Sula

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Summary: Best novel to get introduced to Toni Morrison through!
Review: I have read the Song of Solomon, Beloved, and The Bluest Eyes and without a doubt Sula was the best one of all of them. It's an easier read compared with the others and therefore great introduction to Toni Morrison's writing. Sula is inbedden in the context of the Black experience in America. The Botton, a segregated community of mythical Medallion, Ohio, can be seen as any Black community in any town during the time period of 1919 to 1965. In addition, Sula can also be seen as a symbol of a strong African American woman, who chooses to live the way she wants to and not what others tell her to do. Definetly a must read if one wishes to master Morrison's writing!

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Summary: Sula
Review: Toni Morrison, one of America's greatest writers some say, has a very subtle way of pulling you in and keeping your interest. This book is about two young women and the hardships they share and face as they grow into women. They each chose a different path into adulthood, but are binded by thier small town as well as thier friendship. The climax results in a choice they have to make, that will ultimately mend, or end thier friendship. This novel is generally an 'easier' reader compared with some of Morrison's other "deep" stuff.

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Summary: An Ignorant depiction of African Americans
Review: The book was a charm in the beginning until she began to skip around and I forgot what I was reading about. Although what Toni describes in the life of African Americans at the time was a personal opinion, she really made African Americans seem really stupid. Dont get me wrong some of us were piss poor at the time of the Civil War, but we were really not as dumb as she depicts. She has won her prize due to her outstanding creativity with bouncing around in her stories. After reading about Nel getting married, I did not feel compelled to pick the book up and continue. I really would not recommend this book unless you are taking a class, like me. But then again if you like ignorant drama, and outlandish metaphors Sula is definetly the one. I have not read any of her other stories but this story would not stop me from reading them.

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Summary: A Beautiful Work Despite Confusions
Review: Morrison weaves these characters masterfully in her tale of two black women--Nel and Sula. Throughout the novel the reader is given characters who each hold different ideas about how a person/woman should act. While Sula (the character) presents herself in a way most might find inappropriate, Morrison never gives a difinitive answer as to where her sympathies lie. While I am contented to side with Sula, I can never forget the values of the other characters and how they contrast with Sula's. But, all in all, this confusion of morals, sympathy, and love is the beauty of the book. And without any of this commentary, the end presents a story one simply CANNOT miss--absolutely beautiful!

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Summary: Opposites Attract?
Review: (Originally reviewed May 1999)
Medallion, OH "the bottom" is the setting for Sula, a story of two girls from vastly different backgrounds become friends. Nell coming from a household where the father is never there and the mother is uptight Creole woman who avoids chaos at all costs. Sula on the other hand is raised in chaos where the women of the house are the head and the tail. The novel not only speaks of friendship, but also love won and lost, racism, mental illness and drug abuse. A lot to cover in a relatively short novel but Morrison does it well. This is one of her easier reads, so if you haven't read it yet, don't miss out.

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Summary: Point of book is lost on me
Review: I tried hard to understand and like this book. But if I did not understand it, then I cannot recommend it. One major positive aspect was the beautiful imagery depicted by Toni Morrison - very descriptive style of writing. But when it came to writing about the characters, specifically Sula, I did not understand what Morrison was trying to say. Sula was a very mysterious enigmatic woman who lived her life like no one else and dared to do things she wanted to do. She did not put herself through the experience of childbirth or stay at home tending to others like her childhood friend and all other women mentioned in "Sula". I didn't know what to think after the ending. What was the point?

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Summary: Sula's Magic
Review: In this novel, Toni Morrison's deals in part with the concept of community in a town called the Bottom. Using the Bottom as a microcosm, Morrison introduces us to a series of characters, which although Black, can very well make up any other community regardless of their ethnicity or background. Morrison's ironic style reminds us the Latin American Magic Realism writers from the 1960s, that populated our imaginations with unforgettable towns with fictitious characters very much grounded in reality in order to give us a glimpse at issues of social and economic injustice. The name of the town itself - the Bottom - is an irony: The Bottom is situated at the top of a mountain. It was given to its black founder by his slave-owner master claiming that it was the best piece of land around because it was at the Bottom of Heaven. The white slave owner is the representation of what white colonialism has done for centuries, especially in the American Continent: trading useless trinkets for good land or gold. While Blacks were pushed up to the dry, arid barren lands of the Bottom, the whites settled in the good fertile lands of the valley in the town called Medallion. Morrison shows the segregation of whites and blacks which has been a perpetual issue in the history of the United States. The Bottom could have been a new Liberia. Morrison could have chosen to create a utopia for those who because of racial segregation would bind together and carry out a social experiment. Yet, she chooses to turn it into a microcosms of individuals who, as a community, live their lives on the margins of mainstream white society - outside the mainstream of Medalllion. Like Marquez's Macondo or Rulfo's Comala, the Bottom has its share of self-righteous individuals like Helene Wright and her churchgoing neighbors. These characters are the ones that create and abide by the social rules of the community they live in. But the Bottom also has its share of outcasts. Shadrack and Sula are their maximum exponents. Shadrack is a shell-shocked veteran from World War I that returns to the Bottom and institutes National Suicide Day. The town, at first astonished, allow him to celebrate National Suicide Day with out interfering. Every January 3rd since 1920, Shadrack parades in front of its townspeople celebrating what at the end of the novel becomes a collective holiday. The reaction of the town to this extravagant person is a sample of the people's attitude toward their own lives. At first they are astonished, then they remain impassive, and at the end they join in the celebration. This passivity also determines the character of the town. The inhabitants do not fight back or argue - as if they felt that their futures were already predetermined. In this same fatalistic line, Sula becomes the excuse for the town's setbacks. Sula grew up in the Bottom in a house of women, of independent women. Sula's grandmother Eva and her mother Hannah were comfortable with their own sexuality and men are constantly coming in and out of the house. The author points out at this environment as one of the causes why Sula does not seem to understand the concept of personal property within the community. Sula defies the Bottom by attending the church's fairs without underwear, picking at their food and sleeping with their men and discarding them as if she were at a wine-testing event. This self-assertion and detachment from the rules of the community is what angers the Bottom. The community vilifies her and justifies all the mishaps that occur in the community to her evil-doing. And while her attitude appalls her townspeople, it also serves as the catalyst that brings the community together. By having to confront Sula, the She-devil, the people in the town are able to give meaning to their lives: wives were more loving with their discarded husbands and mothers were more caring and attentive to their children. Sula becomes the invisible glue that holds the town together giving meaning to the townspeople's lives. At the end when Sula dies, the common evil against which the town had to join forces in order to fight, disappears and with her the invisible force that gave the town a sense of community and identity.

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Summary: AWESOME!
Review: Thrilling and chilling life of two girls. There is mystery, sex, and murder compiled into one great scenario. What else could you ask for!

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Summary: Typical Toni Morrison--The Reader Won't Be Disappointed
Review: Toni Morrison fans won't be let down with "Sula." Morrison's trademark and claim to fame are how she takes the events of life, some common and some not, and tells an unforgettable story using rich vocabulary and mesmerizing imagery. As with most Morrison books, the ending is not particularly happy and satisfying. But for some reason, I feel happy and more enlightened about the world around me once I've read one of her novels. With "Sula," the old adage, "What goes around comes around," comes to mind. And, what comes around is usually ten times worse that what goes around! "Sula" will stir your soul.

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Summary: Emotional, Powerful and bittersweet story
Review: This was a powerful book about two women, name Sula and Nell. They grew up as childhood girlfriends but the paths they choose as they both become adults, plays a major part in the women they've become. Yes, circumstances from their childhood have something to do with the outcome of their lives and the story. However, while reading you come to see that ones childhood and family can be the determining factor of how you'll live your life and the values and views you come to live by. Both women suffer as a result of the choices they make and they come to see what it really takes and means to be a Black woman in America. Sula Peace and Nell Wright choose different paths that come to challenge their friendship, when Sula crosses the line that friends should never cross. She's a rebel without a cause and proud of it. Nell's a so-called happily married woman and mother and highly respected within the community. After evaluating their relationship and a reconilation, you'll come to see how this story could be so powerful and moving. It's a bittersweet tale you'll remember for years to come. It was beauitfully told and written. Thanks Toni M. for a journey I won't soon forget.