[26] In an interview by National Public Radio in 2002, he commented on the similarities: Because the story is so far from my own experience, I had to use a lot of details from my own life to ground it in reality, to make it believable for me and then hopefully for the reader, as well. View cart for details. [25] Max Watman of The New Criterion concurred, noting that Middlesex is "funny, big, embracing, and wonderful", unlike Eugenides' first novel. The narration switches from personal to external, lending poignancy to the character's final discovery as she confronts the word "monster". "[45] Lawson noted that whereas Middlesex deals with the "links" among gender, life, and genes, The Virgin Suicides deals with the "connections" between gender and death. [97] Dan Cryer of Newsday wrote that with the publication of Middlesex, "[f]inally, Detroit has its very own great American novel". [36] 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. After Callie is injured by a tractor, a doctor discovers that she is intersex. Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times Book Review considered Middlesex one of the best books of 2002, and some scholars believed the novel should be considered for the title of Great American Novel. The people of the middleman minority do not assimilate because of their small mercantile businesses and because their host country is antagonistic towards them. [44] Milton and Tessie, second cousins, are conceived during the same night, hinting to the incest of Desdemona and Lefty. They debate and tell stories to each other, attempting to regain their ethnic roots. The author denied writing the novel as an autobiography. "[133] At the time, Eugenides was with the Canadian author Yann Martel who confirmed the photographer's words after checking on the hotel's computer. [162] In 2007, 1.3 million copies of the book had been sold. [120][121] Callie is not a Frankenstein; she is more like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. [132] When a young Associated Press photographer notified him about winning the award, Eugenides was dubious, noting that "[i]t seemed very unlikely that he would be the messenger of such news. ", "Profile: Jeffrey Eugenides' novel 'Middlesex,' and how it deals with the subject of the narrator's hermaphroditism", "Sex, fate, and Zeus and Hera's kinkiest argument", "Breaking Through the Second-Novel Curse", "What you missed at last night's Jeffrey Eugenides reading", "Jeffrey Eugenides mixes history, science and sex in a novel way", "Gender studies: Jeffrey Eugenides's middle sex", "Guilt and other stuff; Jeffrey Eugenides' second novel is a big, fat family epic a flawed but entertaining departure from his taut debut", "Paperback pick of the week: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides", "Middlesex by Jeffrey EugenidesWeek one: omniscience", "Of self and country: U.S. politics, cultural hybridity, and ambivalent identity in Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex", "Middlesex by Jeffrey EugenidesWeek two: foreknowledge", "Hermaphrodite's History Is a Storyteller's Bonanza", "The American Dream Seen in a Child's Nightmare", "Neither here nor there: 'Middlesex' is about a girl who becomes a boy and the division between Detroit and Grosse Pointe", "Where Does Happiness (and Everything Else) Come From? For additional information, please contact the manufacturer or desertcart customer service. Browse pages with similar products: men's summer apparel. Smyrna is the burning city from which she flees to start a new life; New Smyrna Beach is where she spends her retirement. They dream about a perfect America where effort and morals will lead to good fortune. Whereas Lefty embraces his new country's customs, Desdemona is adamant that she will follow her old country's ways. [44][141] Daniel Mendelsohn of The New York Times Book Review wrote that thematically, there was no reason that a Greek should be an intersex or vice versa and that Eugenides had two disconnected stories to tell. [69] Francisco Collado-Rodrguez, a professor of American literature, classified the beginning of Middlesex as a historiographical and metafictional chronicle for its discussion of events such as the Greco-Turkish war and the Great Fire of Smyrna. "[81] While walking through the neighborhood, a group of African-American men loafing in front of a barbershop wolf-whistle to Desdemona and make lascivious comments, thus confirming the racial stereotype. In 1924, after Milton's birth, Lefty opens a bar and gambling room called the Zebra Room. [44] Scholar Rachel Carroll agreed, writing that teenage Callie's erotic interest in girls is "retroactively explained and legitimized, by the discovery of his 'true biological nature'." "[62][63] However, he later says, "I alone, from the private box of my primordial egg, saw what was going on. Reviewer William Deresiewicz contrasted The Marriage Plot and Middlesex, writing that the former was "far more intimate in tone and scale". Because of the threat of school integration, the family moves to a house on Middlesex Boulevard, Grosse Pointe. 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". libraries". Copyright 1995-2022 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. Desertcart provides a seamless and secure shopping platform with 100 million+ products from around the globe delivered to your door. Lina is a closeted lesbian and the only person who knows of the siblings' incestuous relationship. "[145] Paul Quinn of Contemporary Literary Criticism commended the novel, writing: "That Eugenides manages to move us without sinking into sentiment shows how successfully he has avoided the tentacles of irony which grip so many writers of his generation. [104] Doctors determine that Callie has the XY chromosomes of a male after inspecting Callie's genitalia. [27], Eugenides blended fact and fiction in his book. Eugenides stated that it is no surprise that Cal uses "hermaphrodite" and further elaborated: "It's paradoxical: Cal can say 'hermaphodite' but I can't. If you'd like to get the additional items you've selected to qualify for this offer. Noting that one of the initial sources he consulted was the journal Hermaphrodites with Attitude published by the Intersex Society of North America, he said that those writers have "co-opted" the term "hermaphrodite". [40], Middlesex has several allusions to Greek classical myths;[49] for example, the protagonist is named after Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry. Jeffrey Eugenides, read by Kristoffer Tabori. [59] At the end of the novel, the story adopts the tone of the detective genre. Cal believes this interference was a factor in his being intersex. Not all such material was excised, Eugenides said: "There may still be things in there that will sting."[34]. [49] 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. [138], The audiobook version of Middlesex was released by Macmillan Audio in September2002. [note 4] In separate encounters, Callie has her first sexual experiences with a woman, the Obscure Object, and with a man, the Obscure Object's brother. [38][41] 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. Reporters and critics noted that many characters and events in Middlesex parallel those in Eugenides' life. In a manner similar to Oedipus's fulfillment of Pythia's prophecy to slay his father and marry his mother, Callie validates the prediction her grandmother made before her birth by adopting a male identity. The mythical monster is an analogy for a complex personality, a mixture of body parts from various animals that each represents a human aspect or characteristic. He also considered the first section of the novel as a tragicomedy about the Stephanides' migration from Greece and assimilation into America. [5] Eugenides was a guest on Oprah's show with several intersex individuals who told stories about their lives. Get unlimited free shipping in 164+ countries with desertcart Plus membership. [6][8][9], Eugenides worked on Middlesex for nine years. When she is 14years old, Callie experiences a second birth to become Cal. [6] Eugenides read books, sifted through many sheets of microfiche, and combed through videotapes and newsletters that dealt with the subject. According to scholars, the novel's main themes are nature versus nurture, rebirth, and the differing experiences of what society constructs as polar oppositessuch as those found between men and women. The Economist described the novel as "ponderous" and said that the main story (that of Cal) does not "get off the ground until halfway through" the book. At the beginning of the novel, Cal writes, "Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation on my fifthchromosome. [75] Beginning with Lefty and Desdemona, Cal's grandparents, fleeing from their homeland to Ellis Island and the United States, the novel later depicts the family living in a suburban vista at Grosse Pointe, Michigan. In the small village, high on the slope of Mount Olympos above the city of Bursa, incestuous marriages between cousins are a quietly accepted practice. As Milton's funeral takes place at the church, Cal stands in the doorway of his family home, assuming the male-only role in Greek traditions to keep his father's spirit from re-entering the home. Vintage Genes Men's Size 28 SLIM FIT Shorts Black Rower - Canoe Print, - eBay Money Back Guarantee - opens in a new window or tab, - for PayPal Credit, opens in a new window or tab, Learn more about earning points with eBay Mastercard, - eBay Return policy - opens in a new tab or window, - eBay Money Back Guarantee - opens in a new tab or window. "[142] Tami Hoag of People concurred, writing that "this feast of a novel is thrilling in the scope of its imagination and surprising in its tenderness". In the 1920s, Bernice L. Hausman described "intersexuality" as a "continuum of physiological and anatomical sex differences", contesting the notion of a "true sex" concealed in the tissues of the body. [59] Cal's father is conceived after his grandparents' attendance of a theatric play entitled The Minotaur. Lina, the cousin of Lefty and Desdemona, is the paragon of immigrant integration. In 1922, Cal's paternal grandfather, Eleutherios "Lefty" Stephanides, lives in Bithynios, a village in Asia Minor. [78], Zecker remarked that in an ironic twist, immediately after the riots, Desdemona's family is shamed by a white realtor who "doubts their fitness (whiteness)" to live in the rich city Grosse Pointe. Instead, Zecker noted that the characters in the novel believe that the 1967 Detroit riots are "inexplicable cataclysms that came out of nowhere". "[53] Risen wished to read more about the events between Cal's adolescence and adulthood, such as Cal's experience in college as an intersex person as well as the relationships he had. [50] In another incident, the diner owned by the Stephanides is engulfed in flames during the 1967 Detroit riot. Zaleski wrote that "[i]t's difficult to imagine any serious male writer of earlier eras so effortlessly transcending the stereotypes of gender. Since 2014, desertcart has been delivering a wide range of products to customers and fulfilling their desires. [44], Writing for The New Republic, James Wood classified Middlesex as a story written in the vein of hysterical realism. Luce carefully observes Callie's actions and diagnoses them as feminine, which causes him to determine that Callie has a feminine gender identity. Cal eschews a chronological telling of the story, where he shares the characters' nescience. Prior to Callie's birth, Desdemona predicts the child to be a boy, although the parents prepare for a girl. Mullan observed that "[f]or the reader, apprehension predominates over surprise" as a result of this narrative style. [105] Callie's parents bring her to New York City to see Dr. Peter Luce, a foremost expert on hermaphroditism, who believes she should retain her female identity. [97] Frances Bartkowski, a scholar of English, named Callie in her puberty as a chimera. [128] They opined that other "deviant" characters in the novel such as Lefty and Desdemona are spared the "tragic or monstrous" allusions even though there are numerous examples of incest in Greek mythology. [25][67][85] Critic Raoul Eshelman noted that despite these conflicts, the narrator is able to achieve "ethnic reconciliation" when he moves to Berlin and lives with the Turks, people who had murdered his forebears in the early 20thcentury and who had indirectly allowed his grandparents to consummate their incestuous relationship. [61] As such, contradictory statements highlight the unreliable nature of Cal's narration. In The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides resplendently portrayed the intense fear during virginal sex, as well as Gabriel Garca Mrquez, the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate; in Middlesex, the single event in which the novel "comes to life" is Eugenides' depiction of Callie's liaison with her adolescent lover; and in The Marriage Plot, the novel was exceptional in its "sweet banter of courtship" and the "doormat nice-boy role" the character Mitchell assumes in his interplay with his darling, Madeleine. "[38][39] A contrary opinion is given by Daniel Soar in his article for the London Review of Books. The author decided to write Middlesex after reading the 1980memoir Herculine Barbin and finding himself dissatisfied with its discussion of intersex anatomy and emotions. What Dublin got from James Joycea sprawling, ambitious, loving, exasperated and playful chronicle of all its good and bad partsDetroit has from native son Eugenides in these 500 pages. Because our interactions usually take place in limited and structured setting such as offices and hospitals, pediatricians have scant opportunity to learn how our young patients think. "[108][109], Cal exhibits many masculine characteristics when he is a child. "[132], The novel received the Ambassador Book Award, Spain's Santiago de Compostela Literary Prize, and the Great Lakes Book Award. [46], Middlesex traces the trials and adversity faced by the Stephanides family as they pursue the American Dream. It follows their assimilation into U.S. society in Detroit, Michigan, then a booming industrial city. [44] Whereas the first part is about hermaphrodites, the second is about Greeks. Hermaphroditus' name is a compound of his parents' namesHermes and Aphrodite. After learning about the syndrome and facing the prospect of sex reassignment surgery to make her anatomy appear "normally" female, Callie runs away and assumes a male identity as Cal. His room was ornamented with a large fireplace and a, Because his brother drives the family business into, When discussing the girl whom both Eugenides and his classmate. To become a male, Callie peregrinates across the United States and becomes a midwife of her new life by teaching herself to forget what she has learned as a female. [89], The Stephanides lineage is from Bithynios, a village in Asia Minor where the Greek middleman minority is inclined to be in uneasy relations with the Turkish majority. His connection to this tragic figure is confirmed by his performance as "Hermaphroditus" in a sex show at the age of fourteen, just as he is beginning his female to male transition. Their action is reminiscent, Eugenides wrote, of how some members of the gay community have "reclaimed" the term "queer". [3][4] In 2007, the book was featured in Oprah's Book Club. Lefty takes on a job at Ford Motor Company, but is later retrenched. [1] Writing in Archives of Disease in Childhood, Simon Fountain-Polley praised the novel, writing: "All clinicians, and families who have faced gender crises or difficult life-changing decision[s] on identity should read this book; delve into an emotional trip of discoverywhere the slightest direction change could lead to myriad different lives. [152] Mark Lawson of The Guardian praised Middlesex for having the same unique qualities as The Virgin Suicides, commenting that Middlesex had "an ability to describe the horrible in a comic voice, an unusual form of narration and an eye for bizarre detail. Cal's gender identity postdates rather than predates his sexual interests. Zecker opined that by framing African Americans as the "eternal destroyers" and white ethnics as "yet again the oppressed innocents", Eugenides "captures perfectly the dominant narrative of urban decline in the early twenty-first century American Zeitgeist. Cal's genes reflect an anticipation of the future: the disclosure of his actual sex identity. Lefty attempts to assimilate into American culture by zealously learning English. [26][30] Eugenides studied at University Liggett School, a private institution that served as a model for Callie's Baker and Inglis School for Girls. Narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides (initially called "Callie") is an intersex man of Greek descent with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which causes him to have certain feminine traits. None of the characters think about how 500,000African-Americans were placed in cramped living areas of only 25 square blocks and the bitterness and rage that stems from such conditions. [31] He tapped into his own "locker room trauma", an adolescent experience of being naked among many other nude bodies, and used it to develop Callie's self-discovery of her body during puberty. Similarly, adolescent Callie is an amalgamation of her genes, neither male nor female, neither adult nor child, and yet all of them at the same time. The couple met at MacDowell Colony during Eugenides' stay there and married in 1995. [59] John Mullan, University College London's professor of English and a contributor to The Guardian, wrote that by permitting Cal to be unrealistically aware of fellow characters' thoughts, Eugenides intentionally contravenes an elementary standard in storytelling fiction. During the writing process, Eugenides moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan and later returned to Brooklyn. "[84], Cal's father, Milton, and his friends and family cherish their Sunday gatherings. [135][136] Middlesex was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, which is given to LGBT literature. Rather than a "slim fictional autobiography" of an intersex individual, the novel would be epic in scope, tracing the lives of three generations of Greek Americans. [50] The immigrant predicament is a metaphor and synecdoche for Calliope's hermaphroditic condition; Callie's paternal grandparents become Americanized through the amalgamation of the elements of heredity, cultural metamorphoses, and probability. In the 1970s, African Americans, instead of Mediterraneans, were discriminated against through redlining. [7] Used as a comedic device, the third person narratives illustrate Cal's estrangement from Calliope: When he refers to her in the third person, he is identifying her as someone other than him. [53] Callie's maternal grandfather, Jimmy Zizmo, undergoes a rebirth when he transforms from a bootlegger into Fard Muhammad, a Muslim minister. Despite the implausible tone of the novel's events, the author successfully makes them "elaborately justified and motivated". For example, during the Depression, Desdemona is shocked and humiliated that she will have to work in the Black Bottom, a predominantly black neighborhood. [14], After discovering in his library research 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, an autosomal recessive condition manifested primarily in inbred, isolated population groups, his perception of the novel significantly changed. Primarily a coming-of-age story (Bildungsroman) and family saga, the 21st century gender novel chronicles the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of a Greek family, causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life. [44] Clay Risen of Flak Magazine believed that the immigrant experience was the "heart of the novel", lamenting that it minimized the story of Callie/Cal who is such a "fascinating character that the reader feels short-changed by his failure to take her/him further. Elements of family life are portrayed against struggles in the rise and fall of industrial Detroit. The author alluded his protagonist's nature and heritage to the Minotaur, the half-man and half-bull creature. He also fixed the narrative voice in terms of age by setting up Cal to relate the entire story at one time. Well, the Object [a heavy smoker] was an exhalation artist")[43] on several occasions. Deresiewicz preferred the 2011 novel, writing that "[t]he books are far apart in quality". Because the silkworm eggs are considered parasites by the immigration officials, Desdemona must dispose of them. It is not an autobiography; unlike the protagonist, Eugenides is not intersex. According to Cohen, the difference in timeframes, at least 25years apart, "establishes that the novel is set safely in the past". Eugenides repeatedly returns to the gathering prior to Cal's conception, to "manufacture a psychology that drives his narration". [76], The novel examines the nature versus nurture debate in detail. Though "hermaphrodite" is burdened by the implications of the anomaly, "intersexuality" is a neologism that tries to "naturalize various sexes, which themselves are naturally occurring. She tells her husband Lefty that she does not want to become an "Amerikanidha" and is frightened that her cousin Lina's husband, Jimmy Zizmo, is a Pontian Greek. Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly[35], Several reviewers considered Middlesex to be overly verbose. Explaining that gender is a "very American concept", he believes that "humans are freer than we realize. "[122] Morgan Holmes, formerly of ISNA, describes how the book constructs an intersex character whose life reproduces "social fascination with the monstrous and the deviant."[123]. While desertcart makes reasonable efforts to only show products available in your country, some items may be cancelled if they are prohibited for import in Cayman Islands. The siblings are orphans; their parents are victims of the ongoing Greco-Turkish War. Then I staggered out. He wrote Eugenides was successful with the story of the Greek immigrants, which he described as "authenti[c]", but mishandled the hermaphrodite material, which Mendelsohn characterized as "unpersuasiv[e]". Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. [77], Middlesex portrays the race relations between people of different cultures; Mendelsohn considered the handling of this theme "preachy and nervous". That's genetic, too. After several years of struggling with the narrative voice, Eugenides finally seated himself at his desk and wrote Middlesex's initial page, "500 words that contained the DNA for the protein synthesis of the entire book. The latter half of the novel, set in the late 20thcentury, focuses on Cal's experiences in his hometown of Detroit and his escape to San Francisco, where he comes to terms with his modified gender identity. [52], Middlesex is written in the form of a memoir,[53][54] and switches between the first and the thirdperson in several spots. In the novel's closing pages, Cal provides minute details about his father's dying moments and thoughts in a nonsensical car accident even though he is several thousand miles from the scene and only learns of the tragedy from his brother. [53] Eugenides was partly inspired by the explorations of hermaphrodism in Greek myths to write the novel about an intersex man. [49] 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". In Middlesex, the voice is loud and clear. In addition, the term "hermaphrodite" may be deemed problematic because it alludes to an impossible state of being: no-one can be equally male and female and the preferred term "intersex" indicates a blended rather than divided state. It discusses the pursuit of the American Dream and explores gender identity. [78], According to scholar Robert Zecker, the novel depicts African-American poverty but does not illustrate its causes. [44] In the United States, a strongly nativist country in the 1920s, Greek immigrants must suffer numerous humiliations at the hands of prejudiced whites. Devastated because he is no longer fully male, he "curses" the location where he first met Salmacis. The company uses the latest upgraded technologies and software systems to ensure a fair and safe shopping experience for all customers. However, they must seek to attain this perfection during a period characterized by Prohibition and xenophobic anti-immigration legislation. [92], Daniel Soar opined that Olympus, a parallel to Bithynios, served well as the starting point of a debacle (the eventual birth of an intersex person) that is the "story's catalyst". [96] The puzzle of Cal's genetic identity is akin to the creature's labyrinth, and the thread that leads out of the maze is held here by his paternal grandmother, a former silk farmer. Read by Kristoffer Tabori, the audiobook has 28 sides, each side having a unique style of introductory music that complements the atmosphere and plot of the saga. Eugenides lived in Brooklyn when he began his first draft of the novel. He criticized Middlesex for its "[c]lanking prose, clunky exposition, transparent devices, telegraphed moves", "a hash of narrative contrivances with very little on its mind." [137] Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times Book Review considered Middlesex to be one of the best books in 2002. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides' life and observations of his Greek heritage. [119], When Callie is in New York, she goes to the New York Public Library and searches for the meaning of the word "hermaphrodite"; she is shocked when the dictionary entry concludes with "See synonyms at MONSTER". Luce then concludes that gender identity is nurtured and etched into children at their young ages. The book later made the best-selling fiction list and kept its position for fiveweeks. [159] In June 2007, the novel ranked seventh on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list. Believing that males and females have no inherent disparities in their writing styles, Eugenides treated Cal and Callie as the same person, in terms of narrative voice. According to Eugenides, the voice "had to render the experience of a teenage girl and an adult man, or an adult male-identified hermaphrodite". [95] The protagonist compared himself to another mythical figureTiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes; the omniscient seer lived sevenyears as a woman because of a curse. [54], The novel skims over the brutal attacks, lasting a week, on blacks in Detroit during World WarII. It was like unwinding bandages")[42] to the "trashily journalistic" ("You've heard of installation artists? "[44] However, he criticized the novel as a disjointed hybrid. [40] As the story progresses, Middlesex becomes a social novel about Detroit, discussing the seclusion of living in a 1970s suburb. [110] He writes, "I began to exude some kind of masculinity, in the way I tossed up and caught my eraser, for instance. [143], Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called the novel a "big-hearted, restless story" and rated it an A minus. Something went wrong. [142] Stewart O'Nan of The Atlantic also felt that the brief description of Callie's childhood was lacking; the book "gloss[es] over" how her mother did not recognize that Callie had male genitalia when she was washing or clothing Callie. "[131] Eugenides was attending the Prague Writers' Festival when Middlesex won the Pulitzer Prize. Chapter Eleven is a biologically "normal" boy; however, Callie is intersex. Woods also pointed out the seeming coincidences that involved locales. [3], In 2003, Middlesex was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. [163] Over three million copies of Middlesex had been sold by May 2011[164] and over four million by 2013. We can deliver the VINTAGE GENES 1891 Mens 100 Cotton Cargo Shorts With Multiple Pockets See More Colors And Sizes speedily without the hassle of shipping, customs or duties. ", returning the spotlight of racial prejudice on him. [29] While revising and editing the book, the author removed information that could be offensive to his relatives. [127], Seven Graham agrees with Hillman and Holmes, writing that Cal is paralleled with the tragic Greek mythological characters Hermaphroditus, Tiresias, and the Minotaur. [6] In 2007, Oprah Winfrey chose Middlesex to be discussed in her book club. [88], The Greek immigrant family experiences a three-phase acculturation that occurs to immigrant families, according to scholar Merton Lee's research about sociologist George A. Kourvetaris' work. He wanted to "[tell] epic events in the third person and psychosexual events in the first person". One way to sharpen our awareness is to listen to children's voices as they are expressed in books. The siblings return to their family home on Middlesex. [60] The Pulitzer Board[note 8] wrote in their report that Middlesex is a "vastly realized, multi-generational novel as highspirited as it is intelligent . However, when Callie discovers that he could have been raised as a boy, he renounces his female gender, recognizing his chosen gender identity as a male.

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