This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it
left her no room to image, let alone plan for, the next day. Exactly like that afternoon in the wild
onions – when one more step was the most she could see of the future. Other people went crazy, why couldn’t
she? Other people’s brain stopped,
turned around and went on to something new, which is what must have happened to
Halle.” – Toni Morrison, Chapter I, Page 84
“Unless carefree, motherlove was a killer. What did he want her pregnant for? To hold on to her? have a sign that he passed this way? He probably had children everywhere
anyway. Eighteen years of roaming, he
would have to have dropped a few. No. He resented the children she had, that’s
what. Child, she corrected herself. Child plus Beloved whom she thought of as her
own, and that is what he resented.
Sharing her with the girls.
Hearing the three of them laughing at something he wasn’t in on. The code they used among themselves that he
could not break. Maybe even the time
spent on their needs and not his. They
were a family somehow and he was not the head of it.” – Toni Morrison, Chapter
I, Page 135
“Grandma Baby said people look down on her because she had eight children with different men. Coloredpeople and whitepeople both look down on her for that. Slaves not supposed to have pleasurable feelings on their own; their bodies not supposed to be like that, but they have to have as many children as they can to please whoever owned them. Still, they were not supposed to have pleasure deep down. She said for me not to listen to all that. That I should always listen to my body and love it.” – Toni Morrison, Chapter II, Page 196
Is This An Overview?
Slavery tore families apart.
Belonging together as long as the partners are not sold to another. Running away is not an effective measure, as
there are people seeking to capture runaway slaves. Staying anywhere too long will get one
capture. To prevent separation, to
prevent someone from becoming a slave, difficult decisions are made. Decisions that represent love to some, but
cruelty to others. Decisions which cause
relatives of a runaway slave, to run away.
Physical freedom does little to overcome psychological
imprisonment. Haunted by a ghost of the
decision made. What decision defines the
novel?
Caveats?
This book is difficult to read. The context is antediluvian. The writing style is effective at making the
reader share the experience of the people in the era, but the style makes the
book difficult to read.
