Name: Beloved
Rating: 4.09942638623327 (523 reviews)
ISBN: 9781400033416

Toni Morrison

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed, in a new edition of the Nobel Laureate's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

A Novel

Beloved

Tim Pendry

'Beloved' (1987) is deservedly regarded as a classic of African-American literature. It has also been somewhat appropriated as part of the Gothic tradition in a slightly forced away by the burgeoning academic industry surrounding that genre. It is best seen perhaps not as an authentic attempt to portray the experience of African-Americans during and in the wake of slavery (much as many readers would like to wallow in that sentiment) but as an authentic expression of African-American emotional assertion over a century later. Morrison is not and was not a slave. She was a middle class graduate from an African-American working class family who imbibed the total mythos and past reality of one of the darkest of many dark periods in human history. Regarded highly already in what might be considered the high culture of her own community, this was a point in history when that culture was still in a ghetto and needed to claim its place within the national culture as equal on its own terms. 'Beloved' distills black mythos and collective memorialisation of its own reality into a literary form whose very style is an assertion of high culture. It is, in fact, an indirect demand to be accepted as middle class, as having 'made it', as having worth by the standards of that national culture. Her emotional creation of a total African-American experience is a form of exorcism and a pouring of her reality and her culture's reality into the mind of the educated liberal elite in order to force it into some sort of shame if not guilt. The white reader had to believe that this account of the historic black experience was authentic in order to accept the authenticity and worth of current black experience and its claims to be equal. In this regard, it is a magnificent success. Morrison is delivering a blow in the culture wars but one designed to open the door into the upper middle class of America through deploying sentiment (not the sentimental), appropriating the slave experience and the first inklings of a 'black' working class as wedge. The style conveys this war aim. It is not written for working class white or black readers. Her quasi-poetical style, her elliptical shifts of perspective, the intensity of experience, the Gothic aspects, these are all designed for a highly literate audience which was always going (initially) to be mostly white. Although perhaps not intended as such, its subject matter and literary conceits were tailor made for being the sort of set text that could perhaps replace the usual liberal fare of 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' which, as time has passed, has come to look just a tad patronising to its black subjects. The Gothic aspects, though important, are thus not the most important aspect of the book. The revenant 'Beloved' enters into the story as the central agent that allows Morrison the opportunity to express difficult emotions about the past of her own community. She is the means, not the end. And this is why the novel is great. This sometimes difficult read may not be quite as authentic historically as white liberals would like it to be as they wallow in an easy post facto guilt or shame but it is wholly authentic emotionally. Here is the rage and confusion of the late twentieth century. The book is a catharsis, a transitional outpouring from one world where relative lack of autonomy and regard was the cultural norm to another where a claim of individual autonomy is regarded 'by right' in a culture obsessed with the ideology of rights. Within the book is a tension between community (whether the enforced one of the slave camp or the one Baby Suggs constructs out of the early days of freedom) and freedom and, in freedom, individuals are always leaving until Beloved herself is exorcised. There is a family here where the fierceness of love in the face of brutality constructs the initiating horror but it is a family that crumbles bit by bit into individualism as different members of it come to terms with the reality of being free. There is a final last love of sorts but we know it is damaged. As to Beloved herself, the ambiguity of her nature remains to the end. She appears to be the type of what the Chinese call a 'hungry ghost', a creature borne of pain who sucks dry what it attaches itself to and needs appeasing but room is left for her being an upsurge of the demonic from an evil act. Once accepted as a literary artefact rather than historical truth (although it is clear that Morrison has worked hard to bed her dark fantasy in some serious realism about the period), the book can be accepted as a somewhat self-conscious work of genius and clearly a work of authorial passion. It has been criticised as melodramatic and so it is but this should not be seen as a criticism once one understands its purpose. It is African-American critics who can be more wary of its status than white precisely because the melodrama's inauthenticity is clearly directed beyond the black experience. Morrison is a political writer while being committed to literature as an art form. These are two sides of the same coin. This book (which reached right across the racial divide) must be seen as critical in helping to establish a new liberal consensus that only now is being challenged by new forces. Read it but critically. Don't let it manipulate you four decades on into submission to its emotional power. Don't let it be a 'hungry ghost' creating guilt and shame. You are not your race. You did nothing wrong. But respect the demand for regard and equality, an argument now largely won.

I’ve finished... after lots of depressing chapters (ALL OF IT) I finally reached the end. Oh my Godbshbdnf. I don’t know what to say—Toni Morrison took all my words away. Anyways, I’m really glad I started off with The Bluest Eyes because it focuses more on structure, not as depressing as Beloved that leans to its storytelling. I get to learn her range in her literary work. TBE also prepares me for the warnings that come along with Beloved, although it still astonished me to read such traumatic, depressing, and cruelty even in the symbolism.

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Special Edition

This is the type of writing I think of when it comes to poetry as prose (Kaveh Akbar google sigma). The sentence level is beautiful; the chapter structure is structured!; each character gets their chance to build the novel and shine and kills it every time (Stamp Paid POV???). All I wanted was to hear more about Halle but I k ow we didn’t deserve it. I hate to admit a novel written last century is this good, but this is!

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.

Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.

Beautiful writing with vivid characters. However I can't motivate myself to pick it up and have a lot of other stories calling from my TBR pile. Putting it down for now, with the ambition to come back to it some day. But for now it's creating a bit of a readers block between me and other books I'm more excited about. 

Tove Söderberg

This book was so hard get to get through but so so worth it. I was in tears at the end 

ness

Really hard to get through this one. Excellent book but very hard to enjoy

Elias Bouschor

This is the kind of book you can’t write a review about when you just finished it but also want to. It’s striking how Denver’s loneliness is a major role in the book but that it’s also what somehow saves her is impressive. I hated how Sethe was perceived/treated by anyone (except the Garners, Baby Suggs and Denver) but I’m glad they ended up teaming up for her. There are so many things to say and develop, my literature teacher will be thrilled.

Romy

a novel

Maureen

“The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one.”

***

I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy of reviewing this book. Toni Morrison is just hands down, one of most powerful authors I’ve ever come across. It took me a year to finish reading this, as I just kept putting it off because the themes were too dark and heavy. But I’m glad I pressed on. 

There is a reason why many would call this the great American novel. Morrison brings to light the country’s troubled past, and situates it at the forefront of her novel, up for the reader to scrutinize. Slavery has, and will always be, a bedrock of American history—try as others might to repress it. Each and every character in Beloved struggles to overcome their trauma, but the highlight here is the relationship between Sethe and her daughter. Contrary to the norm that mothers are supposed to protect their children, Sethe murders her own child in cold blood simply because she believes that death is far better than enslavement. She did not wish for them to go through what she had faced growing up. And that says a lot about how messed up her psyche has become. Female slaves, as always, were doubly exploited as they were expected to render domestic and sexual labor to their masters. Their offspring, regardless of whether the father was white, would inherit the status of their mothers as default. For as Paul D realized later on, “[Sethe’s] price was greater than his; property that reproduced itself without cost.” 

Morrison does not take the theme of slavery lightly. She faces it head on, and expects us readers to do the same—for this is the only way we could do the book and the Black community justice. Overall, Beloved is not an easy read. It will disturb your mind. But it is definitely a book worth picking up—if only to gain consciousness about how the history of oppression produces serious ramifications in the present.

Painful, sad and beautiful.The story of those who are stuck in their painful past.

Shidehdeishidi

Sarah Sammis

It was okay but I wasn't in the right frame of mind for it when I read it. I read it because it was the only thing available.

Ne čitam puno horora, ali ovo je najbolji koji sam ikad.

Dora Tominic

Nothing I can say about this that hasn't been said before. Toni Morrison’s writing is living and breathing

Rebecca Lum

Discover Toni Morrison's most iconic work in this Pulitzer-prize winning novel that exemplifies her powerful and important place in contemporary American literature. 'An American masterpiece' AS Byatt It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love. Told with heart-stopping clarity, melding horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison's enduring masterpiece. 'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours..."Beloved," is a heartbreaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times 'The literary titan we must never stop learning from' Metro Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction

altlovesbooks

"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.

A touching, yet surreal, look at black Americans living under that shadow of enslavement and the nonlinear process in which they overcome those deeply traumatic atrocities. Morrison also plays a lot on what freedom means, and what it is to truly be free.

Rarely do I reread any novel I have completed, let alone novels I have finished as recently as ~2 years ago. Morrison proves to me that a reread can be just as impactful and moving as the first time. This book is timeless, timeless, timeless. Morrison does some amazing character work with her poetic prose. A creative and compelling look at the cycle of generational trauma, a second read through enhances the book greatly. This is now a 5/5 for me instead of a 4.5.

Derek Graf

A touching, yet surreal, look at black Americans living under that shadow of enslavement and the nonlinear process in which they overcome those deeply traumatic atrocities. Morrison also plays a lot on what freedom means, and what it is to truly be free.

Reread March 2024:

Rarely do I reread any novel I have completed, let alone novels I have finished as recently as ~2 years ago. Morrison proves to me that a reread can be just as impactful and moving as the first time. This book is timeless, timeless, timeless. Morrison does some amazing character work with her poetic prose. A creative and compelling look at the cycle of generational trauma, a second read through enhances the book greatly. This is now a 5/5 for me instead of a 4.5.



Beloved A Novel

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