Oct 23, 2024
What are your guys' thoughts on Toni Morrison? Do you enjoy her writing? I'm currently reading my fourth book by her, I'd love to hear other people's opinions!
I've only read Beloved, but remember not enjoying it and pushing myself through a lot of it.
spuh1 year ago
Beloaved: Not a Toast Story
amf1 year ago
One of the last if not the last American author who pretty much everyone agrees belongs in the canon, such as it exists. The actual heir to Faulkner in terms of her literary scope, subject, ambition, talent, and formal daring. I've only read Song of Solomon and Beloved, but they're both absolutely coruscating. That being said, it's unfortunate that many people who won't finish her tough books have only read her brief and mildly ignorant essay "Mourning for Whiteness," which is a regrettable example of a very smart person facing a social shock and ascribing said social shock to Bad People doing Bad Things as opposed to broader social and economic forces -- a grace she is much more willing to grant to marginalized communities -- but I consider the fact that this particular piece garnered so much attention to be a fault of the commentariat as opposed to a fault of the author herself.
Thanks for your reply! I completely agree. I adore how she articulates her interest in Faulkernian subjects: “to find out something about this country and that artistic articulation of its past that was not available in history, which is what art and fiction can do but sometimes refuses to do” I've never heard of Mourning for Whiteness but looking at it now... this looks like a train wreck. But as you've said, more reflective of the commentariat. Edit: Just read the essay. I disagree with the first paragraph of the essay. I think most European countries do use proximity to whiteness as a unifying force. I don't really see the 'bad people doing bad things part' either. It's pretty spot on. There's a real sense of white fear and I don't think you can ascribe social shock to the acts of brutality and terror that are clearly racially motivated. There are several factors that influenced the election results but she's only referring to those with white fear of displacement, which I've witnessed many times. To say there are broader social and economic forces would be irrelevant, she's not making that sort of statement. Morrison has repeatedly demonstrated herself to be cognisant of the fact that racism is frequently used as a distraction. From what I gleaned from media articles it seems they fall into that trap with this essay.
I'd never even heard of that essay until now. I've only read Beloved by her, back in high school; I'd thought that's where most people know of her, from required reading in their high school English class. Edit: Just read the essay. I don't see how it's "mildly ignorant", nor how you interpreted it as "Bad People doing Bad Things". It seems pretty on-point.
smuds1 year ago
yeah, also just read it, seemed innocuous at worst - and that it is pretty clearly not saying "bad people doing bad things". Also seems pretty bizaare to say that "many people who won't finish her tough books have only read her brief and mildly ignorant essay" when it seems like a pretty inconsequential essay wrt to public perception of her career. Like. you can't even get a hit on reddit of it by typing "Mourning for Whiteness reddit" in google... seems like a weird ax to grind
amf1 year ago
Fair perspective, I'm just remember a lot of effusive chatter back in 2016 about the essay from kindly Middle American libs of the sort I grew up around. Although that could entirely be a function of discursive community.
Where are you guys finding the essay? All I can find are niche news articles that refer to it as extremist while discussing it, or paywalled sites
I find it really interesting that Toni Morrison is considered the foremost black American writer. Not because of the quality of her work—I think she could be the best American writer ever—but because her writing diverges from liberal ideas about racial progress. I read all her books in college, and I was struck by how skeptical she seemed of integration, how she circled on child abuse again and again, how deep and dark she could go. There's a dark core to her works that I haven't felt anywhere else. The scene in "The Bluest Eye" when Cholly rapes Pecola is still one of the darkest passages I've ever read—the tension she generates by applying her vivid style, lyrical style to this thing you never want to see, to this thing you almost never see, has stayed with me in the years since I read "The Bluest Eye" for the first time. You feel the language; you feel Cholly's mind. Anyway, I feel like she's been sort of been Ruth-Bader-Ginsberg-prayer-candled when she's really this strange gothic writer, conveying a range of apprehensions and hopes about race that haven't been integrated in popular understandings of her. Rightfully hyped but misunderstood, IMO.
I would love to know how many people have that scene seared into their brains from highschool. It is one of the few pieces of a book I had to read for school where I remember the exact time of day, place in house, position i was sitting, etc. reading it.
God, I definitely remember. I remember, as I got further into the book and knew the scene was coming, breathing a sigh of relief every time a chapter ended
> I was struck by how skeptical she seemed of integration There's an interview with James Baldwin & Dick Cavett where he says living in Paris undid the social terror he felt in the US, which was not the paranoia of his own mind but a real danger that he saw in the face of all white people. It reminds me a lot of the underlying skepticism you see in a lot of Morrison's work, the idea that you might not hate them but you can never be sure they don't hate you. Gosh, the way she depicts rape and violence has stuck with me for years. I remember putting down The Bluest Eye after I finished and just crying from all the pain in the book. She truly has such a beautiful soul and a talent for touching you through pages.
Definitely--I remember reading that interview and being so struck; there's racism in Europe, but American racism does seem to be a whole different beast. And definitely: I think what's fascinating about Morrison is that it is mostly bad, but there are moments of ambivalence or alliance that burst through. An aspect of this I find particularly interesting, though, is that she noted that integration dissolved a whole economy of black-owned businesses. I can't quite remember if this is the case, but I think this is a theme in the novel "Love"--or it at least serves as backdrop for it. It's stayed with me too. And I've really never read anyone like her in that regard. Part of me wonders whether it's because I haven't read much Southern Gothic, which seems to be what she's drawing from. But I also suspect that she's uniquely great at this, that she's trying to impart a very particular message.
That she is able to access so much of the darkness of the human experience unflinchingly, while still developing a deep and abiding empathy for each character, without being trite or cheap, is the true mark of her genius for me. Admittedly, I've only read A Mercy, but it moved me very deeply.