculine, but with Middlesex the character simply was. I could read it going back and forth between forty-something Cal and pre-teen Callie and see exactly how one had become the other. "My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood. In most ways I remained the person I'd always been" (520).

I probably have other, more intelligent things to say about the book, but at the moment I'm mostly left with that sort of sigh inducing feeling that I get whenever I finish anything really good. And this one certainly had a lot to think about.

Some questions remain, though. Like, what's with the brother being called Chapter Eleven? Did I miss something?

See there? I wanted to write "her brother" but I hesitated. I think that's because the majority of the book is Callie growing up, even though it's told from grown Cal's POV. And Callie was raised a little girl, so "her." This is something else that this book accomplishes that the true accounts of Herculine Barbin did not for me. HB is obviously a girl's story told from an adult man's POV. Callie and Cal just are. That's what I was trying to get at with the disconnect-thing above. I've got no better way to articulate it. At least at the moment.

Also, boy was I glad every time Julie returned. Yea.

Comments

[olivelavonne.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you liked it! I want to read it again because I'm sure I missed some things. I was really confused when they called the brother Chapter Eleven. I have no idea what they were refering to, if it had been some sort of reference or something. I also like that Julie kept coming back, but the end kind of made me sad becuase Cal questions whether this he's the last step for her. Like he's been the last step for others.

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

It was an excellent read and I really did just love Callie/Cal, which was maybe the biggest surprise in the whole thing for me. I did a google search for "chapter eleven, "greek," and "middlesex" and it looks like no one knows why he's called that. Although there is a small discussion on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/104-6860719-5935936?ie=UTF8&cdForum=&cdPage=1&cdItems=3&asin=0312422156&store=&cdThread=Tx2NMMT95GQ7ICT) that his refers to the Chapter 11 you have to file for when you go bankrupt (and he does bankrupt the family business). Hmm. Someone also mentioned that his birth occurs in chapter eleven. I think there's a good chance with the bankrupt-thing, mostly because I read a (professional) review that says that the meaning of his name can be infered and him running the business into the ground is the only thing hinted to about him. Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_(novel)) Wikipedia mentions both.

I like Julie and went back to the final scene between her and Cal. She doesn't come right out and say that he's the last stop for her. She just says that the possibility occured to her, which I think can be read either way. It did strike me as a little sad, though, and it still does. But the more I think about it, the more I also see it as a very honest and adult answer that goes with the way the rest of Cal's life, the rest of the book, has been presented. And I can appreciate that. Even if I do like my unambiguous, full-on happy endings.

I'm a little confused, though. Has Cal been the last stop for others? I know Julie has been, but I kept getting the feeling that Cal pulled away from people before they had a chance to pull away from him. Which makes it sound more like he wasn't going to let himself be any kind of stop. Or something. Does that make sense?