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!
1 comment:
I must say that when I started reading this book I felt a bit overwhelmed with details and excessive wordiness. However once I got into the book a little more it started to go faster for me and I became intrigued by metaphors and historical account.
One thing that has been very interesting for me is the individual story of what they went through during the war and shifting power of land. The fear, the unknown, the forgery and lies. Seems termoil is always surrounding holy land, in terms of who controls it that is.
I can't imagine going enduring something as feeling like your country has abondoned you and left you for dead. It is interesting to look back to time when America was a beckon of hope and freedom. I thought the part where lefty acts in the short play with the melting pot and all the different representives of countries go in with their flag and come out with the American flag was a great metaphor for the blending of cultures in that time. The timeline of their story and life circumstances they endure reminds me of how far we have come as a society and what it represents.
I feel like Cal is detached from his sexuality and how he became that way. To him it is a biological probability which occured because of his ancestors decisions. I guess if you were in this situation you would be detached and guarded, what choice would you have?
As for the intermarriage, I found it fasinating that they staged a courtship on the boat to appease their minds about their wrong doing/sin. In America when they have the children and she puts up a blanket in between them, I felt that was a good reflection for her progression from being a child with a brother to being a women who married her brother.
P.S. Where does this book stop being fiction and start being a memoir? Is the author hermaphrodite?
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