Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex flew with me to 1. Vietnam last year, and 2. Shanghai in the summer. But I never got round to actually starting it cos, 1. Half-Blood Prince deserved a nth reread and 2. Murakami had a nicer book cover. Finally got down to it on this holiday, and like Kelly mentioned about The Magicians, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. At a time like now (and I do mean now, I’m writing this in an attempt to get the gloom of results out of my mind), when I doubt whether I’m cerebrally capable of handling higher education, this book comes and reminds me that yes, in my years of formal education I have learnt something, something that I understand, something I truly know.

Middlesex is a conglomeration of everything we learned and loved in VJ. I mean:

1. The book is a bildungsroman (ohai Dickens)

2. It takes the plot structure of a classic Greek tragedy (peripeteia, agnorisis, all there)

3. Amongst other things, revolves around the pursuit of the American dream by two generations of immigrant Greeks (ohai Gatz)

The frontier of the story deals beautifully with the compelling forces of opposite natures – science and religion, sexual desire and morality, man and woman. And the narrative voice is brilliant – so smart, so poetic, so unassuming and so bloody funny in the midst of all the tragedy. Which is what I remember Jireh and Lofty drilling into us for duos: that tragedy and comedy co-exist inextricably – one cannot be present without the other.

It was like paying an old visit back to Fitzgerald, to Aristotle, to Tennessee Williams…to the times in VJ, sitting at the garden tables fiercely debating. Back to a time where reading brought true knowledge and piqued interest, when, ironically, age-old stories made more sense in real life. Am I making sense? JUST READ THE BOOK ITS BRILLIANT. Willing to lend!

Did I also mention, law school is very demoralizing. Hahaha.