Monday, August 10, 2009

What I'm Reading This Week...

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Brilliant writing. Incredible story. Complicated and compelling narrator. There was so much to like in this 500+ page novel. You get a taste of village life, Detroit life (during better times and not so good times), suburban prep-school life, European ex-patriot life, and life on the run. You encounter portraits of families that are at once loving and tortured, beautiful and hideous. The narrator takes a great deal of narrative freedom in the beginning, claiming pre-birth ominscence to tell the story of his grandparents, and the results are beautifully rendered passages that ultimately help explain the narrator's complex sexual situation. A terrific read!

Side note: In case you are wondering why the sudden attention to what I am reading, my goal this year is to read a book a week. After leaving Sewanee this summer, I decided I needed to try to make up some ground on all of the books I need to read and the authors I need to know. So here we go! If you have any recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments! Anything literary fiction and great writing, whether ancient or contemporary, is game.

2 comments:

Bren said...

great post, Linz! As far as future reads go, how about some Shadow Series books?! there's some great literary fiction for ya!

Kira said...

I wish that I had some books that you probably haven't read, but I doubt it. I have been very curious about Middlesex, so it is good to know that you liked it. Maybe I will attempt it, though I know I cannot read it in a week.