Morrison, Toni "Beloved"

1987

Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read

 

This is one of my favourite books ever. The author uses a lot of symbolism unknown to us, yet, explains the world of the slaves so lively, you can really feel their pains. It covers love, friendship, life in a community, describes how different people cope with the same problem and gives you a lot to think about.

It has also been made into a fantastic movie - and I don't say that very often about books made into film. 


From the back cover: 

"It is the mid-1800s. At Sweet Home in Kentucky, an era is ending as slavery comes under attack from the abolitionists. The worlds of Halle and Paul D. are to be destroyed in a cataclysm of torment and agony. The world of Sethe, however, is to turn from one of love to one of violence and death - the death of Sethe's baby daughter Beloved, whose name is the single word on the tombstone, who died at her mother's hands, and who will return to claim retribution. Beloved is a dense, complex novel, mixing past and present, destined to become a twentieth-century American classic."

Toni Morrison "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize for "Beloved" in 1988. 

Read more about other books by the author here. 



Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.  

Original Post on "Let's Read".

Beloved by Toni Morrison (Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers)

Beloved is a wonderful book even though it is deeply disturbing to read.   It was published in 1987, it won the Pulitzer Prize and Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.  Why it has taken me more than 20 years to get round to reading it, and how I came to miss the movie, I can’t explain….

It’s the story of Sethe, in post Civil War Ohio, coming to terms with a freedom which has not really set her free.  The narrative leaks unwelcome intrusions from her past into the present and it presents multiple voices, but Sethe is the central character.  A former slave, she has lost so much and she is such a damaged person that I found it hard to reconcile this depiction of a former slave with Lawrence Hill’s Someone Knows My Name.  I had reservations about the resilience of the character Aminata at the time of reading Hill’s book, and Beloved reinforces my view that the impact of slavery on the pysche is, in Someone Knows My Name, somewhat sanitised.   

Sethe’s house, No 124, is haunted by her dead toddler, and everyone avoids the place.  Her grandmother, Baby Suggs, has not long died and Sethe lives there alone with her surviving daughter, Denver, until Paul D turns up.  He is a former slave also from the ironically named plantation Sweet Home, and his arrival triggers the presence of Beloved, who seems to be an adult reincarnation of the dead child.

I read and blogged this book on June 27th 2009.  To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/beloved-by-toni-morrison/

Beloved by Toni Morrisson (Athena)

This Pulitzer Prize winning and critically acclaimed novel is very sad and includes many stories of horror and trauma. The persistence of memory and the past is part of the novel from a mother's obsessive overprotection to the reconciliation of people's past personal and with slavery as a whole: "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The 'better life' she believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one."

The narrative shifts with a stream of consciousness writing towards the end of the book. It also reminded me of an even more twisted version of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray by that time.

It's a complex novel, but very beautifully written. I love the prose. It is difficult to read due to the story and plot, but the literary prose is wonderful. Morrison is also very adept at characterization. I get a total sense of these characters whether or not I agree or actually sympathise with them. She presents them so clearly and honestly. It is not a pleasurable read, and like many books literary books, it is not for everyone. It's difficult, but honest and well written.

This is my second book for the challenge.