Beloved

Beloved by Toni Morrison is set after the American Civil War and tells the story of a family of former slaves whose home is haunted by a malevolent spirit. This is a beautifully written, haunting story that is a tale of horror, but it also is a story of love, forgiveness, loss and confusion. I found this a difficult read as the narrative is non-linear, the point of view is constantly shifting and I found Morrison’s writing style took some getting used to. It is a painful look at certain aspects of slavery and the oppression and exploitation that slavery perpetuated.

The characters in the book are distinct and help to reveal both the story and the underlying messages. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later show more she is still not free within herself. She is full of memories of her past life and her deceased two year old baby haunts the house in which she and her daughter, Denver, live. Previously her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, lived with them but she has passed away and Sethe’s two sons have both been driven away by the spirit. There are flashbacks to the time that Sethe was a slave at the Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky, along with her love interest Paul D, but moving forward proves to be near impossible.

Beloved is truly a novel about how difficult it is to move on from the past and how we are shaped by it. We may try to progress but the past never really leaves us. Morrison also pulls no punches in this powerful story, the residue of slavery is there on every page. As the writing includes both stream of consciousness, poetry and there was no set time sequence, I can’t say that I really enjoyed this book, but I can say that I admire her visceral and brilliant writing and can see why Beloved is considered a classic. show less

Sethe and her daughter, Denver, live in a house haunted by Sethe's baby girl who died 18 years ago. When Paul D, a man who was enslaved with Sethe, arrives and shakes up the house, they think the haunting may be over but then a young woman appears from nowhere, calling herself after the one word inscribed on the baby's stone: Beloved.

This is an intricate, challenging, beautiful, and heartbreaking exploration of the legacy of slavery in the lives of one family and their community. Whether Beloved is really the ghost is left open for debate, but her presence ultimately changes Sethe and Denver as they grapple with the past. A deserved Pulitzer Prize winner, and just as worth reading now as when it was published in 1987. Its complexity show more rewards the rereader. show less

This brooding lyrical tale starts in Cincinnati in 1873. Sethe and her daughter Denver live in a haunted house. It’s haunted by a death eighteen years ago and the scars of slavery that linger after its abolition. 124 Bluestone Road is as haunted as the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s haunted by a brooding past injury: a death brought about by the law misused for personal gain. Morrison’s book has none of Hawthorne’s light-hearted tone of detached sarcasm, her house broods with the pain of slavery and a death eighteen years fresh in the minds of two of its inhabitants. Unlike a the century that stands between Hawthorne’s characters and the injustice that haunts the Salem domicile, the family imprisoned show more in 124 remembers all too clearly the horror that the arrival of the slave catcher set off. But in both Hawthorne and Morrison the reader is never sure if the ghost is a literary image or if the author intends to present them as a genuine presence from beyond the grave. show less

Given that Toni Morrison won a Pulitzer for this book and was also a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature I feel that I should say something deep and meaningful to kick off this review but let me just say how I absolutely loved it.

To be brutally frank I found the first 50 or so pages a little hard to getinto as I struggled with the author's style which is a mixture of poetry and prose but once I did I found it spellbinding. The story revolves around Sethe an ex-slave from the mis-named Sweet Home and her daughter Denver. They have cut themselves off from the community around them for 18 years living with a ghost but when another ex-resident of Sweet Home, Paul D, arrives on their doorstep Sethe in particular is forced to face the show more horrors of her past and the impossible dilemma she had to face.

The story is told in flashbacks and what Sethe calls 'rememory' which at times can seem a little bewildering as they are not told in any particular order but this also forces the reader to come to their owm conclusions rather than being drawn along by the author which I felt was a brilliant concept. Through Sethe's and Paul D's recollections you get an idea the sheer brutality and inhumanity that existed on some slave farms but there is also a sense of morality and pathos about the slaves themselves and while the subject matter, to any right-minded person, is troubling I never felt it was gratuitous. It is told in a simple matter of fact way. The book can be seen as simply historical but it is also a modern ghost-story and the most frightening thing is that it is all based on fact. I don't necessarily think that it is right that whites must constantly apologise for what their forebears did in the past whether that be about slavery or our colonial pasts, mainly because whatever the society the strong have always abused the weak, but that said this a salutary reminder of the horrors of the past. But I also felt that there was a lesson for us all, and that is that we are all shaped by the decisions that we and and those around us make and that none of us can truly escape our pasts. I was so pleased that Morrison didn't give us a nice happy ending as that would have ruined it.

This is the book of sheer genious and one that I am sure that I will return to time and again, each time learning something new. This will go down as one of my all-time favourite reads. show less

Amazing. Toni Morrison weaves a story of magic and unimaginable suffering. Very intimate, private and compessionate, she explores the depths of physical and mental anguish of slavery, the price paid for terrible choices forced upon people by others who treated them like livestock.

The story of Sethe and her children unfolds in revelations prompted by ghosts of the past. Paul D revives repressed memories and feelings, Beloved the guilt. Just when they think they have seen it all - one more and they break. They all break.

Toni Morrison loves her characters. Never judgemental, always compassionate. Her people - black, white, good, bad - are driven to extremes by the time and place filtered through their own temperament. The prose is show more lyrical, dreamy, weaves back and forth in time, in memories of good and bad, feelings, senses, reactions. The language and storytelling is masterful - complex and simple, effortless yet incredibly deep - very easy and very difficult to read at the same time.

Slavery is an abominable institution, even when the owner is good - only his word makes men out of slaves, when he is gone, they are property again, treated like livestock, bred, sold, denied basic rights to family and friends, and having an opinion or self-worth. More than food or shelter, the Sweet Home men wanted to be treated like men - as they were for a short while. There are worse things than death, torture or maiming - "whitepeople dirty you". Sethe loves her children too much to let them get dirty. Too much, too thick.

This is one of the most profoundly moving books I have ever read. show less

whew. wow. this is hard. and gorgeous. she does something really really special here. both in the writing/storytelling and in the head-on look, without blinking, she requires of the reader. this first came out in 1988 and the way she doesn't look away, and doesn't let us look away, is revolutionary.

as morrison usually is, this is so layered and i'm sure i'm missing a number of those layers. but what i did understand i found utterly heart wrenching and just so powerful and powerfully done. the back of my book says she and this book are "extraordinary" and "a masterwork" and "a triumph" and that she has "shocking talent" and i think that about covers it. all true and not enough.

"They were not holding hands, but their shadows were."

"I'll show more explain to her, even though I don't have to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her."

the part that makes me sit the longest in my discomfort is how she gives us this visceral ugly story about murder and blood and grief and how she then tells us that this isn't the hard part. that white people need to understand that the everyday awfulness is the hard part. that she is making us look at the terror and the thing that is supposed to make us shiver and cringe for the purpose of telling us no - this isn't what i need you to see. i need you to feel about the everyday things the way you feel about this baby covered in blood. is it here:
"...[her] greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning--that Beloved might leave. That before Sethe could make her understand what it meant--what it took to drag the teeth of that saw under the little chin; to feel the baby blood pump like oil in her hands; to hold her face so her head would stay on; to squeeze her so she could absorb, still, the death spasms that shot through that adored body, plump and sweet with life--Beloved might leave. Leave before Sethe could make her realize that worse than that--far worse--was what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up." i hope i never forget this message. show less

This was the first Toni Morrison book I read. After reading it, I intend to read everything she's written.

Her writing is heavy, but beautiful, and her prose will take a little getting used to if you haven't read anything by her before. Her works generally deal with race, with gender, sexuality, identity, self-expression in a really startlingly beautiful way.

Her characters are emotive, and raw, and vulnerable. Reading this book is like drinking a really strong, black coffee. I got a headache, and parts of it were bitter, but it was the best coffee I'd ever had.

Morrison has a really commanding voice. She isn't afraid to write unpleasant scenes. She will make you look. The other thing that I love about Morrison's voice is that the style is show more written almost lyrically, as if a person were speaking directly to you.

Morrison mentions in her afterword of this book, that Dostoyevsky wrote for the Russians, and yet other people read him, why shouldn't black authors do the same? (Or something to that affect, anyway.)

But I adore how unapologetically she writes. And I think this book is so, so valuable. show less