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Middlesex
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Review:
Middlesex is a significantly more ambitious and much odder novel than Jeffrey Eugenides' resonant debut, The Virgin Suicides (on DVD), which was a bittersweet paean to adolescent love. This is a sprawling family saga, bursting with life, which spans three generations and crosses several continents. At its core, however, is another unorthodox but exquisite coming-of-age story.
Review:
The book's wily narrator and central character, Calliope Stephanides (named after the muse of epic poetry) is a hermaphrodite raised as a girl who comes to realise she is happier as a boy and is now living as a man in contemporary Berlin. Cal's tale begins, appropriately enough, in Greece (or more precisely Asia Minor)--an Aegean Strasbourg whose sovereignty is claimed by Greece and Turkey. In 1922 brother and sister Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides escaped their war-torn homeland and arrived, as man and wife, in Detroit, America. It is this coupling that ultimately begets their grandchild Calliope and her ambiguous sexuality, as she, or rather by then he, sanguinely notes:
Some people inherit houses; others painting or highly insured violin bows. Still others get Japanese tansu or a famous name. I got a recessive gene on fifth chromosome and some very rare family jewels indeed.As Cal recounts the experiences of the Stephanides clan in their new land--from the Depression to Nixon--he unfurls his own symbiotic odyssey to a new sex. Cal's narrative voice is arch, humorous and self aware, continually drawing attention to its authorial sleights of hand, but never exasperating. This is big, brainy novel--The Oracle of Delphi puts in an unlikely appearance in the middle of a teenage tryst--but one full of compassion. Eugenides' astonishingly rich story persistently engages the heart as well as the mind. --Travis Elborough
`A three-generation, sprawling saga, woven from multiple themes, that takes the Stephanides family from Smyrna to Detroit' -- Sunday Times, Books of the Decade
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- PublisherBloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0747564485
- ISBN 13 9780747564485
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages544
- Rating
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Middlesex
Published by
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0747564485
ISBN 13: 9780747564485
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Middlesex
Published by
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0747564485
ISBN 13: 9780747564485
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Book Description Condition: Good. Export Ed. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 4614640-6
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Middlesex
Published by
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
(2003)
ISBN 10: 0747564485
ISBN 13: 9780747564485
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.7. Seller Inventory # G0747564485I3N00
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.7. Seller Inventory # G0747564485I3N00
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR001342622
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Middlesex This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780747564485
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