What Lies Between
Throughout Books One and Two of Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex, we the reader are placed in the unusual position of casting our hopes with the success of a character, Cal, whose sexual identity—and, correspondently his path through the world—is quite unlike that of the overwhelming majority of his readers. This trick is nothing new (I am not an obsessive sea captain, but I can read Melville; I am no tennis prodigy, Quebecois terrorist, or visionary filmmaker, but I can read Foster Wallace), in fact, the expansion of empathic relating through prose is one of fiction’s most virtuous qualities. The story that Eugenides shapes for us adds a new sculpture in the gallery of American literature, combining myths of the old world, dramas of an American immigrant family, and the tropes of traditional bildungsroman to create a thoroughly post-modern novel. Cal’s journey, across the world and from confusions of childhood to the challenges of adjustment present as his/her adolescence begins takes the scripted drama of triumph over all obstacles and turns it inside out. All stories deserve to be told.
There is another story, one taking place behind the scenes of the novel. By switching from the interior, first-person narration that grants readers an understanding of the dynamics of Cal’s struggles with selfhood to the zoomed-out, clinical third person, Eugenides creates a synthetic structure for the reader to both analyze all sides. When we are reading our protagonist’s story told from his perspective, it is society—and, particularly, his family—that is under analysis; when taken to the other perspective, we are the family and society peering in, trying to make sense of this ostensible ‘mix-up.’ Neither side can hold the whole truth, and both maintain necessary falsehoods that help them reckon with the trauma that his genetic deviation incurs. Eugenides’ prose plays the role of psychiatrist, genealogist (literally, this time!), judge and jury, and television personality. It is also that of a fourteen-year-old boy/girl who desperately wants to know herself.
The elephant in both of these rooms is the secret history of incest, standing sigil in the midst of the entire family history. Though common in the old country, sexual relationships between cousins are far more problematic amidst the new cultural mores of an industrializing America. Concerning the sex (and, woe, procreation) shared by Lefty and Desdemona, both cultures hold strict taboos and prohibitions. But America is the land of the free, rocketing from one upheaval of geography, economy, and morality as the 20th century rolls on. By the time we arrive at Cal/Callie’s mixed-up underparts, the thread has been woven in: America, land where bold hues can always find more room, and where the tapestry rolls on.
Tags: Gaze, hermaphrodite, incest, Middlesex
