Friday, May 4, 2007

Finished "Middlesex"

I've been very busy (family travel, work), so I'm a bit late making this entry. This is from my April 15 paper journal.

Finished "Middlesex". Loved reading it, but I have a couple of deep misgivings.

The omniscient first person narrator. How can Callie write about her parents as if she were a third person narrator? It implies an aloofness and detachment from her subject that belies the actual narrator and character we come to know. Plus -- it's impossible. She writes about her parents and grandparents from a first person perspective -- we have to accept that Callie's inventing the stories, yet she doesn't acknowledge or own up to them as inventions. Instead, she splices the stories into the reel, as if they had the same weight as lived recollections. But this is impossible. If Callie invents stories about her parents and grandparents, and implies that these are true recollections, then she undercuts the narrative of her own life -- how do we know she isn't inventing those stories as well?

I know, even autobiography is invention. And I'm not saying the narrator can't invent stories about her relatives before she was born. But the reader trusts the narrator in autobiography (or at least, in successful autobiography). Here, I like Callie, but I'm confused.

It's a tribute to Eugenides that he can make us forget this impossibility while we read him.

There are a few clunky oddities in the book, such as the ludicrous idea that Father Nick, the shlumpy brother-in-law priest, turns extortionist (he makes sadistic phone calls to Milton while the liturgy is going on in the background -- give us a break). This ridiculous part nearly sank the last part of the book.

But overall, how can you not love Callie and the book, flaws and all? Eugenides describes what happens when impossible characteristics are united. The union, man and woman in one being, forever divided. Where does this soul find a home, a lover, peace?

There's an interesting Salon interview with Eugenides at this link: http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2002/10/08/eugenides/index.html