Middlesex

i must be on a pulitzer prize book thing. i heard enough people rave about this book so i picked it up right before my puerto vallarta trip and was almost successful in finishing it in a very relaxing weekend. after reading the road, it seemed like this book was a vacation in itself - i found myself thinking like the author and the only other book that was that contagious for me recently was bridget jones' diary, so i probably shouldnt brag about that, but i love it when a book is so inspiring that it catches on to your way of looking at the world. anyway i love the way that the author captures the history of his family all in the context of his story - it was fun to take that journey and got me thinking about my family in that light as well and what kind of skeletons are lurking around on the boat here from sweden....hmmm....i am guessing they are not so juicy as a brother and sister hooking up as did the author's grandparents, but still. the book is written in a sort of dreamy state - it in a lot of ways reminded me of 100 years of solitude in its almost folkloric prose.

throughout the book i stared at the author's picture at the back of the book wondering just how fictional this book is...at one point the narrator in the book describes himself as a faun - look at this guy...faun is he not? anyway from what i gather from interviews and such Eugenides is not a hermaphrodite, but it still awes me because i felt the voice of the narrative so feminine. he seemed to be able to peer inside the mind of a teenage girl so eerily well - as he also did in virgin suicides - and not just the teenage girl, but the way also in which he talks about his family and history.

i thoroughly enjoyed the book, although i must say that he lost me at the end. it seemed like at the end he felt like he needed some action in case this were to be made into a movie or something - or maybe it was bringing the story current that did it. whatever the case from the point the narrator ran away i stopped believing somehow. it didnt ruin it for me in any way, just threw me for a loop i guess. anyway - i more earnestly back this book up than any i have read for a while. and it won't make you want to kill yourself like the road.