Sula

Rating:
Summary: Simply Wonderful!
Review: For me, 'Sula' is a book about choices and the problems of living with those choices. It is about loving someone who chooses a very different path in life than we do and what is needed to keep that love alive...or even if it can be kept alive. Sula and Nel are both beautiful characters and both are vibrantly alive. Both want desperately to hold onto their love for each other, but fate and circumstances make it increasingly difficult. The story of Sula's and Nel's growth from child to adult to old age is the thread that ties the other stories in this book into one seamless whole. Although 'Sula' could be seen as an allegory or metaphor for the rediscovery of the core self of black America, I feel the characters, themselves are too rich, to fully-drawn, to alive, to call this book an allegory. Perhaps on some level, it is, but Morrison is a writer of literature, not genre fiction. Other novels I enjoyed recently: Waiting by Ha Jin, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

Rating:
Summary: Flows like a dream that's almost a nightmare
Review: I read through this book in about three days only for lack of leisure time. I would have rather read it straight through in one day.It's one of those books you don't want to put down because it feels like it should be read all at once. With events spanning a time period from 1895 to 1965 in less than 200 pages, this tale jumps around like a disjointed dream that you can't quite remember all of but know you were deeply affected by. The imagery is startling and, for a story that reads like mint juleps on a summer porch, it has an incredible body count. Toni Morrison does have a penchance for killing off her characters, often in creatively horrible ways. If you're in the mood for a short epic that can be both beautiful and terrible at at once and you don't mind a lot of jumping around through time (such as going year by year for a few chapters and then suddenly skipping a decade), then let yourself get caught up in this novel. Try reading it all in one shot.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This book was absolutly incredible, mind-boggling, and creative. It left me hungry and yet sad. I was moved at the beginning descriptions of each individual character, but was completely astounded by the events that took place in each women's life as children to shape their individual adult lives. Sula -- sultry, seductive, mistress, and harlot, and Nel -- calm, meek, introverted, and homely.

Each women contributed to their own unique lives and situations, by a series of "divine choices and chance" nothing ventured or gained . . . Primarily to choke the life upon the life that was given. Sula I believed suffered from inward denial and a sense of a wounded soul, all shielded by a natural indifference of what is right, proper, or politically correct. She goes against any framework or all that was ever know. Collectively, she takes that which is her all that was ever absorbed from the women in her life and rolls it into a sophisticated Jezebel. Admiringly. The women in "the valley" can't stand her. The men don't know what to think of her -- exactly (she lives them breathless and without words"). Yet, she lives a lonely life of intimate isolations. The affair with Nel's husband drives her further from her childhood friend, whom she loved . . . A mere reflection of the girl child -- herself. Longing is what separates this women, and through all of her lovers there's no satisfation to be gained.

Nel on the other hand, suffocates the very thing she desires to be which is simply that, just the ability to be. Caught up in another's game, always longing to play a vital role in something. (I suppose that what draws the characters of both Sula and Nel together, because each possess a characteristic that the other would like). Nel comes off as sweet and innocent in comparison to the bodacious Sula. It appears that everything that ever was in Nel's life was undoubtly shared with her best friend all the way down to the man she loved.

This book is incredible. I gleaned so much from reading it. The lessons in this book are as real as my hands and my feet. I learned from Sula that environment is everything. There will forever be watchful eyes and hungry ears. Just beacause it so don't make the individual that one was "then" to what one is "now".

And . . . from Nel I learned that everyone needs a voice. To smother someone else's true identity, regardless as to whether its acceptable or agreeable to another is a crime shame. Its rather a blessing to be allowed the ability to show emotion despite whether it is good or not. And by all means never be nobody's doormat -- It doesn't matter who it is.

I believe that Toni Morrison's main message in Sula is that loving oneself is essential, but to become an isle in a sea is indeed a task. To hold oneself, to say her I am, I am strong, no crack can break me . . . Well, that's untrue everyone needs someone. Sula needed Nel despite all that happened between them and Nel needed Sula. Loving oneself is good, but loving each other and forgiving another covers a heap o' troubles.

Rating:
Summary: Sula as a Book Club Pick
Review: I recently formed a book club with a few friends and co-workers of mine and Sula was our first book to read and review. I thought it was an interesting read. The friendship that Sula and Nel had as girls was reminiscant of when I was quite young and had close girlfriends in grade school with whom you could share secrets and form lasting memories with. The book shows how these 2 girls started out on a similar plane and how circumstances and choices took them down drastically different paths in life. I love Toni's eloquent writing style but to others it was too much "work" figuring out what was actually going on. There were a few unanswered questions and the reader is left hanging. For instance, why was Chicken killed? Why didn't Jude ever return? I have theories on these questions but I don't want to ruin it for future readers. To me, unanswered questions are foder for the imagination - you have to come to your own conclusions. If you like metaphorical writing and books you can think about after you are done reading, I recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointing Read
Review: After reading The Bluest Eye I expected better from Toni Morrison. This book was o.k but not what the back cover promised. I usually read the back cover and expect the book to follow it at least loosely. This book promised that Sula and Nel would reconcile, they never did. Sula died the day that her friend visited and they got into an argument then, there was no reconciliation. That and the fact that after being caught with Sula Jude leaves Nel and never returns. This doesn't sound like any man I've ever known. This was an unrealistic portrayal of a man. And what made Sula sick, the reader is never told why Sula was sick or what she was sick from. It is also never explained why the girls decided to kill Chicken what had he done to them? Overall I like the book there were just some points I didn't understand.

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Summary: sula scottcampos
Review: Sula, a book that talks about the issues of being a black women is a really good novel to read.One of the reasons I recommend it is because of its realism and its themes - death, sex, friendship and poverty.I also think that its characters are very good, its easy to identify with one or both of them. I really recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good literature.

Rating:
Summary: sula pcscott6
Review: Sula is a book written by Toni Morrison.This book is about the lives of two black heroines who took different paths in life.The books deals with subjects like death, sex, friendship and poverty.I really like this book and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys good literature.

Rating:
Summary: What the big deal on Sula is
Review: What many of you don't seem to understand is that you really can't look at Sula and Nell as separate individuals; see them as a whole.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely life changing!
Review: I had to read this for a class at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, and it was really a life changing experience. A must read for every girl torn between being "good" and just being, for every girl who knows that the purpose for her existence is weightless. Fabulous read, very short for how much is crammed in there, and the writing is gorgeous. This may sound cheesy, but Sula is there in me and in you too!

Rating:
Summary: Surprised I liked it
Review: OK, I admit it--I had to read this book for school, and I doubt I would have discovered it otherwise. I really didn't see how it could possibly relate to me: I'm a middle-class white girl from a big city. But you know, this book is about a lot of things: the difference between good and evil, and who gets to decide which is which; the relationships people have when their families fail them; the loss of a friendship when two women let a man come between them. What woman couldn't relate to that? And I also say that this is a book for any feminist who struggles with the conventions of society. It presents you with options: be like Nel, and accept what society offers, or be like Sula and make your own rules.