Beloved

Rating:
Summary: Deeply moving story of slavery's interior landscape
Review: *Beloved* is an extended piece of jazz fiction. Each main character's consciousness is like a separate instrument in a jazz ensemble and Morrison improvises within each character's consciousness upon the melody of Sethe's story. Escaped from slavery, Sethe has buried the memory of her experience and in this tale the memories slowly, in fragments, without chronological order, begin to emerge, thanks largely to the appearance of Paul D, a man from her slave past. The story moves through Sethe's consciousness as well as Paul D's, Sethe's daughter Denver's, the ghost's, and the consciousness of other characters.

As readers, we learn about slavery from the inside out. Not only do we learn about being enslaved, but we learn about the experience of being free. This story is about codes of conduct and we witness Baby Suggs, and then Sethe, violate the former slaves' code and we see the community of former slaves betray Sethe and her family as a consequence.

Morrison's exploration of Sethe being betrayed and shunned by her own people is courageous and moves us into the complex history of African-American community relationships. Can this community welcome Sethe back into its fold? Can Sethe ever be ready to accept others into her intimacy again? Can Sethe heal from having been treated atrociously and from committing an atrocity herself? How is memory an agent of healing? And, finally, how does Toni Morrison explore all of these questions in the context of a ghost story?

This novel is deeply internal. It resides in the memories, dreams, thoughts, and stories of its characters. As the fragments begin to cohere, we see a profoundly moving and, I think, healing tale unfold.

In this novel, Toni Morrison has beautifully reconstructed history so that we imaginatively experience slavery from the inside of those who experienced it. The lyrical language of each character's soul vibrates with joy, suffering, longing, desire, and hope. I consider *Beloved* a divinely inspired novel. I can't imagine a history of slavery reaching as deeply and as profoundly into the truth of slavery as this fiction does.

Rating:
Summary: confusing but interesting
Review: This book was very confusing to me, but it held my interest to the very end. If you like stories about ghosts or mystery you will like this book. It takes place in the late 1800's in Ohio. The main character talks a lot about her struggles while she was pregnant trying to run from the white men that held her as a slave. Once she got away she didn't want to ever go back, so when the white men came to get her and her children she had to do something horrible. That incident is the link to the whole story. This book is to me sad and confusing, but it was very good and it makes you feel for the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Community
Review: This book is beautifully written and has a powerful message. The message is about community. Evil does not bother a strong, cohesive community. Toni Morrison is a wonderful author and I recommend any one of her books.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but not the best!
Review: Beloved contains a subject that Morrison has not dealt with before: slavery. While the novel has been controversial, Morrison has been honest and unflinching in her look at the effects of slavery and a mother's love for her children. Beloved certainly deserves the acclaim it has received. However, I do not believe that this novel is Morrison's best.

As someone who has read five Morrison novels in the past four months, perhaps this review won't be completely fair. Beloved is well-written and original, but I am not sure that it lives up to it's reputation. I am well-aware that if a person were to pick up any Morrison novel, they would probably read this one first. But I also hope that they would read her other works after. I do think that this is a terrific novel, but I also think that her other works deserve just as much acclaim, if not more.

Rating:
Summary: Why the hype?
Review: After all the hype surrounding this novel, I was excited to read it for a college English class. However, after finishing the novel I am sorry I ever opened it. The story is intriguing but Morrison's writing is atrocious. The book is 275 pages long but any competent author could have written it in less than 175. At times her writing takes the author into a stream of consciousness that leads nowhere but to infinite sentence fragments, haziness as to who is speaking, and a headache. When speaking about African American writers, Hurston is worlds above Morrison.

Rating:
Summary: Agaronce
Review: This book shows just how vain mankind can become. It demonstraights that if we as a people, are to servive on this world we must work with each other. We nor can anybody think that we are beter than someone else just because we don't understand them, because we have not took the time to learn about their culture. This book shows how anybody in this circumstance would act and even feel, It does not matter what color you are. We would all act the same way. If we the people in this country want to progress and move foward, then we must learn from our past mistakes and change. This book makes it clear that the first step is to understand each other, not to put someone down just because we don't understand them. We must communacate with each other, learn about each other, and togsther strive to build a better future for everyone. That I belive is what Toni Morrisn Is trying to say in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Book about Slavery
Review: Toni Morrison's Beloved is not her best book, but one in which she covers themes and a time period she hasn't written about before. Contrary to some , Beloved is not a novel about the institution of slavery. This is a novel about a woman and her family and the lengths she went through to make sure her children did not endure the horrors she did. This novel is also a bit of a ghost story which brings the supernatural theme into play. I think that Morrison's portrayal of the ghost Beloved was top-notch, making me wonder throughout the novel whether or not Beloved was really real. Although not one of Morrison's best novels, it is a terrifically written, thoroughly enjoyable novel based on a real-life person.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Novel, but is it worth the Hype?
Review: In a discussion I had recently about this novel, Morrison's 5th, we were considering whether or not it deserved the acclaim that it has received. I personally did not like this novel as much as some of Morrison's other works. Perhaps I have been reading too much Morrison (is that possible?) but I really believe some of her other works deserve more acclaim than Beloved. Morrison is a wonderful writer. She is a true master at her art, but when Beloved was released she was at the top of her popularity. Is it possible that it was her critical acclaim and not necessarily the book that won her the Pulitzer? Thank goodness we have women to write as Morrison does, but I wouldn't say reading Beloved alone can give a person a true appreciation of her complexity. It's a start, but a truly interested reader should not stop there.

Rating:
Summary: Morrison Belongs in the American Canon...
Review: Having recently earned a BA in English from a historically black college, I was more than familiar with Toni Morrison's work. My best friend and I had a joke--the black female English Ph.D.'s we knew had an alternate Holy Trinity which included Morrison, Alice Walker, and Zora Neale Hurston. Even before college, I went to an almost all-black K-8 TAG academy (where I read Sula), and then a college prep high school (where I read The Bluest Eye).

I say all that just so that you'll understand where I'm coming from. I'd read just about everything considered to be a classic in the African-American canon. But I boycotted two books: Richard Wright's Native Son and Toni Morrison's Beloved. (FAMU, don't revoke my degree!) I am black and proud of that fact, but I am also an aesthete. The barbarism I'd heard about that was central to the plots of these novels sickened me.

But then last night we rented Beloved. I watched it. In two hours I experienced every emotion known to man.

The minute I turned it off, I ran to my personal library and picked up my own copy of Beloved. (Every self-respecting English grad student owns this book, at least for appearance's sake.) It took me four hours to finish.

I did not find the book a difficult read at all. At long last, the story was clear as spring water before my eyes. I devoured every word.

Demonic? Yes, it was. Very much so. But the institution of slavery was demonic. Anyone who wants to pretends that it was otherwise is "a liar, and the truth is not in him."

Offensive to some whites? Good. I'm glad it was. America isn't Candyland. Neither is its history and legacy the fifth Gospel some would have you to believe.

Beloved challenged me both as a literary scholar and an aspiring novelist. Every educated person should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Evocative
Review: Beloved is indeed an important and meaningful novel.With a very unique,personal,descriptive prose Morrison tells a story that weaves the reader through the characters history,back and forwards in time,revealing piece by piece the motivations behind the events the reader gradually learns of.While some may not appreciate the finely layered text with all its intricacies(Education students perhaps? ),which requires something of the reader(see brackets),when one becomes involved and absorbed the reader is richly rewarded.Noteworthy is Morrison's ability to deal with a subject-emancipation,slavery-that has been covered from so many angles,in so many ways.The characters are clearly defined and the reader can personally empathise with their ordeals,evoking a real response on a sublect that could have been either trite,stereo-typed or powerless.Simply to write a novel set against slavery,in 1987 and have it so moving and so individual is an outstanding achievement.Highly recommended for the discerning reader.