Monday, March 19, 2007

Middlesex

2 May 2004
At the moment
Song: Boyzone CD that's playing right now.
Mood: Bored
What I had last: Breakfast - at 1.30pm
My brain is saying: What a bum
Time: 14:50
Wishlist: A hella load of CASH

It's now 4.36am IN THE MORNING and I've written this blog on a piece of exam sheet so that I'll have no excuse NOT to blog about it. I've put in effort to write it down, I'll put in the effort to type it, although right now I'm dead sleepy and would rather hide in my room.

I digress.

Anyway. I've gotten this novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides from Gianne a couple of weeks ago. I read it pretty slowly, only finishing it 2 weeks later cos I kept putting it down, leaving it outside and in the car and downstairs. And of course, I've a bagful of those secondhand Sweet Love books from the 80s I bought for RM1.50 each from Amcorp Mall...so all I did was put in a couple of hours every other day. Today after finished with TV at 1am, I settled down to actually FINISH the book, and it took me 3 and a half hours, yep, but I'm finished.

So, my POINT being, this is a good book. Really good book. It started off in some village in Greece where the young people defected to bigger cities and there are less and less eligible bachelors and brides. And then there's Desdemona, one of the only 3 eligible brides. And her bro, Lefty. And Lefty chose, well, Desdemona as his bride, yes his sister. They flee to USA because of war in 1922, courting on the ship, creating new life history, and, er, married. Upon reaching USA, they were greeted by their cousin Sourmelina and husbang Jimmy Zizmo. They had 2 kids, Milton and Zoe, and they turned out normal. Sourmelina has a kid too, Tessie. And when they grew up, Milton married Tessie, who're 2nd cousins. Confused yet?

The story was told from the narrative's viewpoint, Calliope. Chapter Eleven and Callie are Tessie & Milton's kids.

Here's an excerpt:
Sourmelina Zizmo wasn't only my 1st cousin twice removed, she was also my grandmother. My father was his own mother's (and father's) nephew. In addition to being my grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty were my grand-aunt and -uncle. My parents would be my second cousins once removed and Chapter Eleven would be my third cousin as well as my brother.

Anyhoo, the tale was told in a direct and intricate manner, time space were muffed by intersplices of years 1922, 1970s and 2002.

What's so special about this story, anyway? Here:
I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in Jan 1960, and then again, as a teenage boy in an ER near Petoskey, Michigan, in August 1974. My birth cert lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license records my name as simply Cal Stephanides.

Callie's born half girl/half boy. She has an enlarged clitoris/extremely small penis (depending on your viewpoint) and undescended testes. It's caused by ressesive genes in the 5th chromosome, united with it's twin from Milton's and Tessie's DNA. Callie found out she's really Cal when she was 14, after visits to some gender doctor. She ran away and transformed into the male she's supposed to be.

The story's too long, winded and complicated for me to unwound like the silk cocoons in the book. Read it yourself. But the satirical, dry way the story's been told is really remarkable. And eloquent. And disorienting. You sometimes just have to put the book down and THINK. And the biological terms - karyotype, hypospadias, synapses...now I know what I learnt in Biology is worth it hehe. And then ther's Hermes, Aprodite and their kid Hermaproditus...yo. No wonder someone told me this is a book someone just want to read over and over again. The sexual parts were at best fascinating and at worst squirmish.

It's and entire different genre from my usual Pan-Asian/women issues diet. Best read since, well, Harry Potter. The narrative is sporadic and engaging. The book is a little boring at the beginning but really picked up speed after Cal ran away. The parts where the incest were commited is really, well, it disgusts me slightly. Hard not to let imagination run wild, sometimes. Some parts were stretched as long as a few chapters making me feel like "dammit, just get along with it already!".

And it's REALLY late now. I need sleep. And if I need to write some book report/sypnosis thingy for school like that stupid Projek Nilam, I'll write:
Lesson learnt/moral of the story: Don't marry your sibling, yo.

********************************************************************

Suddenly I'm all sentimental. I've put on a few boyband CDs, still my favourites. BSB, Boyzone, Westlife, 911...where are they now?? The feelings of deja vu and morning chats (as in, waking up at 7am to talk to someone in UK) when I was 12 was overwhelming. God, I'd give a lot to be 12 again. A LOT.

I'm still unashamedly BSB's fan. Yeah.

Comments:
Lo0py made this comment,
i dun like Beyonce........

Yoke Yan made this comment,
Sounds like an interesting book. Do ya know where I can get it from?
Westlife is still there!

Is waking up at 7am the best you can do? I used to wake up at 4am to chat with my friends from the UK!

Yoke Yan!

Visit me @ http://getbusted.blog-city.com

*neTte* made this comment,
girl, u have to find better things to do with your time

Jun Hoe made this comment,
Interesting book. Anyway, yeah, I admit it, I used to like boybands too, and still do like BSB. Ehehe.

A visitor made this comment,
oh yeah. bsb. they rock, yo. they still rock. even if they're god-knows-where right now. yeah.
hanna

Delwyn Lee made this comment,
*yawns*..... -falls asleep midway thru reading-....
Oh... finish already?
What's all this about hermaphrodites eh?
And i dun like Yeehui because he dun like Beyonce
:P

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