Rawr Reader,
I'm rather curious fellow readers. What kind of music do you listen to? I like a bit of everything, which I know everyone says until you spit every genre of music but the only one they actually listen to, but I consider myself an honorary member of the eclectic music listener club. Latin music? Yeah! Show tunes? Cue De-FYing Gravity! Opera and Kpop? Sure! Rock, country, R&B? I love playlists that mix them altogether like Trail Mix. Scores? All. Day. Every. Day. I will say there are a few genres that don't quite fit anywhere in my library: Death Metal and Screamo. This all has nothing to do with the book review but we can depart and if anything, you'd have likely skipped this paragraph by now.
And I didn't plan this but we're reaching the end of National Book Banning Week on October 2, so I'm glad I got to share one of the works of an author prominently and frequently on that list. How books can be banned I'll never understand. Books set us free.
So even if we don't read the same books, I say enjoy my friends. Read anything and everything.
The synopsis for Beloved by Toni Morrison is provided by Goodreads:
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a
spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman
haunted by the past.
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.
Combining the visionary power of legend with the
unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel
is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
Reference:
I read her first novel The Bluest Eye with my sister early last year and wasn't as drawn into the story so much as drawn by her writing. However I loved her voice so much I wanted to give another one of her books a chance. (It tickles me to remember how I used to think a book without plot, even if it has nice writing, wasn't worth reading. Oh how times have changed!)
What drew me to reading Beloved now and not adding it to my growing TBR pile with some books remaining untouched for over ten years (eek!) was watching her documentary: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019) currently available on Hulu.
I humbly ask, please, even if you aren't interested in reading this book, at least give the documentary a watch. It's two hours long but by the end I think you won't be able to resist picking up one of her books.
Two years since she's passed but it's an honor having lived when she lived.
R.I.P. Ms. Morrison.
Review:
Wow.
It isn't frequent a book takes root in my head. There are layers and layers of depth and patience the author conveys through her characters: Sethe and Paul D and Denver. Firstly I think what struck me most and what hooked me to the story from the first chapter was the fact this novel had magical realism. I didn't expect anything beyond the cadences of mainstream literature and, being set shortly after the Civil War, explicitly social issues. To that I say shame on me because this is one of the few literary award winners that I've read that I actually agree deserved to win. Our Toni Morrison wouldn't make a story that easy to read. She would've wanted us to ache and grieve and hope and forgive and live.
Now as a fantasy fan I'd like to remark that the magical realism isn't superficial. It's simply another character, one that plays a pivotal role in the novel. Magical realism was the second element that drew and hooked me in after her writing.
The novel is set in a small town in Ohio, where not only did slaves seek freedom in, but the author herself lived in her youth. She remarks in her documentary, which I mentioned in the Reference section above, that she lived in a town in her youth with as much diversity as the American Melting Pot metaphor implies. Diversity in ethnicity, but with all the complexities seen in novels normally depicted as white people. Morrison had been interviewed and critically reviewed being asked why she focused so much of her narratives through the lens of black people. She phrased it along the lines of being that most narratives in fiction that people read or that people are taught are through the white gaze. She wrote her narratives like many white writers did. Because she wrote the stories she wanted to tell. Because it shouldn't warrant explaining. Her stories revolve around black people; they don't explain them or make them idealized. Her characters feel real because of the attention and devotion Morrison felt toward these people who deserve to have their stories told. A recurring theme: understanding that just because you didn't live it, doesn't mean you can't feel for them and learn to understand their thoughts and emotions. Which are valid. Beautifully.
Beloved follows Sethe, a single mother who exists day by day, not living a life worthy of an escaped slave because of the traumas of her past. The owners of Sweet Home, the estate she escaped from, find her and push her to act in one of the most vicious acts committed on earth. Eighteen years after committing the act the past still lingers. In the walls of 124, where Sethe and Denver live alone but not alone. A ghost, manifested. Their isolated life is disrupted when Sweet Home comes calling again, but this time it isn't a slaveowner but a former slave. Paul D, a friend of Sethe from Sweet Home, brings the world back into their lives, beginning a chain of events that will lead them to confront what they've refused to confront.
Sethe's fear consumes her and Morrison intricately weaves that fear through the past and present, allowing triumph in despair and redemption in despondency. Sethe's fear transferred to her daughter Denver, who never leaves 124 and is in fact afraid to leave 124 on her own. Denver's reliance on Sethe and dissatisfaction with the arrival of Paul D is an element of dependency Sethe was unconsciously instilling in her daughter. Sethe wanted freedom for her daughter but didn't encourage social interactions or world trekking. She wanted freedom for her daughter but never explained the life altering events eighteen years prior to the beginning of the novel. Denver only had rumors, whispers, and ghosts.
A mother's love can't be defined. A mother's love is more than what nature instills in human beings. What it dictates should be right and wrong. The violence and extremes a mother takes is something that not every mother can commit, but maybe something every mother can understand because they know what it means to bring a life into this world and be responsible for it, in the baby's life or not. As for the rest of us, what enigmas mothers are. How powerful and intuitive and caring and loving.
Word choice should always be deliberate and none more so than when naming characters. At first reading the novel I thought Morrison chose such interesting names, but when I learned how they were given their names, I couldn't believe there was a way of loving Morrison even more. Names are possessions and I never framed it that way before reading this.
Amy is a character that for some reason reminds me of Tom Bombadil from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. She comes out of no where and is unexpectedly not what the reader imagines her to be and is extremely likable. She's the Edna to Sethe and Denver's Incredibles.
It's challenging describing this book. Is it sad? Yes. But there are so many small droplets of love constantly throughout that you don't realize the tragedies and cruelties of the world because you're in a rain storm of love. It reminds me of how I felt after finishing the novel Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. The beauty of living even when it seems like life is nothing but a never-ending tragedy.
Beloved has heart and scars. It has soul and speaks loudly in the quietness.
After writing my review I feel it unworthy of her novel. I just ask, please take the time to fall in love with Beloved. You'll see.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Quote:
"Anything dead coming back to life hurts."
—Toni Morrison, Beloved
My Goodreads:
Next To Read:
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Spoilers:
I will keep my spoilers short because Beloved isn't necessarily a novel focused on plot and action. There isn't an endgame that the characters have to reach. Not externally. Beloved's about forgiveness. About acceptance. Opening up hurts so you can trust again. About loving. Yourself, others, the world.
My biggest question I never found clarity in was how Sethe left prison after only a short time there. She murdered her daughter, even disregarding the added element of the daughter being considered property in the eyes of the schoolteacher and slave hunter, murder had to have given her more time in prison. Denver was with her mother out of prison going to a school when she was around eight so Sethe was in prison for less than a decade. And why did anyone or Baby Suggs let Sethe take Denver with her to prison in the first place considering she literally tried to kill all of her kids? It just doesn't sit right. Perhaps another reread!
Nearing the end of the book Morrison becomes experimental which I loved, loved, loved. We jump perspectives between characters almost like a parent winding down a young child at the end of the night with a bedtime story. We have a chapter of Beloved's insightfully unique perspective where one chapter is written without punctuation as if there is no beginning and end in Beloved's eyes. Another chapter where dialogue is written like free verse.
Morrison gives us vividly graphic images, two in particular, that gives me goosebumps every time I think about them. A baby breastfeeding with the blood of her murdered sister mixed with the milk. Amy describing the scars on Sethe's back as a chokecherry tree.
The end where Sethe tries to kill Mr. Bodwin is more of an ambiguous ending to me than Beloved disappearing. I liked that Morrison showed Beloved becoming less vocal, as if all the words were now out and she should return back to the realm she arrived from. Denver getting a job to take care of her mother, learning to grow up even after having little reason to motivate her, making friends with the townspeople, I was just overall very proud of her.
Excellence in women lifting other women up. I'm all for it.
Until Next Time,
Nicole Ciel
