I was visiting Michael over at Bailey/Coy the other day, and he told me that HBO was adapting Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel Middlesex into a miniseries. I’ve been thinking about this since then, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
Middlesex is, I think, one of the few novels I could recommend to virtually anyone (barring, of course, the excessively religious). It is a general-audience novel about a hermaphrodite that managed to both win the Pulitzer Prize and be chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. It’s deceptively easy to read, which pulls in a lot of people who would otherwise be turned off by a novel that doesn’t feature guns and car chases, or smutty, tawdry sex. And the HBO series is sure to mean that more people will read it than ever before, which is a very good thing indeed. (If you haven’t read it, you should. Most used bookstores have multiple copies; Oprah will do that to a book.)
And HBO has a pretty good track record with TV shows, but I remember their adaptation of Empire Falls from a few years ago:
(Empire Falls is another one of those Pulitzer-winning mass market books that is amazingly good, by the way. Not as good as Middlesex, but still charming and moving and funny). The miniseries made Empire Falls so pedestrian and bland. Even Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward couldn’t save it from dullness. It didn’t ruin the experience of the book for me, but it didn’t help, either. Like the majority of the people who read it, I have a relationship with Middlesex. More important than that, a lot of transgendered people found the book to be pretty groundbreaking and validating, too. So my point is, HBO better not fuck this up. And then I saw that the whole thing is being produced by Rita Wilson (producer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and I’m starting to get nervous. The Millions thinks Wilson’s involvement is a good sign, and who am I to argue with them? We’re all just book bloggers who get nervous about adaptations.
But still: If you haven’t read Middlesex, now is the time, before the miniseries comes along and becomes inextricably linked to the book forever.
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“who would otherwise be turned off by a novel that doesn’t feature guns and car chases, or smutty, tawdry sex.”
Are you kidding me? Middlesex has this big stupid chase scene at the end of it that involves a priest trying to extract a ransom from his parishioners which ends in a with a swerving crazy car jumping off into a river. Totally dumb and unnecessary. You could almost Eugenides gearing up for his Hollywood moment.
Plus half the book, we’re waiting to get a good look at the narrator’s “junk” and to see if the narrator scores with some Asian chick.
I agree that’s a great book and with your hopes that the miniseries doesn’t ruin it. Done well, it could really energize his already amazing writing.
I also wouldn’t recommend Middlesex to anyone who is really sensitive. I started reading it, loved it right away, then got to the rape/disembowelment part and literally threw up I was so upset. I was seriously f-d up over it.
I disagree: I thought Empire Falls was nicely adapted by HBO. It’s a quiet book that made a well-paced, quiet mini-series that wasn’t dull at all.
And anything starring Ed “has no” Harris is OK by me.
In Constant’s world there are obviously two types of readers: brilliantly sensitive people like him, and those “who would otherwise be turned off by a novel that doesn’t feature guns and car chases, or smutty, tawdry sex.”
Fuck you.
Empire Falls is a terrible book. Russo is a twit.
Okay, I know everyone loves Middlesex, but I found the beginning to be quite meandering. I was bored with the book by the time I got to the good part. Loved the last quarter of the story and didn’t want it to end there.
Just to let you know, the word ‘hermaphrodite’ is actually considered offensive. ‘Intersex’ is the preferred term.
I found Middlesex interesting but tose who recommended it to me waaaayyyy over-hyped it, so it fell flat against my expectations.
What I found interesting is how it reminded me of the Papau New Guinea “Penis-at-12” people…There is an entire aboriginal civilization there, where more than 2/3 of the children are born with female genetalia and develop additional secondary sex characteristics of males at the onset of puberty.
Agree, @8. I thought it was only so-so myself, which was surprising since it won everything and there was a long period where everyone and their mom was recommending it to me. Also: I think it would make a very boring miniseries.
i can’t believe i’m the only person to defend Empire Falls. when i first skimmed this post i thought you were taking EF as a sign of how well HBO can produce an understated, engaging, and magnificently cast miniseries.
i have zero knowledge of the book and find HBO’s project decisions hit or miss, but along with Angels in America i consider Empire Falls an example of a miniseries done right.
as for Middlesex, i think its content is so tempting to exploit, and connects to the ‘sensitive areas’ of most readers, that i see only disappointment for fans of the book coming out of a tv adap.