Beloved

"To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay."

This will be a short review, not because I have nothing to say about it, but because all of the other 5 star reviews here do a better job than I ever could at summarizing what makes this such a good read. It is a hard read and a dense read, and I will freely admit to anyone who asks that I very nearly DNF'd this book early on because I wasn't sure I was understanding it. My only advice for anyone who tries this book out is to stick with it. It starts making a small bit of sense, then a larger bit of sense, and then suddenly pieces start falling together and you're now seeing why this book is so highly regarded. It was a very weird, very satisfying feeling.

All I'll say about this book is that it's creepy and powerful and contemplative. It bounces the point of view around a lot, and sometimes you're in the past and sometimes you're not. All I can say is that notes are helpful.

This is a book that deserves a re-read.

I read this book for a book club in April 2021. I did not start the book until I had submitted my term papers for the previous term, which only left me a few days to read this—I ended up not finishing it in time for the meeting, of course. (I had about 4 days, and this ended up taking me 13 days to read. I was in the hospital for some of that and very reluctant to pick this back up, but still.) Well, I at least appreciated the group discussions as they helped me understand the themes and plot of the novel a bit more. The first part of Beloved, I was completely ‘lost in the sauce’ as they say. Morrison loves to drop you in the middle of things without any warning or acclimation period. I had read The Bluest Eye, so I thought I would not succumb to the same confusion this time around… but while the The Bluest Eye was still somewhat sensible, Beloved really takes it to a whole other cognitive level. At least in the former, Morrison gives the reader the structure of the plot from the very beginning, so you aren't completely scrambling for purchase. The second part of the book completely ditches conventional writing standards and becomes more like a fever dream. The third is a mix of both, with some normal narrative tossed in so you do not go insane, presumably.

Let me be clear—I enjoyed the themes and plot of the novel. I love dark, gritty novels, and Beloved is not pulling its punches when it comes to the brutality and horrors of slavery and its legacy. However, in order to understand anything, you have to read the book several times, which takes a lot longer than you’d expect, because the prose is in such an overtly literary style. (And that’s only the prose—not counting the random moments Morrison jumps into verse or rhyme or paragraphs that go on and on for pages.) I guess some may call it postmodernist. What I do know is that this style is definitely not for me. I appreciate Morrison’s uncanny ability to manipulate the English language, so versatile and dazzling. But when I read a book and come away with not understanding what has happened at all, it can either be very good or terrible. Unfortunately this was the latter. I ended up glancing at SparkNotes every so often just to make sure I was ‘interpreting’ this book correctly. I also had a hard time keeping track of characters or understanding their motivations and perspectives.

If you enjoy stream-of-consciousness style writing and heavy-handed metaphors, you’ll love Morrison’s style. Unfortunately while I was able to get through The Bluest Eye feeling somewhat like I understood the point of the book, with Beloved I was just frustrated and confused. I wished I would have DNFed it several times throughout the book. For what it’s worth, Denver is my favorite character—perhaps because she has the clearest and most optimistic character arc, and possibly also because sections in the book from her perspective tend to have some semblance of coherence and normalcy. Then again, I suppose you could say that the disorder and disarray of the novel reflects the inner psyches of its characters, understandably traumatized by slavery—which is brilliant for a writer, of course, but not terribly fun for this reader.