Rating: 
Summary: What's up with the ghosts & goblins!
Review: I'm sorry but, Toni Morrison, this novel is about the occult. Bizarre. Basically, the author combined slavery with halloween. Very sad. Toni, if you had to do it this way, why couldn't the slaves along with the dead baby ghost all get together and free themselves from slavery before President Lincoln did so? Heck, even the X-Files tv show is better in this regard.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully written and compelling
Review: After hearing so much about this book, I decided to broaden my reading horizons and give it a try. Truth be told, it really is not that confusing or difficult to understand. The writing is beautiful and the book is full of both wonderful and disturbing images. I learned more than I wish I needed to know about slavery and I felt the depth of Sethe's love for her children. This was not a quick, fun read but it was worthwhile and I'm glad I persisted. However, I don't think there's any need to make readers feel bad if they happened not to like or understand this book. Toni Morrison's writing is not for everyone. It's a huge world with millions of books and, praise God, there's a book out there for everyone. If Beloved isn't it, it's really not a big deal. I've enjoyed reading the previous thought-provoking reviews but I think it's important to keep things in perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: BELOVED by readers!!! (Haha!)
Review: For the reader that has an appetite for the extraordinary and surreal, BELOVED is a definite filler. Morrison incorporates the supernatural and the unthinkable into a true story of horror and perservering strength. The novel embraces the unseen and suffocated effects of slavery; an issue ignored for many years by mainstream society. BELOVED dives head first into one woman's formidable tale of a choice she made out of love but is punished for unceasingly by a society that cannot understand. The story progresses with revelations on all levels and is incredibly enticing for the curious mind. One walks away from BELOVED with entirely enlightened views on compassion, strength, and love.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful, compleatly wonderful
Review: When I first picked up this book, I read the first page over and over trying to understand it all. But that's not how the book is at all. Toni Morrison had to have wrote this book with such thought to be able to connect every thing so well. There were only a few parts that were hard to follow due to the way she didn't write every thing that was happening. Yet that was also the beauty in this book, poetry mixed with a terrifying story line. After I was done with the book I went back and read the first page and just went, "Oh.." In my AP English class, some classmates and I had to do a report on this book and we found some interesting connections with numbers. I recommend this book to all who are thinking of reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible....... Breathtaking....
Review: Let me tell you honestly, the first time I read this book. I hated it. It didn't make any sense to me, (I am sure many of you can relate), and I felt it very bland, not well thought out, strange, bizarre, etc... I did not think I would pick it up again until I got bored.Yes, I got bored, I had nothing better to do but pick up the book again. And that is when I started to see it for what it truley was. The book is NOT about slavery even though people claim it is. It is about the endurence of a human soul through times and tribulations, no matter how perplexed it may become. Pure talent wrote the book, it speaks for itself. Some people are just closed minded not to see the beauty, saga, and tragedy in the novel. For those people who claim that is was to hard to read, look at it this way. I am a ninth grader. Yes, the first time I read it. It was extremly bewildering. This is mearly natural in a book such as this. Only repatintion will make it form and develop its plot correctly. Yes, the vocabulary is difficult, but that does not make a book trash. I know I am going to get skinned alive by comparing Beloved to other books but honestly, think of the Canterbury Tales, and A Mid Summer's Night Dream. Do you honestly understand those books? They were written in English but not the English we use. Just because you can't understand a book doesn't make it trash. It just takes a bit more intellect to de-coded such language and only a true scholar would waste their time decifering the Knight's Tale and not read it over, not understand it, and automatically see it as boring and unattractive. And for those of you who have claimed to read the book in high school, I am a freshman myself so I have apathy for you. It is just a law of nature that if you read a book in school you will hate it. I have not meargerly enjoyed one book I have read from the Elemanatry school to High school. It is predestined that if someone tells you to read a book you will hate it becaue they told you to read it. For the unanswered questions, Beloved would not be Beloved without it. The book is not a guide that is supposed to explain every event in detail, why, when, how, who, and where it happened. That is why it is a novel. That is what makes a novel. Take the book Wuthering Heights, (I know you will skin me for using this comparision again) Was the love affair intended for Catherine and Heathcliff? Or Linton and Catherine etc..... a book is not suppose to go word to word in a shallow repitious manner explaning everything which would eventually dull the pace down to a stiff lumbering stroll. It is suppose to leave you with these questions and make sure everything makes sense to you. The way I see it, this is a book that you either hate or love. You you love it, great. If you hate it great. Its just your personal opinion and I can relate to both sides. Just keep in mind that we live in a society with no original art anymore, (this goes along not with just liturature, but music, poetry, etc...) and we are over stimulated with t.v.'s, computer's, videogames, and such materialist items. Not to say I agree with Oprah but not to down play her either, many people did find this good taste of liturature and I frankly agree with them. Yes, I am just a ninth grader but as a human I can see people's emotions about the book. By that standard, it is a Masterpiece in its own right.
Rating:
Summary: Warning: This book may cause severe boredom.
Review: BELOVED is poor in its totality. I was forced to read it for an English class. It begins with a poorly developed premise and ends with lose ends still untied. The Immortal Beloved is completely implausible in its historical setting. Morrison made no attempt to create an appropriate premise/setting. BELOVED must have won the Pullizter for political reasons. This book has no depth or content. After finishing it, virtually everyone in my class felt cheated.
Rating:
Summary: beloved
Review: this book is realy hard to ra
Rating:
Summary: A poem of a novel.
Review: Ms. Morrison's "Beloved" is very similar to poetry. Poetry, as a medium, can be very selective in its audience. Some people "get" poetry, while others despise it. So, too, is "Beloved". Ms. Morrison's novel is dense with beautiful language and meaning. There are passages that are very de-constructive. The reader is left with just bare words, sounds, even. Each reader will take away from this book a personal message, but that message is based upon the experiences they bring to the book. At the very least, give it a read. You may find yourself surprised.
Rating:
Summary: Read and challenge yourself!!
Review: This is, in my opinion, one of the most magnificant American novels ever written. As a writing and literature instructor, I find it rather disturbing that so many readers complain that the book is "difficult"to read. Why must all enjoyable books be an easy read?? Morrison's work is brilliant in part because it is constantly challenging; it is impossible to sit passively and read her work --she complels and inspires active reading. The "confusing plot" that comes together in pieces is done deliberately to emphasize an integral theme of the book. In Beloved, Morrison shows us that the past, the present, and the future are all one; each is interwoven into the fabric of every moment we live. Our memories and histories, both individual and collective, infuse our lives in profound and immeasurable ways. Yes, this novel is a challenge, a blessed one -- to the spirit as well as the brain. READ IT!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Sleep Disturbing
Review: I have already reviewed this book. But I have re-read it so I think I should re-review it! I still think it is the best book I have ever read. It captures beauty and horror perfectly and is terrifyingly deep - it affects the reader pyschologically without them even realising it.
|
