In the spring of 1974, teenager Callie Stephanides finds herself drawn to a strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop - leads her to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.Well, what a great 'toss around' debate we had with this month's book! I was surprised at the huge majority of acceptance Middlesex received from the group. Pretty well everyone agreed that it was a great read, with the history, description and compelling family dynamics being the common points of praise.
Nancy and Jeanette were a little more moderate in their views. Nancy found the subject matter of incest discomforting and the writing style laborious. She gave it 150 pages and then said goodbye to Jeffrey Eugenides! Jeanette who listened to it on audio book commented that it was repetitious and a little confusing. Someone else agreed that it was slightly lecture-like in style when it got into its genetic explanations.
But the majority found this book to be fascinating, especially the historic references of the time and the portrayal of an old world family adjusting to settlement in the new world of America. Viti thought there were many wise observations in the story and many of agreed. It covered more than incest and genetic accidents ... and we all found something that struck us enough to rate this book quite high.
Joan mentioned that she had read it took Eugenides nine years to write Middlesex. There was a brief discussion about whether this book was worth nine years of anyone's life, but the continuing discussion on genetics, personality traits and human make-up, in my opinion, made the book more than worthwhile of 0ur time.
If you've read Middlesex, leave a comment and let us know what you think, we'd love to hear from you.
3 comments:
Yes I would agree that it was a very good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was disappointed to not be there for the discussion. I found the subject of the book very interesting and original, which is always a good thing. I wonder if this sort of intermarriage in small communities is still happening today or if we have learned by the problems that can arise.
It was a shame you couldn't make the meeting Cathy, you would have enjoyed the discussion. One thing we all seemed to agree upon was the fact that this story could well have happened. And do they still? Well, who knows, but it certainly is probable, don't you think? What do you think about the genetic makeup of someone ... do we stay basicly who we are when born or do we change through our environment?
Well, hasn't this turned out to be a topical issue, with last week's case of Caster Semenya coming to light. So our question, Cathy it seems has been ansewed. Yes, it does still happen!
The South African athlete who has been found to be a hermaphrodite as really been put in a no win situation here. Ok, she's not a (I hate to use this word!) normal female, but I'm sure she feels completely normal to herself. But she is an athlete, so where does she compete ... and with who? Should she have to have an operation to be consider worthy of competition?
Once again we find real life in fiction. The same issues facing Caster were there for Callie.
So I'm sure we'll be following Caster's story with interest.
Post a Comment