Paradise

Rating:
Summary: all right already!
Review: I went through and read all 180 some reveiws submitted before mine. I'm kind of sorry that I did. What people expect of books today is just unimaginable.

A book isn't a book because all the periods are in the right spot and everything is spelled perfectly. A book is a book because it tells a story and NO, not always from beginning to end. Life would be incredibly boring if everything went beginning to end.

Toni Morrison has escaped that cliched book. Just read Beloved and you'll see an earlier version. Her writing is more of an art, than a pain. Grammar and spelling are tools she uses to explain herself, to show the story. (in Beloved she even goes so far as to invent new words, Omigosh!!) It's a beautiful thing if you can manage it and many have tried to imitate her...but Morrison is a Shakespeare of the 90's. (don't jump all over this, I'm saying there are parallels between the two, not that Morrison will be forever memorialized as Shakespeare has) You don't read Shakespeare as a light read. You don't read a little of The Tempest before bed each night. There is a purpose to his plays just as there is a purpose to Morrison's books. You HAVE to look at them. You HAVE to think. And, if you think reading is just for recreation, fine...don't read Morrison, don't read Shakespeare. But, if you are willing to take a chance, to think, to go in-depth on a book, then pick up Paradise. Or, pick up Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye or any of her other books. Morrison will make you think about bigotry (not just racially but physical, mental and financial) in ways you never imagined.

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment.
Review: My excitement was peaked before I opened the book. Oprah's pick and everything. Ms. Morrison's interview with Ed Bradley of 60 minutes proved that this was a lady with intelligence, integrity, and style. The first sentence got my attention like Ms. Morrison intended. I read the first four pages without hardly breathing because I just knew that soon I would be drawn into this thing and not be able to put it down. I continued to read and I became angry. Angry with myself because I was not getting it. I put the book down for about a month and had to start over again, only to be reminded of my inital anger. I envy the people who appreciated this book. I really wanted to appreciate it and I really tried to appreciate it, but I kept thinking how easy it would have been to have written the book in the order the events occurred. I usually finish what I start, but not this time. I read more reviews to find out what I felt was important to know. I really wanted to know who was white. My hat is off to Ms. Morrison for that well-kept secret. It shouldn't matter, after all. If I could ask Ms. Morrison one question it would be a toss up between , "Do you think the way you write?" and "What group of people out here did you want to appeal to?" I have not read any of her books and it is unfortunate that I started with "Paradise" because now I am too angry to try any of them.

Rating:
Summary: best book she has ever written
Review: Always a brilliant writer, Toni Morrison has managed, yet again, to top herself. Brilliant and moving - this is the best book she has written - so far. The symbolism was great; the story insightful. This is one of the few books that i can read more than once!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful lush novel for the experienced reader!!!
Review: As a longtime fan of Ms. Morrison's work, I absolutely enjoyed this novel. I was actually reluctant to put it down at the very end, as I was so engaged in Morrison's world. As always, Morrison creates an intriguing world and characters I couldn't help but to be drawn to with her gorgeous and lyrical prose. The novel unfolds as you read it, so that the reader is absolutely confused in the first several chapters of the novel, yet (mostly) all is made clear by the end. Trust me, Oprah was right when she advised readers to "hang in there"!

One caveat: do not attempt to read this novel as "light reading" or something to read bit by bit before bed. I began this novel while I was in school and was absolutely perplexed; I picked it up again during break and was in love! For those open to Morrison's nonlinear style and willing to commit themselves to a book that will alternately confound and astound them, I highly recommend "Paradise"!

Rating:
Summary: The Great American Novel
Review: I read this book when it first came out and it kept me thinking and writing about it for weeks, even months after. I read it a second time outloud to my son and husband. Actually, they participated in the reading outloud; we took turns. Morrison does something with gender, race, class, color, abledness, and of course the broader implications of humanness that has not been done before. She speaks outloud about these core identities at the same time she takes them for granted, unnoticed. I have never felt so seen and understood as a woman, as a white person, as an abled bodied person, as a poor person, as a human, as when I read this book. But I am always troubled by her endings. This one as well.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible waste of paper
Review: One of the supremely happy moments in my life came about page 100, when I said to myself: "I don't have to read this book, even if it came from a Nobel prize winner, and even though I'm out 25 bucks." Ms. Morrison may have deserved the Novel accolade for her body of work before she won the prize, but the money or fame or something has obviously created an impenetrable barrier between herself and good writing. She should give all the money back, including my $25.

Rating:
Summary: This book was too disjointed to be an enjoyable read.
Review: I was looking forward to reading Toni Morrison and decided I would start with Paradise. To say I was disappointed is quite an understatement. I was totally intrigued with the opening and thought to myself - "why did Oprah say to hang in there"? But as I continued to read I was frustrated and kept putting the book down. However, I did force myself to finish the book and when I was finished reading, I asked myself why I bothered to read it. After reading some of the other reviews I know I am not alone in my thinking. On the upside, I do plan to read "Beloved" and keep an open mind.

Rating:
Summary: Morrison's style reads like eating rich dessert.
Review: As in all of Morrisons books, her choice of words and the images they paint are sheer delight. I can happily go back and reread random chapters just to reconnect with the dreamlike state I've entered through her words.

Rating:
Summary: Best listened to on audio while following in the book.
Review: I was 3/4 though reading the book when I realized I could not remember who was who, or what the chronology was. Desperate to be prepared for my book club meeting, I borrowed the audio tape with Ms Morrison reading. It was magnificent! Six plus hours and four tapes later, I closed the book, shut off the taoe, and said to myself, "What a fantastic story!"

Rating:
Summary: Faulkner-lite---and I couldn't believe a word of it!
Review: On the one hand, I have to marvel at Morrison's self-created world in Ruby, Oklahoma. I did not mind the complicated maze of people and events, past and present, that she leads the reader through. I submitted myself to this jigsaw puzzle of a novel, and eventually, all the pieces WERE put into place, more or less. After Beloved, I was prepared for and even anticipating Morrison's inside-out method of telling a story--plunge us into the story in medias res, then go back and fill us in, partially, then plunge us in a bit deeper, then reel us back in, etc., all the while firmly rooting us to a time, place and lifestyle with concrete descriptions of scents and colors and lists of food--lots and lots of food!

In Beloved, this approach was magical--I felt continual surprise at her words--they seemed to bubble over with a life of their own. Her metaphors and her "food-talk" seemed to be one and the same; she was somehow able to make the concrete seem ethereal and the mystical seem "everyday". Beloved had elements of "magical realism," but she made me BELIEVE it. I could have lived in that story.

The first thing I said to myself after finishing the last page of Paradise was, "I don't believe a word of it." And that is really the worst criticism I can give it--it is unreal. It does not live and breathe. It's metaphors and spiritual questings never drew me in--I never wanted to enter into Large Questions with Morrison, because I wasn't reading a reality that forced me to deal with its existence, its failings, successes, and accusations.

Why did this world fail to convince, while Beloved overflowed with life, for me?

Here are some symptoms of the larger problem of lifelessness: a preachy tone; obvious, overused, mixed, or just plain strained metaphors; characters used as ciphers; a perverse authorial pleasure in creating loose ends; plot elements that seemed extremely arbitrary (Connie and Deacon's affair, the dead white family, everything about Gigi...); long pages of deliberate vagueness punctuated by long paragraphs of authorial explanation of the "POINT" of it all.

I could go on. But the main problem was, this novel simply isn't as serious and weighty as Morrison wants it to be. The plot turns actually silly at her grand climax and after. It's Faulkner-lite.