Rating: 
Summary: This book changed my life.
Review: This is not an easy read. This is not an everything-will-be-ok-in-the-end read. So why read this book? To change your viewpoint, challenge your usual responses to life events and illuminate hidden prejudice. I read this book first in 1984 and it had a huge impact on my view of beauty and hatred. This book vividly illustrates the dangers of human superiority - feeling better than your neighbor because you're richer or prettier or more "religious".
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the effort
Review: One of Morrison's best novels, it is worth the effort. If you take the time and think about the messages and meanings of the book, how it deals with society's view of beuty and what that means to each of us, then it is definitly a treasure. Morrison's style is difficult for many, her naratives tend to fly around and it takes work as well as knowledge that she will tie all the ribbons together by the end. But this is one of her most clear books. Her easiest, that I've read, is Song of Soloman. Once you figure out her style her books become very lyrical and extreamily mentally rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I Ever Read!
Review: In 1984 I happened upon The Bluest Eye in my high school library. It literally changed the way I saw the world, beauty and my 16 year old self. How pleased I was to learn that Oprah had picked this forceful book! It is not an easy read, it is not a happy, sunshine, everything-is-going-to-be-okay read, but it is realistic read about race relations and the power of sex and the power of hatred. I've read the negative reviews and wonder why people are so defensive about the racism - look at the setting's time and when the book was written. And since this was Toni Morrison's FIRST novel it was impossible for her to "Sell Out" in its creation.
Rating:
Summary: toni, what do you mean?
Review: This book is practically poetry. I was astounded and disappointed to learn that Morrison was dissatisfied with the work. It is considerably more accessible than other writing I have read by her and is simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: Smarmy sentimentality
Review: On the positive side: "The Bluest Eye" has some breezy, sharp dialogue; some of the descriptions are well done; and, structurally, it is mildly interesting, although largely whimsical (e.g., the changes in paragraph justification). On the negative side: the symbolism is awful; there are many bland and/or trite descriptions (e.g., "leaden skies"); it is bloated with overworked, competing, confusing, and clumsy modifiers (i.e., adjectives and adverbs); the characterization is thin, and it is executed in a series of disjoint and amateurish character sketches; the narrative tells too much, while showing and evoking too little; and, the ending is just plain silly. In "The Bluest Eye", Morrison's characters are superficial and pigeonholed. It seems obvious that Morrison approached the story with ideas, rather than images (just read the afterword), and then forced her characters to act out these simplistic ideas. Here Morrison is too preoccupied with social, psychological, and moral messages; and, her characters and situations are contrived to provide didactic illustrations of overdrawn generalizations. Because of this, the reader's attention is pulled away from the characters as unique and complex creations, and focused on the messages, or "lessons", the characters are intended to help convey. Just read other people's reviews and this is obvious; many reviewers identify with Pecola only as a young black woman in the abstract, and urge others to read this book because of the "issues" it raises. This is evidence of both inartistic writing and unimaginative reading. Morrison's symbolism is abstract and artificial. Particularly bad is her use of blue eyes to symbolize `a cultural conception of beauty' or `stereotypical beauty'. An artistic, or poetic, use of symbolism should be image-oriented, evocative, and the symbol should embody the essence of what is being symbolized. Blue eyes are a poor symbol for `cultural ideals of beauty' because blue eyes do not provide a compelling and instinctual image of such a thing; and, because blue eyes purport to symbolize an abstract and intellectual concept, as opposed to a concrete image or quality. That is why this overreaching symbolism must be spelled out explicitly in the book. When you picture blue eyes do they immediately and instinctively evoke a sense of `cultural ideals of beauty'? Of course not. These connections must be manufactured. As bad as the symbolism of blue eyes is, Pecola's desire for them reduces this symbolism to a ridiculous allegory. Another complaint I have is that Morrison never withholds an image. Everything is graphically described and, therefore, the images become confused, overwrought, and numbing. Sometimes the best way to get across the sense of an image is to hold it back and work around it with more powerful, definite, and effective images. The incestuous child rape is a good example of where it would have been better to cleverly work with the reader's imagination but shield the actual act from view, letting the reader experience the situation rather than react to it. In being so explicit, Morrison conveys the facts, but not a heightened and controlled sense of the events. The images lose their power to evoke because they are so uniformly morbid, overdone, unfamiliar, and evidentiary. It is sometimes said that such unswervingly bleak portrayals are "true to life" and "real"---which invariably leads to their discussion in real-world terms. But these situations are not real---they are unbalanced, unimaginative, concocted, and phony. To end on a positive note, here is my favorite passage from the book: "When you ask them where they are from, they tilt their heads and say `Mobile' and you think you've been kissed. They say `Aiken' and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn wing. They say `Nagadoches' and you want to say `Yes, I will'." This is pretty good stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: BLUEST EYES
Review: I JUST FINISHED READING THE BLUEST EYE FOR THE SECOND TIME. I HAD A HARD TIME GETTING INTO THE STORY. AS A MATTER OF FACT I COULDN'T IDENTIFY WITH THE STORY AND NO I AM NOT BEAUTIFUL NOR DO I COME FROM A WEALTHY FAMILY. I KNOW OPRAH WAS SO HAPPY WITH THIS BOOK AND GAVE IT RAVING REVIEWS... I JUST DIDN'T LIKE THE BOOK VERY MUCH. I WILL ADMIT I REALLY TRIED TO GET INTO THE STORY. THAT IS WHY I READ IT FOR THE SECOND TIME.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Exactly What I Expected
Review: I guess, after reading what the book was going to be about (an 11 year old black girl wanting blue eyes), I expected a lot more of Pecola in the book than I got. However, after reading the entire book, I feel that Toni Morrison wanted us to know all of the people around Pecola who influenced her life. The story actually starts at the end but then, through her family and friends, you get filled in on what actually happened to Pecola. I loved the way the author allows you to get inside the head of some of the people in her life (her mother and father, for instance) because it allows you to understand why they act the way they do. This was an enjoyable book that was definitely thought provoking as well.
Rating:
Summary: Worst of all the Oprah selections
Review: I've read most of the Oprah book club selections and found this one to be the most dragged out and rather boring one of the bunch. I kept at it, hoping it would get more interesting but, alas, it was boring to the end. There was only one other of Oprah's choices that I really didn't care for (can't recall now which one...guess it really WAS forgetable). A difinate 'thumbs down' from me.
Rating:
Summary: People are not blind....
Review: and this book makes that very apparent. Whether it's negative attitudes across racial, social or monetary lines, people can be very cruel even to their "own kind". I believe Ms. Morrison did a very good job (whether this was her intent) of showing some of that through the eyes and minds of the children, as well as the adults. People are judged by skin color, social standing, salary level and their fashion sense, among other things. We want to be "better" to each other, but I believe it is the nature of the visually-equipped "beast" to judge before we get close enough to one another to know the person beneath the outer shell. Bravo, Ms. Morrison
Rating:
Summary: An important book
Review: Pecola is not in the book as much as you'd think based on Oprah's discussion. The structure is odd (even Morrison talks of being dissatisfied with the way she wrote certain things.) But this book is incredibly powerful in its messages not only on race and sex and power but on what horrific damage we do to each other and our children by not honoring the beauty in us all. I, too, have been getting turned off of Oprah's recent selections because of what seems to be a running theme of abuse and betrayal, but Oprah was right about this one. If everyone read it, it WOULD change the world. PS: Morrison's use of language is stunningly beautiful. And don't skip the afterward. Her eloquence will blow you away.
|
