Middlesex is an epic tale of multi-generational family originated from Greece who later on migrated to America. It spans from 1920s Greece to Detroit in the mid to late 20th century to contemporary Berlin. The omniscient narrator — possibly the most lovable most interesting in fiction novels — is Callie, a girl, who later grows into Cal, a man, as a result of incestuous marriage of her grandparents.

Though weaved with history and cultural information, the story couldn’t be more intimate. Jeffrey Eugenides has a way to make even the most minor character matters, as if you know their deepest secrets while nobody else does and you feel so much for them. He definitely has become one of my favorite authors. His writing is exceptionally good. I was surprised of how so so well written it was. The imagery was vivid, cinematic. At a few points I felt like I was watching a movie (often ala Persepolis).

Middlesex is a story of immigrants, family, and coming-of-age of an intersex person. The main character who has a double role as the omniscient narrator was a new technique to me. Often the narrator has to keep some distance from the main storyline. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it. Cal tells us the intimate details of his grandparents’ secrets, his parents’ inner thoughts, and even her own birth:

“As sperm meets egg, I feel a jolt. There’s a loud sound, a sonic boom as my world cracks. I feel myself shift, already losing bits of my prenatal omniscience, tumbling toward the blank slate of personhood. … Again the sperm rams my capsule; and I realize I can’t put it off any longer. The lease on my terrific little apartment is finally up and I’m being evicted. So I raise one fist (male-typically) and begin to beat on the walls of my eggshell until it cracks. Then, slipperly as a yolk, I dive headfirst into the world.” ~ p211

The omniscient point of view is written perfectly. I have no idea how that could work, but it just does. The novel is funny, heartbreaking, unique, alive with pulses and blood running in its vein.

“Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness”, “joy”, or “regret”. Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right word to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.” ~ p217

I can’t imagine anyone not liking the book. It’s an absolute masterpiece, in originality and writing. Admittedly it is quite long, but it’s definitely a journey worth taking.

2002, 529 pp

Watch the ABC First Tuesday Book Club on Middlesex episode (August 2009, 8 mins 27 secs)
Why Cal’s brother is nicknamed Chapter Eleven

First line
I was born twice: first, 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.

Last line
I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next.

Memorable Quotes

“No one to love: no love. No love: no babies. No babies: no one to love.” ~ p35

“We Greeks get married in circles, to impress upon ourselves the essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back where you began.” ~ p68

“Pregnancy humbles the husbands. After an initial rush of male pride, they quickly recognized the minor role that nature had assigned them in the drama of reproduction, and quietly withdrew into a baffled reserve, catalysts to an explosion they couldn’t explain.” ~ p109

“… the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.” ~ p418

Awards
2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
New York Times Editors’ Choice – Best Book of 2002
Nominated for 2003 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction

Also reviewed by

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This book is the second of Ishiguro that I read (first was When We Were Orphans). The style is a bit different. Easier to digest I’d say, a page turner. The author is good at giving hints to something in the past or the future, and makes me wanting more throughout the entire book.

I can’t say more without spilling spoilers. So I’m just gonna blurt it out.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I think by now almost everyone that has heard about this book knows that it is about clones (As far as I recall though, the word “clone” is only mentioned twice in the entire book). I thought most of the aspects were covered pretty well, but I can’t help wondering why the idea of parents were not discussed at all. It should be a pretty sad moment to know that everybody else out there has parents and you don’t. But I guess they’ve always known that they’re “purposefully created”, and when everybody around you has the same fate as you, you would just accept things as they are. Like a frog never really wishes to fly.

I found relationship between Ruth and Tommy is a bit hard to believe. I mean they’re really two different persons, and I can’t imagine them being together in the first place. Though if you think more about it, they’re both a bit annoying. Ruth is awfully pretentious and attention seeker. Tommy childish, weak, indecisive (he waited until Ruth allowed Kath and him to be together to do something about it? Anyway he never did much about anything.)

I’m also wondering what’s the significance of alphabets for their last name. I thought A would be the first clone for that person, B second, and so on. But they never mentioned anything about it and my theory doesn’t make much sense too, because if it’s true then if Kath’s last name is H, that means she’s the 8th clone, which means the real person where they take the gene from has probably been dead a long time ago if they wait for each clone to ‘complete’ to make the same clone. But Kath tried to find her ‘possible’ and she thought she was alive. If they make a few of the same clones at the same time, wouldn’t she wonder where the other clones are, and not just her ‘possible’? So anyway, their ‘last name’ confused me.

Many things are just eerie. The way they say ‘complete’ to mark their discontinuation to live. The way Madame and Miss Emily so matter-of-factly and cold-heartedly explain everything to them and dismiss them just like that. Not to mention the whole donor thingy.

After I finished the book, when I looked back, I thought the characters are almost void of emotions in just a very eerie way. There’s no big emotion to whatever new things that they discovered no matter how shocking it was. And rightly so. After all, they’re clones, which were doubted that they even had souls.

Rating: 4 out of 5 [Very good]
Flowing reading, satisfying climax, a unique topic that is brought very nicely. Few loose ends.

First line

My name is Kathy H.

Last line

I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Also reviewed by

robaroundbooks | Stuff as Dreams are Made on

The Road is awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007, James Tait Black Prize in 2006, and a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

I was sorely disappointed with this book. I read it by the recommendation of a colleague, and many other people who quoted that this was their best book of the year. What I found was a book that left me all cold, and to be honest, bored. There are a lot of repetitions, from storyline (walk, cold, find food, sleep in cold, walk some more, repeat) to use of words (dark, gray, ash, black, silence, cold, repeat). The author also omitted a lot of punctuations for god knows why.

The setting is post-apocalyptic world. Survived a father and his son (and some other people they met along the way). Why it happened and why they survived are never explained. The author instead described this apocalyptic world endlessly and repeatedly, using repeated words over and over. I got all excited every time someone talked, but the spikes went away all too quickly, because there was nothing much ever happened.

The book is short, but I couldn’t finish it quickly because at several points it could be too depressing, and depressingly boring. At several points it literally bored me to tears. The book can’t even be considered as philosophical (something people might expect from topics like post-apocalyptic world). There’s little discussion about anything. It’s just full of plain hard facts, very descriptive novel. The only thing that I assume made it standout among all others is the fact that the author picked a unique subject matter. It could’ve been a very good book had it been developed more or differently. This one though, left me all flat, didn’t stir me one bit.

Ratings: 3 out of 5
Interesting subject matter. It has a lot of potential to be a very good book, but falls short for me.

terrible » poor » mediocre » okay » good » very good » excellent » superb

First line
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.

Last line
In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

Quotes
“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” ~ p12

Discussion at bookcrossing forum

The setting of Atonement is Talli’s family house in 1935. A 13 years old girl with strong imagination, Briony, had witnessed a series of events between her sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the family’s childhood friend. At the end of the day, Briony made a mistake that affects the lives of all three, a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Gosh it took me a LONG time to finish the book. One of the hardest book I’ve read so far. It’s very very wordy. The sentences are so long with so many commas that I often lost what it was about and had to go back re-read. A lot of words are not in my vocabulary, like one said, the words are very flowery. The first few chapters are so slow that I wondered if I could go on or should go on. After a question in the BC forum, I decided that I just gotta finish the book (most urged me to continue, it gets better at the latter part).

It did get better, albeit slowly. I wanted to read the book first before I watched the movie, which came out not long after I started the book, since generally book is always better than the movie. However since things moved very very slowly for me, the movie would definitely finish in the cinema before I finished reading the book. So after the first chapter, I just went to watch it.

So the first half of the movie felt like a totally different experience than the second half, because I knew the story. I was very aware of all the details in the movie, since the book goes into crazy details into every little thing, like Cecilia’s gown, Lola’s outfit, the scar on Marshall’s face, the twin’s hair, the triangular shadow on Cecilia’s wet undergarment, the vase, the fountain, the house, even the grass. Really. Not to mention all the dialogue. The movie helped me to visualize what I have read.

The second half of the movie helped me to continue reading the book. Since I knew then how the story went, in the most boring and slowest part of the book, I knew it WOULD go somewhere, that I wouldn’t be on that spot forever. Really, sometimes it just got too slow. On the second chapter, I started to learn to fast-read some parts that I just didn’t care much about. The war bit especially, felt like forever to go through. Interestingly some people said that the movie is very slow. Believe me, it’s lightning fast compared to the book!

I feel more for Briony after I watched the second part. Briony was unbearable to me when I read the first chapter of the book. I almost didn’t feel like continuing just because I hated her so much. I don’t think I have hated a fictional character this much, because of the their personality and actions, ever.

I’m glad I finished it, though I don’t think I have the energy for another McEwan’s book for the longest time.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Great plot, although I wish the author could spend more words on the things that matter. At times it can be far too slow.

Atonement is one of the 1001 books you must read before you die.
It was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize and winner of 2003 National Book Critics Circle award (plus a bunch of other awards).

Discussion on bookcrossing website