Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye"

Morrison, Toni "The Bluest Eye" - 1970

I read this for the "1970s Club".

As always, Toni Morrison has written a fantastic story about the troubles of people who suffer from racism. This is not my favourite book by her (that would be "Beloved") but it is still a great story. We follow the family Breedlove and their friends backwards, to see what they have all been through.

The main character is the little girl that would love blue eyes. While I understand that wish, she wants to be accepted and thinks this is the way to get there, I thought the rest of the story was much more important.

From the back cover:

"Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns
for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife."

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.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Read more about other books by the author here.

#ThrowbackThursday. Toni Morrison

 

Morrison, Toni "Beloved" - 1987
- "Home" - 2012
- "Love" - 2003

- "A Mercy" - 2008
- "Paradise" - 1998

I have read five of Toni Morrison's books so far and I hope to read more. But I will just take all of her books and look at them one go.

"Beloved" 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.

She manages to describe anything in a way that you feel you've been there, you know the characters in her book.

Like in "Home". The protagonist has survived the Korean War, well, physically. After a more than difficult childhood, he and his sister don't continue to have an easy adulthood, you find almost any form of abuse and problem in this novel.

"Love" is just as exciting and interesting. Toni Morrison manages to describe so many different women, all in love with the same guy. A lot of different characters, a lot of different subjects: love, rivalry, charity, struggles.

In "A Mercy", we meet a little girl called Florens. She is lucky (for a slave) in a way that she gets into this family. Her "master" is not abusive.

"Paradise" is different from her other novels. I loved the story itself, the description of that small town life. But I had a hard time getting through this book. It still is a completely typical Toni Morrison book, any of her books is worth reading.

Read all my original reviews about the author's books here.

Morrison, Toni "A Mercy"

Morrison, Toni "A Mercy" - 2008

In my post about Anti-Racism, I listed many, many books that tell us a lot about the lives of black people past and present. This is another one from the past that I will add to that list.

In this day and age, nobody should have to suffer from being "different" (no matter what that entails) and, yet, so many still do. When I see all the accusations made against former US President Barack Obama, it shows that even when you have worked your way up and are an excellent, qualified person, it doesn't help you if people don't like the colour of your skin. You still get no respect.

In this story, Toni Morrison tells us all about a little girl called Florens. She is lucky in a way that she gets into this family. Her "master" is not abusive. That doesn't say she is to envy. If you can't decide where you want to live, whether you want to stay with your family (and which eight-year-old wouldn't?) or what kind of work you would like to do, you are never to be envied.

Having said that, I'm just reading another book ("Capital" by Karl Marx) and from what we can learn there, poor people in Europe were not in a much better position, either. However, that's not an excuse.

Coming back to this story. It's not just a story of Florens but of all the female members of that family, the Native American Lina, Sorrow who was shipwrecked and Rebecca, the owner's wife who was sent over from England and didn't know her husband before she got married. They all have a different kind of fate but are all in this together.

Toni Morrison knows well how to describe the feelings of her characters, you can follow her stories as if you were a member of the family, as if you were one of the characters in her book.

Her books should become a required reading in all the schools. Maybe, just maybe, we would all understand racism a little better. Her Nobel Prize is well-deserved.

Florens' mother describes her arrival in Barbados after her capture in Africa and a long sea voyage:
"It was there I learned how I was not a person from my country, nor from my families. I was negrita. Everything. Language, dress, gods, dance, habits, decoration, song– all of it cooked together in the colour of my skin."

I think this says it all. What is it that defines us? Certainly not the colour of our skin. You might as well say someone with dark (or light hair) is worth less than someone with light (or dark). What's the difference? The difference is only what some of us make of it.

From the back cover:

"On the day that Jacob agrees to accept a slave in lieu of payment of a debt, little Florens' life changes. With her intelligence and passion for wearing the cast-off shoes of her mistress Florens has never blended into the background and now, aged eight, she is taken from her family to begin a new life. She ends up part of Jacob's household, along with his wife Rebekka, their Native American servant Lina and the enigmatic Sorrow, who was rescued from a shipwreck. Together these women face the trials of their harsh environment as Jacob attempts to carve out a place for himself in the brutal landscape of the north of America in the seventeenth century."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

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.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Read more about other books by the author here.

Morrison, Toni "Home"

Morrison, Toni "Home" - 2012

Toni Morrison is one of my favourite authors. I love her writing so much. She manages to describe anything in a way that you feel you've been there, you know the characters in her book.

Like Frank Money, the protagonist in this novel. He has survived the Korean War, well, physically. After a more than difficult childhood, he and his sister don't continue to have an easy adulthood, you find almost any form of abuse and problem in this novel.

I know I will still think about this novel for a long time.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, his shattered life has no purpose until he hears that Cee is in danger.

Frank is a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary black man. As he journeys to his native Georgia in search of Cee, it becomes clear that their troubles began well before their wartime separation. Together, they return to their rural hometown of Lotus, where buried secrets are unearthed and where Frank learns at last what it means to be a man, what it takes to heal, and -- above all -- what it means to come home."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

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. 

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Read more about other books by the author here.

Morrison, Toni "Beloved"

Morrison, Toni "Beloved" - 1987

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."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

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. 

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Morrison, Toni "Paradise"

Morrison, Toni "Paradise" - 1998

I love Toni Morrison, I really do. But I had a hard time getting through this book and I still didn't understand it completely.

There are just too many unanswered questions in this scenario. Like - who is the white girl? I still haven't figured that out.

I loved the story itself, the description of that small town life. I know it too well, growing up in a small village about half a century ago. She did get that right.

At the beginning, I didn't understand who belonged to whom. So I started an old trick of mine and made a list of all the characters, a little note of their story and how they were related to each other. It got a little easier but I still can't figure out who the white girl was ...

However, this is a completely typical Toni Morrison book, the description of the characters, the storyline, the everyday scenario, the relationship, the difference between the races, the genders, the rich and the poor. Toni Morrison is THE author when it comes to racism in the United States, I don't think anyone can portray this feeling better than she can. So, any of her books is worth reading. Even more than once. But it certainly is not a novel you can read "in between", "on the go" or "at the beach". It deserves a little more attention.

From the back cover:

"Four young women are brutally attacked in a convent near an all-black town in America in the mid-1970s. The inevitability of this attack, and the attempts to avert it, lie at the heart of Paradise Spanning the birth of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the counter culture and the politics of the late 1970s, deftly manipulating past, present and future, this novel of mysterious motives reveals the interior lives of the citizens of the town with astonishing clarity. The drama of its people - from the four young women and their elderly protector, to conservative businessmen, rednecks, a Civil Rights minister and veterans of three wars - richly evokes clashes that have bedevilled American society: between race and racelessness; patriarchy and matriarchy; religion and magic; freedom and belonging; promiscuity and fidelity. Magnificent in its scope, Paradise is a revelation in the intensity of its potrayal of human complexity and in the sheer force of its narrative."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

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.

Read more about other books by the author here.  

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Morrison, Toni "Love"

Morrison, Toni "Love" - 2003

Different from her usual novels but just as exciting and interesting. Toni Morrison manages to describe so many different women, all in love with the same guy, Bill Cosey. A lot of different characters, a lot of different subjects: love, rivalry, charity, struggles. Every woman loves him in their own special, has her own special reason for her love, he is different with every woman again, a story about all the different faces of love.

I really like the author and her books.

From the back cover:

 

"May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida -- even L: all women obsessed by Bill Cosey. More than the wealthy owner of the famous Cosey Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is both the void in, and the centre of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces -- a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

This audacious vision of the nature of love -- its appetite, its sublime possession, its dread -- is rich in characters and striking scenes, and in its profound understanding of how alive the past can be."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

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.

Read more about other books by the author here.   

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.