Sin lugar a dudas, una de las mejores novelas del siglo XXI.

La historia de Calíope (o Cal) es la excusa del autor para mostrarnos la vida de los inmigrantes griegos en la América de principios de siglo. Todo ello, ademas, en Detroit, ciudad que tuvo su época de gloria antes de hundirse en la miseria. Y, de fondo, la dura realidad de las personas hermafroditas.

Pero no pensemos que es un libro triste. Todo lo contrario. Por sus casi 700 páginas desfilan personajes increíbles, situaciones asombrosas, y mucho sentido del humor.

No sé cómo estuve tanto tiempo sin haber leído este libro.

I had very high hopes for Middlesex based on its reputation, but I was disappointed. While there are elements that were engaging, this is such an inconsistent novel that it’s hard to praise its virtues without also pointing out its many flaws.

The writing is very uneven, at times perceptive and evocative, but more often transparent, hackneyed and lacking in subtlety. Through most of the story I felt there was an absence of human sensitivity; a lack of integrity to the characters: they come across simply as empty vehicles for the plot. And for this reason much of the story felt like one inconsequential occurrence after another, rather than describing major events of profound significance to a family.

Throughout the “family-saga” section of the novel, Eugenides maintains reader engagement by hinting at the forthcoming story of Cal’s gender transition, which forms the later part of the novel. I found myself questioning the logic of this two part structure. Firstly, because the family saga is largely tangential to Cal’s own story, and secondly because Cal’s story is so comparatively short and poorly developed that it doesn’t justify such a long and detailed build-up. If I were an editor I would almost recommend cutting the family saga from the novel, if not for the fact that it is easily the best part. In any case, as it stands, Middlesex is an odd construction, with the first part being interesting but immaterial, and the second poorly developed and generally underwhelming.

Then again it won the Pulitzer, so what do I know?

Една от най-добрите книги, които съм чела. Великолепна история - повествованието се лее, същевременно ставаш съпричастен на емоционалните терзания на разказвача. Страничните сюжетни линии са като пипала на октопод, но автора умело ги влита в основната история, като парчета от пъзел. Определено препоръчвам да се чете след “Брачната фабула”, обратното би лишило втората от блясъка и.

Όπως έχω πει ξανά σε κριτικές μου, δε διαβάζω συχνά την υπόθεση ενός βιβλίου στο οπισθόφυλλο. Είτε θα ακούσω κάτι, είτε θα διαβάσω γιαυτό στο περίπου, η θα μου προτείνει κάποιος.. Έτσι συχνά βρίσκομαι προ εκπλήξεων. Κάποιες φορές ευχάριστων κάποιες δυσάρεστων. Ας ειπωθεί από νωρίς ότι αυτό το βιβλίο ήταν μια πολύ πολύ ευχάριστη έκπληξη. Αρχικά θεωρούσα λοιπόν πως αυτό το βιβλίο θα είναι αυστηρά για τη ζωή ενός ιντερσεξ ατόμου. Όμως το Middlesex είναι πολύ περισσότερα από αυτό. Ο κεντρικός ήρωας είναι ο Καλ, ο οποίος γεννήθηκε ως Καλλιόπη με μια ιδιαιτεροτητα : ένα μεταλλαγμένο γονιδιο. Είναι αμφιφυλος ή αλλιώς μεσοφυλικος (intersex) ή όπως αναφέρεται στο βιβλίο, ερμαφρόδιτος(ο όρος αυτός όπως διάβασα και ενημερώθηκα μετά το βιβλίο, δεν είναι πια δόκιμος και θεωρείται προσβλητικός και στιγματικος για τα άτομα αυτά). Το βιβλίο λοιπόν ασχολείται όχι τόσο με τη ζωή του Καλ ως ένα intersex άτομο, αλλά το γιατί και πως "αποφάσισαν" τα γονίδια του να γίνει έτσι. Ιστορίες του παρελθόντος, πολλές γενιές πριν, ένοχα μυστικά, βιολογία, τύχη, συμπτώσεις, προκαταληψεις, μοίρα, όλα ενώνονται για να δημιουργήσουν έναν άνθρωπο που για 15 χρόνια ζούσε ως κορίτσι τυχαία, αλλά από κει και πέρα έζησε συνειδητά ως άντρας.
Η ιστορία νομίζω ότι δε χρειάζεται πολλη προσπάθεια για να σε πείσει, να σε τραβήξει. Είναι εξαιρετι��ά ενδιαφέρον το θέμα. Αυτό που μου έκανε εντύπωση ήταν  η γραφη του Ευγενιδη, που πραγματικά ήταν εθιστική. Ζωντανή, απλή, άκρως ενδιαφέρουσα, δε μπορούσα να αφήσω το βιβλίο από τα χέρια μου. Και φυσικά στα θετικά θα προσθέσω ότι είναι ένα από τα βιβλία που σου μαθαίνουν το κάτι παραπάνω, σε προχωράνε ένα βήμα παραπέρα, ειδικά αν έχεις τη διάθεση να ψάξεις 2 πράγματα μετά το τέλος της ανάγνωσης. Το συνιστω ανεπιφύλακτα.

"Δεν είχα μεγαλώσει αρκετά ακόμη ώστε να συνειδητοποιω ότι ζώντας ένας άνθρωπος, πορεύεται όχι προς το μελλον, αλλά  προς το παρελθόν, στην παιδική του ηλικία και πριν ακόμη από τη γέννηση, ώσπου στο τελος φτάνει να επικοινωνεί σιωπηρα με τους νεκρούς. Μεγαλώνεις, λαχανιαζεις στις σκάλες, μπαίνεις στο σώμα του πατέρα σου. Από κει, με ένα γρήγορο σαλτο, φτάνεις ίσαμε τους παππούδες σου, κι ύστερα πριν το καλοκαταλάβεις, ταξιδεύεις στο χρόνο. Σ αυτήν τη ζωή μεγαλώνουμε ανάποδα. "

Τελικά πόσο μπορούμε να ανεχθούμε το διαφορετικό? Κοινωνίες έμπλεες πολυπολιτισμού, αλλά τόσο ξένες κ στεγανοποιημενες στο επόμενο διαφορετικό
Κ εν τέλει πως μπορεί να οριστεί το φυσιολογικό? Ιδίως αν σκεφτούμε ότι όλα τριγύρω, υπόκεινται σε συνεχείς μεταλλάξεις. Η βιολογία μας δίνει έναν εγκέφαλο. Η ζωή τον μετατρέπει σε νου

Κοινωνικές και βιολογικές ανακατατάξεις, σε μια απολαυστικά δοσμένη οικογενειακή σάγκα, από τις ανατολικές ακτές του Αιγαίου ως τις δυτικές ακτές της Αμερικής, στον πολύπαθο 20ο αιώνα

Engaging epic of the three generations of a Greek family, the Stephanides. The first generation is composed of siblings, Desdemona and Lefty who leave their country during a political unrest, go to Prohibition-era Detroit and there have an incestuous relationship as husband and wife. Born to them in Detroit are son Milton and daughter Zoe. Milton marries his parent's cousin's daughter, Tessie and move to Michigan. Born to them are son Chapter Eleven and a daughter Calliope or Callie. At 13, Callie is diagnosed to be a hermaphrodite and she leaves Michigan to San Francisco to build a new life as a young man Cal. I am not telling you the rest of the story as that would be too much of a spoiler.

This is my 2nd book of Eugenides and he is still to disappoint. It still has Eugenides's strong engaging and flawless narration. His is a feast to the senses. When he tells a story, he makes it a point that you could visualize, hear, feel, taste and even smell what is going on. My favorite is that part when Desdemona is looking for a job and Eugenides is describing what she is seeing in Detroit during the 30's. It is like being there walking with Desdemona and seeing the surroundings in sepia. That part when Milton is serenading Tessie with his clarinet? I swear I can hear the music in the air and touch Lefty's perspiration on the bronze edges of his clarinet and feel the trembling of Tessie's skin. There are many reviews of this book here in Goodreads and I agree with most of them. Still, my take on Eugenides is a that his prose is one of the most engaging among those novelists who are still alive. What a gifted novelist. What a wonderful reading experience.

This book felt like two stories fused into one: the Greek immigrants in the US and how is it to be a hermaphrodite. The only experience I had about hermaphrodite was when I heard a restaurant-owner Aling Sally in Casimiro Village, Las Pinas when I was working there over a decade ago that her lesbian daughter had a long clitoris. I thought that it was her justification why her eldest daughter was a lesbian. It just did not interest me in any way. This book only reminded me Aling Sally's too personal statement while we were eating lunch in her place. I remembered I was eating big noodles and she was talking about a long pencil-like clitoris which was the same way Eugenides described Cal and other other hermaprodite's organ in this book.

This is the reason why I preferred the story on the Greek immigrants over the hermaphrodite's. I also felt that Milton's story could have been made stronger as a bridge between the first generation's Desde's and the third generation's Cal's. Save from the last 2 chapters of the book, I thought that the story went down from being totally amazing (5 stars) to so-so (2 stars) and it was saved by the last two: a fast-paced chapter and a well-executed denouement in the very last chapter. It was almost anti-climactic if those two chapters were not as well-written or if you take those out and end the story in San Francisco.

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this book and I am now looking forward to read more Eugenides's works. What a guy!

Thanks to Marian and Reinaj for the readalong! Thank you, Angus, for encouraging us to read this!

Opening sentence: “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.”

Coming of age and family saga centered around an intersexed protagonist, Calliope (Cal) Stephanides, who, in 1960, is born with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and is reared as female but feels more closely aligned with male. It is a constant struggle to deal with societal expectations, particularly nearing puberty. The storyline explains the origin of the genetic mutation, starting with Cal’s grandparents in 1922. It follows their migration from Greece to Michigan, the courtship and marriage of Cal’s parents, and several members of their extended family.

It is narrated in first person by Cal in a timeline that loops from present to past and back again. Eugenides can certainly spin a tale. There is a lot going on in this novel. It covers a wide swath of historic events, such as the 1920s war between Greece and Turkey, legends related to the discovery of silk, rum-running during Prohibition, Detroit’s civil unrest in 1967, San Francisco’s colorful hippie scene in the early 1970s, and the theories espoused by sexologists of the era.

The writing is top rate. Written with sensitivity, humor, and intelligence, the author makes it easy to empathize with Cal. I had not read anything by Eugenides before and I was not sure how much I would enjoy this one, but I am now a fan.

you had me at generational family saga

Jeffrey and I started on very bad terms. I read his Virgin Suicides and well that was an overhyped disappointment. The Marriage Plot is shaping up to be one of the worst books I read this year. So obviously I was apprehensive about starting this. But I did. And I liked it.

What can I say, it’s a good book! Praise the baby Jesus, Jeffrey Eugenides wrote a good book! This is a perfectly fine novel. It held my interest all the way through and I actually wanted to know what happened as the novel progressed! Shock horror, I know. So yeah. I liked a Eugenides novel. In other news, Hell has apparently frozen over…

Το Middlesex είναι ένα επικό, αριστουργηματικό έργο που στο πυρήνα του εδρεύει η αλλαγή, η εξέλιξη, η μετάβαση. Σαν τον μεταξοσκώληκα που περνάει από τόσα στάδια για να παράγει το πολύτιμο μετάξι. Σαν τον Λέφτυ και την Δεισδαιμόνα που η καταατροφή της Σμύρνης θα τους αφήσει να ξαναγεννηθούν και να ξαναεφέυρουν τον εαυτό τους όπως εκείνοι θέλουν τώρα που οδεύουν στην Αμερική. Σαν τον Μίλτον και την Τέσσυ που θα περάσουν διάφορα αλλα θα καταλήξουν μαζί αδιαφορώντας για τα πάντα. Σαν την Καλλιόπη που είναι Κάλ, και που το παρελθόν την βαραίνει σαν αμαρτία, την κατατρύχει, την διαμορφώνει. Σαν την Αμερική που αλλάζει μέσα στις δεκαετίες και πάντα ίδια μένει.

Ο Ευγενίδης αγαπά την Αμερική με πάθος και αυτό φαίνεται στις σελίδες του. Αλλάζουν οι δεκαετίες και συ μεταφέρεσαι με την οικογένεια Στεφανίδη σε κάθε άκρη, βιώνοντας κάθε είδους μικρή ή μεγάλη ιστορική στιγμή που επηρέασε και επηρεάστηκε από τους ίδιους τους πολίτες της. Τα πάντα αποτελούν κομμάτι της ιστορίας και του πολιτισμού της. Και η οικογένεια πολύ φυσικά αποτελέι μέρος του μωσαικού. Αναφορές πάνε και έρχονται και σε κάνουν μέρος του τοπίου και των εποχών.

Πίσω στο 1922 ο Λέφτυ και η Δεισδαιμόνα το νίοπαντρο ζευγάρι μας καταφτάνει στο Ντητρόιτ να συναντήσει την εξαδέλφη Σουρμελίνα με ένα ένοχο μυστικό στις πλάτες τους. Η εξαδέλφη έχει και κείνη το δικό της. Οπότε μια συνωμοτική αλληλεγγύη αναπτύσσεται που μέλλει να αλλάξει τη ζωή της Καλλιόπης ηδη από την στιγμή της σύλληψης. Φόβο και δεισιδαιμονία θα δοκιμάσει το ζευγάρι μας, εντάσεις και τσακωμούς, και όχι πια ερωτικές περιπτύξεις, θα πρέπει να εργαστουν και οι δυό ( θα δούμε την βιομηχανία της Φόρντ να παρελαύνει, το γκέτο στο Μπλακ Μπότομ, ψευδοπροφήτες κλπ κλπ). Βλέπετε οι όποιες εξελίξεις συμβαίνουν ασκούν την αδιαμφισβήτητη επιρροή τους πάνω στις αποφάσεις και τις αντιλήψεις, την νοοτροπία των μελών της οικογένειας Στεφανίδη. Οι νεότερες γενιές έχουν πιο πολύ Αμερική στο αίμα τους απ’ότι Ελλάδα. Βλέπουν πιο καθαρά τα πράγματα αλλα είναι και πεισματάρηδες σαν τον Μίλτον που θα διεκδικήσει την Τέσσυ με νύχια και με δόντια( γονείς της Καλλιόπης). Παρα το χάσμα γενεών υπάρχουν στιγμές που μοιάζουν σαν δυό σταγόνες νερό και άλλες που διαφέρουν ολοκληρωτικα. Μεχρι που θα γεννηθεί η Καλλιόπη και θα συνταιριάξει το παρελθόν με το μέλλον, το υβριδικό ερμαφρόδιτο σώμα της με την συναρπαστική ψυχή της. Και κανείς δε θα καταλάβει ή θα αποσιωπά αυτό που είναι μπροστά στα μάτια του. Ακριβώς γιατί το κράμα το ελληνοαμερικάνικο είναι περιέργο.

Θα γίνει αντικείμενο μελέτης η περίπτωση της, θα το σκάσει από έναν γιατρό που θέλει να ολοκληρώσει την εκθήλυνση της καθώς σαν γυναίκα έχει μεγαλώσει. Και ο Καλ που αισθάνεται άνδρας από μια πραγματιστική άποψη θα περιηγηθεί στο Σαν Φρανσίσκο( θα λικνίζεται ως αξιοθέατο σε μπαρ, θα γίνει μέλος μιας συμμορίας, θα γίνει φίλος με μια συνειδητοποιημένη και μπροστάρισα ερμαφρόδιτη κλπ). Και θα προσπαθεί να περάσει απαρατήρητος όπως και στην αρχή της εφηβείας του οπου όλα έβγαιναν σιγα σιγα στο φώς όταν ερωτεύτηκε με πάθος την συμμαθήτρια του και πειραματίστηκε στο μισοκοιμισμένο σώμα της και έμιωθε την καρδιά του να πάλλεται( και εκείνη ανταποκρίθηκε κάνοντας την την πιο τρυφερή του ανάμνηση). Μεχρι να συνειδητοποίησει ότι είναι πολύ πιο εύκολο απ’οσο νόμιζε να αποδεχτεί την διπλή του φύση, τα καλά και τα κακά που του φόρτωσαν τα γονίδια, το αρσενικό φύλο, το θηλυκό γένος. Να συνεχίσει να ζεί αποδεχόμενος και καταλαβαίνοντας τον εαυτό του, το παρελθόν του, το μέλλον του. Ο Καλ που ήταν συγχρόνως και Καλλιόπη και θα έπρεπε να το αποδεχτεί.

ΥΓ. Αλλα τόσα γεννήθηκαν σοτ κεφάλι μου οσο διάβαζα, πιο περίπλοκα αλλα τώρα θα βολευτείτε με αυτό.

Flying to Detroit for the Fourth of July weekend to visit my brother in Ypsilanti, I was looking for a great novel set in Michigan to read during my travels. Published in 2002, I'm confident that Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides--winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction--would be one of my favorite novels whether I read it in the Wolverine State, in a box or with a fox. This three-generational family saga leaps from Greece to Detroit, across the U.S. and then over the sea to Germany to tell the story of Cal Stephanides, whose 5-alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome allows him to operate in society as a man, though he was raised as a girl through the age of fourteen. Cal is a hermaphrodite. I can't think of a bolder and more illustrative exploration of immigration, transformation and Americanization than this spectacular novel.

The ebb and flow of Middlesex was less like a Homeric saga and more of a tidal force. Eugenides hits with a tsunami wave with this second paragraph, which gave me an excellent idea of what I was in store for.

My birth certificate lists my name was Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license (from the Federal Republic of Germany) records my first name simply as Cal. I'm a former field hockey goalie, long-standing member of the Save-the-Manatee Foundation, rare attendant at the Greek Orthodoxy liturgy, and, for most of my adult life, an employee of the U.S. State Department. Like Tiresias, I was first one thing and then the other. I've been ridiculed by classmates, guinea-pigged by doctors, palpated by specialists, and researched by the March of Dimes. A redheaded girl from Grosse Pointe fell in love with me, not knowing what I was. (Her brother liked me, too.) An army tank led me into urban battle once; a swimming pool turned me into a myth; I've left my body in order to occupy others--and all this happened before I turned sixteen.

Cal does break the reader away from his genuinely unique childhood in Detroit to return to the point in his family history where nature generated a winning lottery ticket for this DNA. In the summer of 1922, his grandmother Desdemona Stephanides is a young woman, a silk worker in the Greek village of Bithynios, a thousand feet above the old Ottoman capital of Bursa. Her parents killed by Turks in a recent war, Desdemona lives as a free Greek with her brother Eleutherios ("Lefty"), a gambler by nature who idolizes the mustached thieves and gamblers of the seaside bars in Athens and Constantinople. Desdemona's silkworms produce the silk which Lefty then sells at market in Bursa, though lately, she's noticed her brother coming home later and later. Lefty tells her it's because there are no women in the village, at least, no desirable ones.

Desdemona puts great effort into giving the two eligible bachelorettes in her village a makeover and playing matchmaker for her degenerate brother, but Lefty rejects his suitors, making it clear he'd prefer Desdemona. Intimately bonded with Lefty her entire life, she reciprocates that emotion. When the Turks rout the Greeks and begin to retake the disputed territory where Bithynios sits, Desdemona and Lefty flee on foot to the port of Smyrna. Starving with all the other refugees, Lefty is given some money and medical care by Nishan Philobosian, M.D., an Armenian physician who believes he is safe from reprisal due to a letter confirming he treated Kemal Pasha. Desdemona and Lefty hold out hope they can board a ship and emigrate to America, where they have a cousin in Detroit. But while Allied ships watch, the Turks burn the port and begin to massacre everyone in sight.

Thinking fast, Lefty not only secures French visas for himself and his "wife" Desdemona, but Dr. Philobosian as well. Boarding a New York bound vessel from Athens, Desdemona and Lefty begin to reinvent themselves: Desdemona gives the last name "Aristos" and boards separately from her brother. With expert spycraft, they pretend to meet on the ship's deck, fabricate elaborate backstories for themselves and "court" each other for the passengers to see. Their wedding commences in the Atlantic Ocean crossing, their honeymoon under a tarp covering one of the lifeboats. In one of many dexterous moments in his narrative, Eugenides makes both incest and illegal immigration seem less like the acts of criminals and more like acts of survival. Cal's grandparents would've preferred to remain in Bithynios, but couldn't survive there. So, they change.

Traveling made it easier. Sailing across the ocean among half a thousand perfect strangers conveyed an anonymity in which my grandparents could recreate themselves. The driving spirit of the Giulia was self-transformation. Staring out to sea, tobacco farmers imagined themselves as race car drivers, silk dyers as Wall Street tycoons, millinery girls as fan dancers in the Ziegfeld Follies. Gray ocean stretched in all directions. Europe and Asia Minor were dead behind them. Ahead lay America and new horizons.

Desdemona and Lefty's cousin Sourmelina meets them at Grand Trunk Station. Lina was sent away from the village after being caught in one too many compromising positions with women. Her family offered a dowry to a good Greek boy, an American, named Jimmy Zismiopoulos, alias "Zizmo." Zizmo is an importer of "assorted fuels." As soon as Prohibition was announced, he relocated to the biggest city with the closest proximity to Canada. Detroit. Zizmo uses his connections at Ford to get Lefty a job on the assembly line, which Lefty makes great strides in before the company finds out about Zizmo's affiliations and fires his brother-in-law. In a case of bad timing, Desdemona and Lina conceive children on the same night. To make ends meet, Lefty opens a speakeasy in the basement, a place with irregular hours he calls The Zebra Room.

Desdemona gives birth to a son named Miltiades ("Milton"). Lina has a daughter named Theodora, who picks up the nickname "Tessie." The year is 1923. His gambling streak alive and well, Lefty opens an above-the-ground Zebra Room off West Grand Boulevard. Twenty-one years later, cousins Milton and Tessie share a backyard fence. Desdemona attempts to arrange a marriage between her son and a good Greek girl, but her matchmaking skills fail all over again when Milton shows greater interest in Tessie. He serenades her through his window or over the telephone by playing the clarinet. Tessie is courted by a seminarian at Greek Orthodox school and ultimately agrees to marry him. Milton enlists in the Navy to get even with her. Tessie spends a lot of time at the movies, having second thoughts about being a priest's wife.

Whatever the reason, in the bedroom light of the movie theater Tessie Zizmo allows herself to remember things she's been trying to forget: a clarinet nosing its way up her leg like an invading force itself, tracing an arrow to her own island empire, an empire which, she realizes at that moment, she is giving up to the wrong man. While the flickering beam of the movie projector slants through the darkness over her head, Tessie admits to herself that she doesn't want to marry Michael Antoniou. She doesn't want to be a priest's wife or movie to Greece. As she gazes at Milton in the newsreel, her eyes fill with tears and she says out loud, "There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you."

Facing certain death as a signalman in the Pacific, Milton scores a 98 on a service exam, is whisked away from combat and accepted into the Naval Academy. Returning to Detroit, he marries Tessie and takes over operation of the Zebra Room, remodeling the place and planning an expansion. Milton and Tessie give birth to a son--whom Cal refers to throughout as "Chapter 11"--and later try for another child. Wary of the excessive testosterone in her home, Tessie wants a girl, and defies the Old World predictions of Desdemona to deliver a daughter the couple named Calliope. Neither the pediatrician or the family physician--an aging Dr. Philobosian--notice that Calliope is not like other infant girls, but 5-alpha-reductase deficiency is hard to detect, until Calliope, a product of astronomical luck, reaches puberty and androgens begin to flood her circulatory system.

Middlesex is as close to a flawless novel as I think I've read. There might be readers unable to make the logical leaps that I did, or overlook the plot developments I was able to--incest is very wrong, right?--but what takes up greater real estate for me is mystery. Eugenides exposes secret histories, hidden places and unusual human beings that just haven't been examined by a Big Novel before. Not like this. The novel is every bit as great as East of Eden. Much like Steinbeck, Eugenides infuses the Stephanides family narrative with lust, conspiracies, makeovers, ambitions and missteps. These are people cut with deep passions and frailties. These are Americans, regardless of what their name is, where they come from originally, what they look like or what their gender identity is.

The writing is drenched wit and passion. A crucial story development comes down to Milton being able to seduce Tessie not with any sexual instruments, but while they're still inexperienced in that department, placing the bell of his clarinet on various parts of her anatomy.

And so it began. He played "Begin the Beguine" against Tessie's collarbone. He played "Moonface" against her smooth cheeks. Pressing the clarinet right up against the red toenails that had so dazzled him, he played "It Goes To Your Feet." With a secrecy they didn't acknowledge, Milton and Tessie drifted off to quiet parts of the house, and there, lifting her skirt a little, or removing a sock, or once, when nobody was home, pulling up her blouse to expose her lower back, Tessie allowed Milton to press his clarinet to her skin and fill her body with music. At first it only tickled her. But after a while the notes spread deeper into her body. She felt the vibrations penetrate her muscles, pulsing in waves, until they rattled her bones and made her inner organs hum.

I never realized the extent of the genocides of the Greek and Armenian people by Turkish forces, while the Allied Powers stood by. I never knew that Henry Ford was so devoted to virtue that his sociological department visited workers at their home to make sure they spoke English, owned a mortgage and exhibited proper hygiene. I wasn't aware of the extent of the Detroit uprising by blacks against the National Guard--which history continues to record as a "riot"--in 1967. Eugenides finds compelling ways to explore history, not through the lecture, but by immersing his characters, and the reader, in these episodes. Desdemona goes to work in Black Bottom, the black ghetto in Detroit, for the Nation of Islam as a silk dyer and in addition to being remarkably compelling as a story development--we wonder how a Greek immigrant is going to make out hired by militants--Eugenides shows the reader why the community was primed to explode thirty years later.

I haven't discussed Cal or the kink in his genetic mapping much at all. The book isn't about a hermaphrodite at all, even though later chapters of Middlesex are as richly detailed on the facts of life in the intersex community as anything else I've mentioned. The characters he meets as he runs away from home at the age of fourteen, fleeing corrective surgery all the way to San Francisco are every bit as fascinating at those in Cal's biological family. Zora, a shapely blonde with Androgen Insensitivity who like Cal, developed as a female, says, "There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already."

The search for the Great American Novel is bound to bring you around to Middlesex eventually.

This is a family saga with a twist. The main character, Calliope, the product of a lengthy family history with some incestuous elements, was born a hermaphrodite. Yet the narrator (Calliope him or herself) despite telling in some detail about the concerns of being of dubious gender, somehow, by tone, makes it all seem like a personal oddity on the level of something much lesser, like a pair of webbed toes. Still, there is the family, and their background in Turkey, or Greece, or Turkey, depending on which was the most recent invader, then immigrating to the USA, to Detroit, and environs. We are treated to a view of history from the early 20th century to today, with nods to many of the intervening events, WW I, the Depression, WW II, the beginnings of the Nation of Islam, the Detroit riots, school busing, white flight. There is a rich cast of characters, some of whom make sense, many of whom are interesting, and many of whom vanish in a puff of smoke once their mission is complete. The tribulations of the adolescent Cally, fearful of being found out are entertaining and engaging.

There are plenty of holes in this work. One character in particular morphs from one sort into another with no apparent basis. A few close relations seems to drop off the edge of the earth. There is a wealth of very self-conscious symbolism and the author is more than happy to point it out to us. One may not like that Eugenides treats his tale with such a playful tone and switches from first person to omniscient observer quite frequently, but it did not bother me. Should a book that has the rash of flaws present here win a Pulitzer? Maybe not, but because it may not have been a deserving winner of a major prize does not mean that it is not a good book. Family sagas that offer a view of passing history have always been popular. That long view is certainly a positive presence here. That Cally is bi-gender was probably unnecessary to the telling of a family saga, and seems a long way to go to add spice. But such concerns notwithstanding, I rather liked it.