Paradise

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable!
Review: A friend said, "Take this home and read it, and then call me when you've finished." I'd not read any of Toni Morrison, and, somewhat embarrasssed about that now, really had no intention of doing so. Nevertheless I responded to the Paradise challenge and oh, my, what a literary experience it was! I read the first three chapters, was confused but convinced that it was I, not the author, and the next day began all over again. ...And continued and-- good for me, because-- I'm sure I've never read a better book. I've never ever come anywhere close to even a remotely sympathetic understanding of the "black experience" in this country until reading Paradise (and subsequently Beloved and Sula). But aside from that importance in my life, Paradise itself is absolutely remarkable as literature, I believe. The reader gets to know characters in this story in bits and piece, just as people in real life learn about others -- a little at a time, a crumb here and a crumb there along experiences' continuum. And then, voila! a whole loaf magically comes together. At some point and in ever so seemingly random fashion,all along the way, human behaviors and attitudes of Paradise characters become explainable and are sympathically understandable. To be sure, the story line itself is compelling, from the very first sentence of Chapter 1. Most, if not all, of the social interactions and lessons of the Ruby community were strangely familiar, charming in many ways, and chilling in others. When I finished Paradise, I then proceeded immediately to re-read it AND I liked it even BETTER the second time. Not too many books you can say that about. If you are a devotee of the narrative sweetness of the Rosamunde Pilcher woman writer ilk, you will definitely NOT cotton to Toni Morrison. As for me,I am in total awe of the genius of Toni Morrison. Absolutely remarkable!

Rating:
Summary: Paradise? Oh yes!
Review: I'd never heard of Toni Morrison before I watched Oprah. That's the beauty of her bookclub. As a young white Australian male living on the complete opposite side of the world from where Ms Morrison lives and writes, it was with apprehension that I picked up one of her books for the first time. It was Song of Solomon. That was May of 1997 and I have read that book three times since then. So, when Oprah chose Toni Morrison's new book as one of her bookclub selections I went looking straight away. I wasn't disappointed. I know some others who have read the book and hated it and then I saw the Oprah show where everyone didn't get it and I just sat there dumbfounded. I love the way Ms Morrison tells about the chivalry and friendship between this group of women. What was there not to get? And what was all this business about white and black? Who cares? It isn't the point of the book. I love Paradise as a book and I love it as a title. Paradise? Oh yes it is.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: I want to start off by saying that Toni Morrison is an author that only the brave try to read and understand. I've read Sula, Bluest Eye, and I am still trying to figure out Song of Solomon. I really did enjoy them all. Yet, some people may complain about her style of writing or the fact that "Paradise" has an enormous amount of characters, but I see it another way.

"Paradise" is a beautiful story about the choices that people make and how they affect community; it's a story about following your heart. I know, in my case, that as I read the story, I was constantly finding that I had something in common with each of her characters. From Soane Morgan's indecisiveness to Roger Best's desire to please, to Pallas Truelove's search for true love. Each character has its purpose in the story no matter how small a part. And that is one of the things that makes "Paradise" a well-written book. Sure Morrison could have clearly left some of the characters out of the story but the story would not have been the same.

Morrison is known for taking readers on a trip where they are constantly traveling back and forth through time. But I was okay with it because I took a few notes. I also found myself captured by each character's story, which made it a hard book to put down.

I believe that "Paradise" is a work of poetry. The prose of life. The story of pride and prejudices. The exploration of cause and effect. All these things are intertwined in the story because these are the things that make life what it is. And these things are so successfully used by Morrison in the book, that Paradise will always be a read that forces you to reflect on your own life after you are done.

I will not lie and say that "Paradise" is an easy book to follow or that it is a book that you will only have to read once to understand. I read it for the third time and I am still pick up on things in the story that I either overlooked or didn't understand. And the shocking part is that each time I read the story, I find that it is just as intriguing and interesting as it was the first time. But that's what great about Toni Morrison books. It takes time and dedication to read.

Rating:
Summary: An extremely difficult read but a good one nonetheless
Review: Toni Morrison made a grave error while writing Paradise-she left too much of the translation (and trust me, there's A LOT) to the reader. To the causal reader, the novel is almost completely indiscernible due to the very complex and very confusing plot structure and lack of an active narrative voice.

So did I understand Paradise? Yes, but only after carefully picking it apart chapter by chapter in one of my English seminars. Even now, I'm not so sure that I truly comprehend all of the book's themes. And do I understand the ending? Yes, but only after wading through hours of various interviews with Morrison in which she discussed her book to great length. Most importantly, was the book worth the read? I believe so, but I devoted a lot of work to Paradise before arriving at this conclusion. Morrison's writing style is not to be taken lightly; words and themes often contain several, and sometimes seemingly infinitesimal, levels of meaning. The bottom line is that what you take away from Paradise, if anything, is up to you. If you want to walk away from this novel with any sort of satisfaction, be prepared to commit a lot though and research to the undertaking.

Now, I'm not going to discuss the novel's meanings here for those who don't have the time or the will to put in the sort of work I'm talking about because doing so would far exceed the 1,000 word limit that amazon.com allows for these reviews. (I wrote 10 pages alone for my seminar on the theme of sexuality as a form of female submission and still had plenty of material left over to work with.) Whether Morrison has overextended her literary license with Paradise is debatable, but I would encourage you, the reader, to devote some effort to the reading. Who knows, you might find something worth keeping. I sure did.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant sorrow... and hope
Review: I loved this book. Like other Morrison novels Paradise has a good deal to say about misdirected anger, about turning harm inward (like The Bluest Eye) or in an arbitrary outward direction (like Song of Solomon) or upon the ones we most love (like Beloved). But central to this story is the dangerous notion of creating a paradise on earth. Things fall apart, the center will not hold.

The prose is lush and the story not so hard as some might lead you to believe. I found I didn't need to worry about knowing who was doing what when; I merely had to trust the story to hand itself into my heart. Which it does. And there is redemption here, this is not a fatalistic vision to my eyes.

A second read? Yes, of course. Always read the good ones more than once and they will be better. When I read it again, I can come back and rate this novel the 10 it surely deserves.

Rating:
Summary: Is Paradise Lost?
Review: I must preface my review by admitting I've only read Paradise once.
The writing is the same brilliant and disorienting/nonlinear style as the rest of Morrison's oeuvre. What seemed most aberrant in her first post-Nobel Prize novel was, though it was highly intellectually stimulating, for me "Paradise" lacked the connection to the heart that is inseparable from her previous books. It seemed to try to meet expectations the public would have of a Nobel Prize Laureate. (Who can blame her? She remains a wonder.) But to me it was a bit forced, especially with an (overly?) dramatic opening line "They shoot the white girl first."
I will read any novel Morrison writes, they are all worth reading, including Paradise, but if you are new to her, you would be best off starting with Song of Solomon, Sula, and then Beloved.

Rating:
Summary: Paradise Review by Stephanie Hamilton
Review: I read Paradise for a project in my English class. The book was very difficult for the fact that it seems like Toni Morrison switched topics every few pages. With all of the different characters coming in and out of the convent and the town it was hard to keep up with what was going on with who. I just didn't care for the book at all. If i had to tell someone whether they should read the book I would definitely tell them not to read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Rather difficult read..
Review: After reading all the good reviews and the fact that this book was on some cool people's list mania lists - I really wanted to read it and to like it. But after having bought it, I found it rather difficult to follow and understand.
The charachters keep coming in and it's hard to keep track of who's who. You know they are all going to come together in the convent somehow but it's still hard to follow and make a connection. I consider myself to be an avid reader and reasonably intellectual but unfortunately I could not bring myself to finish this book. Maybe in a few years time I'll come back to it and understand it better!

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunate read
Review: As much as I wanted to like this book, I could not overcome its racist and hurtful depictions of black men. I was very offended by the depictions of black men, and as a black man who has never been to jail or had any ill-will toward black women, I was surprised that all of the black males in the book ar depicted as misogynistic and cruel, almost apish criminals or cretins. This book reminds me of racist literature from the 1890s-1920s that I read in my Whiteness Studies class. Such racist books written by white authors who sought to foment race riots (meaning violence by whites against blacks). The tone of this book is quite similar, which is shameful and all too eerie. To think that a gifted black author is writing literature no different than literature that Grand Wizards of the Klu Klux Klan wrote in 1919 says something very harrowing about the publishing industry, something I had not realized before. I expected her worldview to be a bit more like Mark Twain's than David Duke's.

Rating:
Summary: I've read it twice
Review: This book was very enlightening. I really enjoy all of Toni Morrison's books but this one is by far my favorite. There was so much to absorb here, I learned a great deal about the early years, after slavery but, before the "Civil Rights Movement". I'm sure that when you read this book you will be hooked on Toni Morrison books forever. There are so many levels to this story. Each character is significant in his/her own way. There was no wasted space in this book. Every page was worth reading.