My review of the novel Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
This was quite a book. But it has the feel of several books in one.
While there was a consistent thread throughout it, it was really
several distinct stories. It almost had the feeling that it could have
been written as an anthology of stories, each one published at a
different time, then later collected into one volume.
The main thread that ties the distinct stories together is the story
of a mutated gene. This gene for sexually-ambiguous hermaphradism
requires very specific conditions for being expressed, over several
generations of a single family, and the story describes the unlikely
events that allow this genetic condition to occur.
The story is told through the lens of the Greek immigrant experience,
both prior to and long after arriving in America. Since the idea of
intersex creatures exist in Greek mythology, the book periodically
includes references to these ancient stories. And the story is also
about sexual awakening and the trauma of being raised as one gender,
but then transforming into the other gender during puberty.
This all creates basically 4 threads that run throughout this book:
the story of a gene, the story of Greek immigrants in America, Greek
mythology, and a unique experience of sexual self-awareness. The
effect is that characters come and go as the story progresses and some
are quickly forgotten as we are introduced to the next.
The book opens with an oddly frank description of incest between a
brother and sister, which allows these 2 carriers of the same
recessive gene to pass it on in a form that will express itself 2
generations later. I was uncomfortable reading this part of the book,
as it went into quite a bit of detail. Incest is probably one of the
last taboos in modern life, so perhaps the author was trying to
transcend this final moral boundary.
The story covers a lot of ground, describing the war between Greece
and Turkey in the 1920's, various atrocities of the time, the
consummation of the brother and sister's relationship, their arrival
in Detroit, a lesbian cousin who accepts their arrangement, and the
constant sense of guilt experienced by the main female character.
I found this lesbian cousin interesting, creating almost a contrast to
the basic idea of the book. There are people who identify sexually
with their own gender, but this book is about a person that transforms
from one gender into the other. I assume this lesbian cousin was in
the story to highlight this distinction. I think that lesbians are
accepted by a larger percentage of the population than the idea of
being trans-gender. We can understand same-sex inclinations, but how
many people understand full sexual transformation from one gender
perspective to the other?
The story spends a lot of time in Detroit, and tells the story of this
city's rise during the boom of the auto industry to it's later decline
in the 1970's, but with a sense of sentimentality towards the city,
even when describing it's criminal elements. I learned that the author
is from Detroit, which explains his often heart-felt descriptions of
life there.
My only real criticism of the book is that it occasionally slips into
overly-flowery language. Perhaps the author was trying to be poetic,
but at times he uses expressions that sound like he had a thesaurus
open in front of him, when he could have described something more
simply. But this is a minor complaint, more of a style observation.
The book is almost two-thirds finished before we meet the main
character, who is born a girl but later develops into a man during her
teenage years. We pass through several very detailed stories as the
gene slowly makes it's trek through the generations before it is
finally expressed, and I had half-forgotten some of the book's earlier
characters by the time we finally enter into the story of this
transformation.
The oddest part of the book is near the end, when the character spends
time in San Francisco, working as a sex-worker, in a peep-show
industry, displaying her unique sexual physiology to paying customers.
This was similar to the book's beginning, in describing unusual
peripheral forms of sexual experience. But again, perhaps this was one
of the book's purposes.
I approached the book from a personal curiosity about the unique
perspective of people who occupy the fuzzy middle-ground between
traditional sexuality. People who are either bisexual or
hermaphrodites or trans-gender have the unique ability to experience
both sides of the sexual spectrum.
Sexual identity is such a basic fabric of people's experience of life,
yet it is something that most people approach from un-analyzed
instinct, rather than approaching it as something that can be learned
like a skill or an art, something that can evolve. I feel a very
strong sense of my own perspective from my side of the sexual
spectrum, but I think I can only improve my experience and awareness
by learning about other perspectives.
I would describe this book as being primarily about the Greek
immigrant experience, but with a parallel thread woven through it that
tells a story about sexual transformation, and how this is experienced
during teenage sexual awakening. Both of these parts of the book are
reasons enough to read this book, and to recommend it.
But I was left wondering how many people are actually like this.
Hermaphradism is the most common form of sexuality in the
plant-kingdom, so I imagine that someone who has experienced this in
their own life could actually feel a sense of superior sexuality,
almost a sense of being more evolved than the rest of us in the
traditional sexually polarized world. Or is this pure fiction?
As a side note, I liked the periodic return to the present tense, as
the author is living in present-day Berlin. He describes streets and
neighborhoods that I have spent a lot of time in myself. So at least
these parts of tbd book are factual....!
I give the book 4 out of 5 stars.