the girl tripping through my body when i walk.

[starfrosting]

When Calliope surfaces, she does so like a childhood speech impediment. Suddenly there she is again, doing a hair flip, or checking her nails. It's a little like being possessed. Callie rises up inside me, wearing my skin like a loose robe. She sticks her little hands into the baggy sleeves of my arms. She inserts her chimp's feet through the trousers of my legs. On the sidewalk I'll feel her girlish walk take over, and the movement brings back a kind of emotion, a desolate and gossipy sympathy for the girls I see coming home from school. This continues for a few more steps. Calliope's hair tickles the back of my throat. I feel her press tentatively on my chest- that old nervous habit of hers- to see if anything is happening there...But then, just as suddenly, she is leaving, shrinking and melting away inside me, and when I turn to see my reflection in a mirror there's this:...
-from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

* * *
I was hesitant and reluctant to start this book, which my mom had read and recommended to me, since its narrator is intersexed and that just seemed like a breeding ground for a host of fucked-up things about 'hermaphrodites' to breathe air under the guise of literature. I must admit, though, it's incredibly well written. The family is Greek, which may be part of why I'm liking it thusfar. I'll have to wait to the end to really deconstruct the way it deals with gender (don't worry, I won't subject you to that) but right now the only main thing that really gets me about it is the inference that Cal is intersexed cos hir family had incestuous relations.

Comments

Middlesex

[bias-cut.livejournal.com]

I thought that despite a few flaws, Eugenides really dealt with Cal in such a compassionate way. I also think that the story is more complex than a simple conclusion that incest created Cal's condition. I personally thought it was a really beautifully-written and touching story that despite flaws, really did a good job of dealing with a lot of issues.

I'd like to hear more about what you think when you finish it.

Re: Middlesex

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't mean to be overly simplistic about it or anything; I recognize the literary use of the incest thing + how it fits with issues of keeping culture and assimilation. I definitely look forward to finishing it so I can judge it once and for all :)--but first, The Fate of Meaning.

[emmawrites.livejournal.com]

i read it about 2 months ago and while i was doing so, i mentioned it to one of my best friends--who is quite a serious gender studies student. and she said, "yeah i hear that book really sucks. it's super problematic and many in the gender studies community despise it." this made me feel like i was a bad women's studies student for enjoying such a piece of trash. i really liked the book, i thought it was beautifully written and quite a page turner. so, what i want to pose to all you gender studies live journal people is the request of an honest explication of WHY this book is so problematic. is it just because cal's being intersex is linked to his (starfrosting-i don't think anywhere is cal refered to as hir, but i may be wrong) family's incestuous past? i saw the incest kind of as a literary tool--the genetic silk, so to speak, that wove together the various generations of the family. and if we do criticize the book for this reason, must we discard the entire thing?

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

Hi there,
Yeah, I know they never use gender-neutral for him in there, but---I guess I did so anyway. Hopefully I didn't deny the character any agency ;). I do agree w.you that one can't toss out the whole book because of this one trope that is more than a bit fucked up. Especially since gender-studies people can react kneejerk to things like this: popular books featuring an intersexed protagonist tend to make you wary. I know I judged it before I even started reading it.

Also, on the first page of the book Eugenides acknowledges his sources. Some are sorta notorious to us q.t. kids--Money, etc--but he also mentions The Intersex Society of North America and the journal Hermaphrodites with Attitude. So I think, at this point, that his book is too nuanced to resort to either the scary "'hermaphrodites' are freaks of nature caused by incest" approach or the "I'm shoving Foucauldian theory in readers' faces" approach.

[badnoutyway.livejournal.com]

yeah, i basically agree. the theory behind a lot of it was (oh don't we humanities students love this word) problematic. but behind that it's a fucking good book, and maybe being problematic is not accidental. it's so engaging. and more importantly, let's go to greece. i know a hot girl who lives there. oh, and emmawrites, i think so. at least that's what i find problematic, but i'm by no means a gender studies person, just really interested.

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

Oh I want to go to Greece!

Also, I agree that perhaps some of the problematic aspects of this book are- and I may be giving the author the benefit of the doubt- meant to incite, quietly, and perhaps question some pretty fucked up beliefs this culture holds dear about the trope of the gene and human genetics in general. (Whoa, Haraway much?) I'll have to finish the book before I say more, though.

Speaking of Greece, I have family there, and we'd have a place to stay (small apartment in Athens)...Ah, logistics. Ahh, dreaming.

[ireland-forever.livejournal.com]

I read that book, enjoyed it, but didn't think it was his best.

[dellac.livejournal.com]

it was so good i want to read the virgin suicides now

[redfuzzyllama.livejournal.com]

sorry for the random post...you've met me before, but probably don't remember me.

anyway, i've also just read the book, so i'd like to throw in my two cents here.

i really, really enjoyed it. my personal opinion is that the incest thing would be problematic had cal's intersex nature been psychologically based. i.e: her family is fucked up, so s/he is fucked up and confused. however, in the book, cal has a rare genetic disorder which causes the differences in his/her genitalia. obviously, not every genetic disorder is caused by incest, but multiple instances of incest within a family would increase the likelihood of a child born with a recessive genetic disorder. it might have been nice if cal's intersex identity had been psychologically rather than genetically based (perhaps more interesting in a less scientific sense), but i felt the author handled the topic well and honestly.

of course, as a heterosexual female, i don't have a direct personal connection to this topic, so perhaps i'm not really qualified to make an in-depth analysis. whatever, i thought it was very good.

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

hi. who are you? (I probably remember you if we've met.)

See, the whole thing of intersexuality being a 'condition' is interesting in and of itself...the ways in which bodies are sexed and disciplined and the ways in which some bodies fail to comply w/ those categories, etc-- All sorts of complicated stuff that I'm not entirely equipped to talk about, at least not right now when I can't be articulate.

[redfuzzyllama.livejournal.com]

anyway, to clarify, i'm rachael, class of '06...i was one of the sustainability bandanna people last year. i think we've also met through mutual friends and stuff. pat & paul, maybe?

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

ahh, Pat and Paul. If that's the case, I probably haven't seen you (knowingly) since first semester, in which case we should at least greet one another when we're back at school ;). See you, Rachel. Nice to meet you again.

[redfuzzyllama.livejournal.com]

same here. not to sound like a stalker, but you seem really cool (judging by your journal), and it would be nice to get to know you. maybe we could chill sometime.