Neutral

Name: Neutral
ISBN: 9787532781911

杰弗里·尤金尼德斯Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaDec 2019

4.6

Word count: 418K words
Chapters: 34
ISBN: 9787532781911

Report an error Find this book

Summary

Eugenides's novel Middlesex, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, gives its Greek American protagonist Stephanides two births: first as a baby girl in Detroit in 1960, then as a fourteen-year-old boy in Michigan in 1974. According to medical reports, she/he is a rare "intersex person," but her/his fate—or humanity's shared fate—is that one must choose a single life: either "he" or "she." This is a sweeping, epic-scale novel whose protagonist, Cal, shares her name with Calliope, one of the nine Muses, the goddess who presides over epic poetry. The story spans three generations of a Greek family, from a small village in Asia Minor overlooking Mount Olympus, to smoke-filled Detroit, witnessing the boom years of the Motor City and the 1967 race riots, and finally to a suburb called Gross Point in Michigan. As Cal comes of age, she finds her physical development lagging far behind other girls—an ugly duckling who never quite becomes a swan. Her emotional inclinations, too, favor same-sex friends; is this merely the same-sex intimacy of a girls' school, or is there some deeper cause, like the saffron buried within her, stirring to life? An unexpected event solves the mystery of Cal's body, turning "Calliope" into "Cal" and uncovering family secrets reaching back to her grandparents and beyond. Tracing the family tree upstream, following a genetic destiny that spans two continents and centuries, this回溯 is at once physical, existential, and literary. All of this gives Middlesex its dual face: male and female, tragedy and comedy, classical and postmodern.

Editor's review

Middlesex is the signature work of American author Jeffrey Eugenides and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. This epic family saga follows the Greek American immigrant Cal/Calliope, exploring the complex interplay of gender, identity, history, and fate. With rare narrative ambition, Eugenides sets a personal coming-of-age story against the upheavals of twentieth-century global history—from the 1922 genocide in Asia Minor to the industrial decline of 1970s Detroit to contemporary identity anxiety—spanning vast reaches of time and space. The novel's central tension lies in the eternal struggle between the protagonist's physiological reality as an intersex person and his/her self-identification. The author does not treat this as a sensational topic but, with deep sympathy and delicate psychological portraiture, elevates it into a universal philosophical inquiry into "who am I." Narratively, the novel adopts a distinctive collective "we" voice—part chorus of family ghosts, part omniscient historical narration—giving the story a mythic, fated quality. Its language balances gorgeously ornate passages with cool observation, combining epic weight with modernist irony and detachment. This is not merely a novel about gender but a grand narrative about immigration, the American Dream, and the conflict between religion and science. Reading it demands patience, but its insight into individual fate and the sweep of history leaves a lasting impact. The Chinese edition, published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, is well translated and largely captures the original's complex stylistic range and literary texture.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with a deep interest in gender studies, identity politics, and immigrant literature
Literature lovers who enjoy One Hundred Years of Solitude-style family sagas and grand historical narratives
Seasoned readers seeking a challenge and undaunted by complex narrative structures and dense, rich texts
Thinkers who want to understand the intertwining of twentieth-century history and individual fate through a literary lens

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting fast-paced, plot-driven stories
Readers sensitive to themes involving physiological detail, historical trauma, and identity confusion

Reading tips

Set aside uninterrupted time for immersive reading; the narrative threads are intricate and the jumps in time and space frequent, so fragmented reading can easily lead you astray.
Pay some attention to the book's use of Greek mythological allusions (such as the protagonist's name, Calliope), which helps in understanding the work's layers of metaphor.
While reading, try to set aside preconceptions about "gender" and follow the narrative to experience the protagonist's complete life journey as a "person."

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
第一卷
银匙
做媒
一次很不得体的求婚
丝绸之路
第二卷
亨利·福特的英语熔化锅
弥诺陶洛斯
关系冷淡的婚姻
骗术
单簧管小夜曲
国际新闻
EX OVO OMNIA
第三卷
自制影片
啊，着了！
米德尔塞克斯
地中海沿岸地区的饮食
狼獾队
热蜡脱毛抒情诗
那朦胧的人儿
提瑞西阿斯坠入情网
肉与血
墙上的步枪
第四卷
模糊不清的外阴
在韦氏大词典里查找我自己
到西部去，年轻人
在旧金山的性焦虑
赫马佛洛狄忒斯
空中飘游
最后的停靠点
后记

FAQ

Is this book very different in style from the author's other work, The Virgin Suicides?

The difference is striking. The Virgin Suicides focuses on the psychology and fate of a group of girls in a closed community; its style is more compressed, its atmosphere dense, with a Gothic tint. Middlesex, by contrast, is a family epic spanning vast reaches of time and space, with a complex, grand narrative structure and more diverse, historically grounded themes—showing a completely different side of the author's craft. Both are masterpieces, but they display different narrative gifts.

Does "Middlesex" in the novel refer to the protagonist's physiological state or psychological identity?

Both, and inseparably so. The title Middlesex points directly to the physiological fact of the protagonist Cal/Calliope being intersex. Yet the book's core is not merely the description of a rare medical condition but a profound exploration of how that physiological fact interacts with family inheritance, historical trauma, social norms, and individual will to shape a complex, fluid identity. "Middlesex" is thus both a physiological starting point and a central metaphor running through the book for existence and self-definition.

How difficult is this book to read?

It is fairly difficult. The difficulty lies mainly in three areas: first, its nearly 600-page length and epic structure of multiple threads and interwoven times and places; second, its integration of a great deal of historical event, medical knowledge, and cultural allusion; third, the considerable philosophical speculation involved in its core themes of gender and identity. Still, the author's superb narrative skill and emotional power effectively draw readers in. Be prepared for a deep literary challenge.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

杰弗里·尤金尼德斯 Author

Jeffrey Eugenides is a contemporary American novelist whose name appears in Chinese editions of foreign literature. Because public information is limited, his full biography, education, and awards are not speculated upon here. As for the two works held in this collection, Middlesex is a substantial novel centered on gender and family history that attracted wide attention, while Fresh Complaint: Stories shows his continued work in the short-story form. His subjects often follow family, identity, and generational relationships; his narration is detailed, and his language combines humor with melancholy, skillfully embedding individual lives within broader social change. Translated into Chinese, his works offer Chinese readers another perspective on contemporary American fiction.