Middlesex in Portland

"An Oregon man who used to be a woman says he is pregnant with a baby girl"

Hey kids,

Christine here.
You may have heard about this guy on the news... check out his and his wife's wacky story about HIM having their child. He is 5 months pregnant so far, as the report said tonight. Kinda correlates with our story... kinda not. Enjoy!

Click HERE

Can you say incest?

Kim here. So the first thing I have to say with respect to Middlesex is that I think it is the exact opposite of Cannery Row. Where Cannery Row paints a picture and the reader is expected to infer emotion, Eugenides tells you every detail about everything going on in any situation. Needless to say, for me the transition was a little bit rough. In the first fifty or so pages, I found myself constantly going back to try and remember all of the names and references the reader is immediately given from the narrator's family.
That being said, I really like this book so far. Yes the transition was a little tough, but now that I am into it I love the detail Eugenides is constantly inundating me with. The story seems to be less about the big picture and more about the intricacies of familial relationships. I love the explanation of the wedding on pg 68-69: "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."
Anyway, I am fascinated and excited to continue reading!

Cannery Row Meeting

This is Kim. So, as usual, I had a wonderful time at Thursday's meeting. What I noticed and really enjoyed was that discussing the episodes or themes in the book led to a much broader discussion about our personal experience, which completely separates a book club from a course where a purely academic tone must be maintained. Not only do I feel like I learned a lot about everyone, I thought about my own experiences that I haven't thought about years.
As far as Cannery Row goes, there were a lot of mixed feelings on the book. I would say the verdict was about fifty/fifty on how everyone felt about the novel. There were also a few parts that we were all puzzled by and had interesting assessments of the events. Here are a few parts that we discussed. Please feel free to explain how you felt about them, especially if you couldn't make it to the meeting!

the gophers
the dead body Doc discovers in the rocks
the skater on the building
the hitch hiker's interaction with Doc
Mrs. Talbot and the cats
the frogs

Please add to this list because I have definitely forgotten several things.

Also, as far as the socializing aspect of the Club, we discussed having next meeting be a cocktail party.
Sarah suggesting doing a getaway to her parents cabin at some point this summer. We'll need to figure out when is a good time for everyone. (Can we say hottub!)

Now for Middlesex...