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A review by qwu
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
5.0
Wow. Just wow.
It always makes me somewhat sad to read stories that go across generations. They often start off in a funny, cute way, but then the characters grow up/old, bad things happen, and a kind of sadness sinks in. Throughout reading Middlesex, I was constantly reminded of Midnight's Children, but we shall leave that for another day.
You can't really pinpoint the story to Calliope only, because a large part of it is also about Calliope's grandparents and parents, which I actually like better. I like to close the book for a while, close my eyes and lean back in my chair thinking about how Lefty is transformed into the quiet, good-natured old man, how Milton is transformed into a successful business owner, how Calliope is transformed into a man. I like to think about all of that. Most of the time I fail to recollect when, and how it exactly happened, but it just did anyway. And I love the book even more for that.
It is exactly like our own lives. We change, we transform and we thrive. Or not. We don't necessarily go through changes that drastic like from a woman/man to man/woman, but we do experience transformations at some point in our own ways. Think about it. How fascinating is that.
And I'd hate to be a self-centered weirdo who only thinks about her own problems. This quote from the book literally brought me into tears.
I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death. Seen this way, my bodily metamorphosis was a small event. Only the pimp might have been interested.
It always makes me somewhat sad to read stories that go across generations. They often start off in a funny, cute way, but then the characters grow up/old, bad things happen, and a kind of sadness sinks in. Throughout reading Middlesex, I was constantly reminded of Midnight's Children, but we shall leave that for another day.
You can't really pinpoint the story to Calliope only, because a large part of it is also about Calliope's grandparents and parents, which I actually like better. I like to close the book for a while, close my eyes and lean back in my chair thinking about how Lefty is transformed into the quiet, good-natured old man, how Milton is transformed into a successful business owner, how Calliope is transformed into a man. I like to think about all of that. Most of the time I fail to recollect when, and how it exactly happened, but it just did anyway. And I love the book even more for that.
It is exactly like our own lives. We change, we transform and we thrive. Or not. We don't necessarily go through changes that drastic like from a woman/man to man/woman, but we do experience transformations at some point in our own ways. Think about it. How fascinating is that.
And I'd hate to be a self-centered weirdo who only thinks about her own problems. This quote from the book literally brought me into tears.
I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death. Seen this way, my bodily metamorphosis was a small event. Only the pimp might have been interested.