Middlesex (novel) - Style

Style

he writing itself is also about mixing things up, grafting flights of descriptive fancy with hunks of conversational dialogue, pausing briefly to sketch passing characters or explain a bit of a bygone world.

Several reviewers considered "Middlesex" to be overly verbose. "The Economist" called the novel "ponderous" and that the main story (that of Cal) does not "get off the ground until halfway through" the book. "Time"'s Richard Lacayo concurred; he considered the hundreds of pages about Cal's grandparents and several historical events to be trite, making "Middlesex"'s focus "footloose" in some spots. Several passages in the novel exhibit Eugenides' obsession with "verbose voluptuousness". An example noted by Thea Hillman in her review is an incident in which Cal says, "I sat in my seat, in a state of voluptuous agitation, of agitated voluptuousness, until my stop. Then I staggered out." A contrary opinion on the verbosity is given by Daniel Soar in his article for "London Review of Books." According to Soar, Eugenides did "both background and foreground in all the necessary detail", seamlessly shifting from past to present. Despite the implausible tone of the novel's events, the author successfully makes them "elaborately justified and motivated." The quality of "Middlesex"'s writing was uneven in the opinions of Hillman and another reviewer, Sebastian Smee. The latter pointed out that Eugenides occasionally moves from the heartfelt ("I remember the first time we took off our clothes in front of each other. It was like unwinding bandages") to the "trashily journalistic" ("You've heard of installation artists? Well, the Object was an exhalation artist") on several occasions.

Humor and irony are frequently used in the book. Mark Lawson of "The Guardian" considered the narrator's tone to be "sardonic empath", and other critics have characterized the beginning of the novel as comical. When Cal is baptized as an infant by Father Mike, a Greek Orthodox clergyman, the priest receives a surprise: "From between my cherubic legs a stream of crystalline liquid shot into the air ... Propelled by a full bladder, it cleared the lip of the font ... struck Father Mike right in the middle of the face." Derek Weiler of the "Toronto Star" noted that Eugenides has witty commentary about German compound words and the "horrific qualities of public men's rooms."\ The author employed another writing device—abrupt incongruity—in describing Desdemona's physical appearances to suggest that her incestuous acts should be taken lightly when judging her. In describing her hair, he wrote that her "braids were not delicate like a little girl's but heavy and womanly, possessing a natural power, like a beaver's tail". According to Penelope Music of Book Magazine, the mismatch in tone of the final two words compared with the rest of the sentence was such that the reading experience was changed from "run-of-the-mill magical realism to true, subversive comedy". An instance of irony is illustrated by Cal's grandparents and parents: His grandparents assimilate into American culture through hard work and struggles while retaining certain old customs. His parents, however, abandon their roots for a more comfortable lifestyle. In another incident, the diner owned by the Stephanides is engulfed in flames during the 1967 Detroit riot. Cal ironically notes that "hameful as it is to say, the riots were the best thing that ever happened to us." The diner was insured and the Stephanides gain a windfall payout.