Middlesex. Not the place. The book. It’s got inside me – like the best books can. A little late possibly, given that publication / Richard and Judy recognition occurred a few years ago – but I got there in the end. And it was well worth the wait.
One of the challenges for a novel that gives away the selling point in the blurb on the back is how to get the reader started – and then keep the reader engaged. I have to admit that the former was the greater challenge in my case, primarily because I could see little interest in reading about a character with whom I shared little empathy and whose story I already knew. Or so I thought.
Cal is addictive. I warmed to her/him in that unique way that the first person narrative makes you warm to a character. I never quite got to grips with his/her character – possibly also a result of the narrative – but this only made the book all the more compelling.
I was fascinated by the people and the places in the way that only a really inventive and innovative author can evoke the imaginary: I fully participated in the epic journey – both temporal and geographical – that I was taken on. And, surprisingly, it was the thought invoked in relation to this experience that over-shadowed the very element I had believed to be the core theme – Cal’s sexuality.
It’s a tricky – and potentially fatal – balancing act that the author thus achieved: choosing a hugely controversial and seemingly significant topic – and then rendering it insignificant in relation to the additional themes of culture, society, people and relationships. Eugenides got it mastered.
Tags: reading the world, some of the things I did
