Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Begin: 06/27/07
End: 07/03/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten.
Reason: Reading Plan.
Genre: Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1987.
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A.
Number: Four?
Synopsis: The story follows Sethe backwards and forwards in time as she confronts the ugly specter of slavery in her life and the life of her family. A young lady named Beloved shows up at her house one day and everything changes for the women at 124.
Thoughts: God, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love and adore this book. It’s a masterpiece. I read her books and sometimes I think that Toni Morrison is god.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I am at a loss for words. Morrison writes with such a gift, with such style and lyrical magic. Her books captivate me like no one else can. I don’t know what it is about them. I am a gay cracker, why does this story of an ex-slave and her struggles move me so very much. Why do the writings of this black woman, albeit a brilliant black woman, move me so much? Does it even matter? Isn’t the important thing that I am moved? And I am. No living writer has the power of Toni Morrison’s pen for me.
This story is pretty brutal too. It is a rather bold and innovative look at the repercussions of slavery. The institution that haunts America even up to the present day. You read this story and wonder how Sethe could have done it but yet you also understand. I am not saying that this novel will let you experience the horrors of slavery but I think it will open your eyes better than many other books on the subject and can get you close as any modern day American can get to experience that horror.
“It’s gonna hurt, now,” said Amy. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.” (35)
“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one.” (45)
“Spores of bluefern growing in the hollows along the riverbank float toward the water in silver-blue lines hard to see unless you are in or near them, lying right at the river’s edge when the sunshots are low and drained. Often they are mistook for insects-but they are seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future. And for a moment it is easy to believe each one has one-will become all of what is contained in the spore: will live out its days as planned. This moment of certainty last no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself.” (84)
“Here,” she said, “in this place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in the grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despite it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick them out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. Feet that need to rest and to dance; back that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your lifeholding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.” Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.” (88-89)
“Suspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn’t get interested in leaving life or living it, let alone the fright of two creeping-off boys. Her past had been like her present—intolerable—and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color.” (3-4)
“For they understood the source of the outrage as well as they knew the source of light.” (4)
“‘We have a ghost in here,’ she said…. ‘So I hear,’ he said. ‘But sad, your mama said. Not evil.’ ‘No sir…not evil. But not sad either.’ ‘What then?’ ‘Rebuked. Lonely and rebuked….’ ‘I don’t know about lonely….Mad, maybe, but I don’t see how it could be lonely spending every minute with us like it does.’” (13)
“‘I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running—from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D. Garner: It cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much.” (15)
“What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.” (23)
“I was talking about time. It’s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do….” (35-36).
“Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.” (69)
“Daily life took as much as she had. The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn’t stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out. Slave life; freed life—every day was a test and a trial. Nothing could be counted on in a world where even when you were a solution you were a problem.” (256)
