Reviews
I canât write a review for thisâI simply canât. Toni Morrison is far too superior for any word to be uttered from my unworthy mouth, even in praise. I fear my own inadequacy might somehow diminish her, and that thought alone is unbearable. Note: I just watched La Haine (1996) and finished The Bluest Eye simultaneously... This is the worst day of my life.
This was so sad. Cant believe this was Mrs Morrisons debut book. Amazing.
"You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question." Wow. Just wow. I read this with the hope that it could serve as the novel for my thesis. I can't say for sure yet if I'll go with thisâbut even if it doesn't end up being the one, I definitely have no regrets reading this book. My first Morrison! What happens when notions of beauty intersect with race, gender, and relationships? You get a masterpiece called The Bluest Eye. The novel confronts heavy issues and my heart honestly broke for the characters multiple times throughout. While Pecola experiences the worst downfall, I couldn't help but feel devastated for Mrs. Breedlove too. I think it was clever of Morrison to introduce this character without initially mentioning her first name. She is depicted to be cold and authoritative to her children; they don't even call her motherâonly 'Mrs. Breedlove.' I flipped through the novel thinking she was a heartless old soul; but some hundred pages later, Morrison stunned me by providing Pauline's heartbreaking backstory. Afterward, I could never look at her the same way. So thank you, Toni Morrison, for reminding us once again of how humans belong to multiple social categories throughout their lives. While it is a given that women are more disadvantaged than men in society, it wouldn't be fair to equate the experiences of white women with black women, as The Bluest Eye makes it painfully clear just how different the latter's situation truly is.
this was her debut? reading this helped me understand the novelâs capacity for greatness (for containing true genius)
several parts of this book were difficult for me to get through because of the alternating present-day events alongside flashbacks of other characters in the past, but overall very well-written. i don't necessarily think anything about it should be changed because it completely makes sense to reflect on a character's past in order to explain their present-day character, but occasionally a slow-paced flashback would be slightly taxing to get through because of morrison's intricate language usage. i also wish there was were more chapters consisting of pecola's point of view. overall extremely sad but a good portrayal of racial and societal issues in the 1940s.
Poor Pecola
to think that this was her debut novel
Fantastic re read
"We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils." Heartbreaking, magical.
In many ways beautiful descriptive writing and searing indictment of structural racism; also found it hard to be compelled.
the Yale lecture on the book was a lot more illuminating in terms of what the book was trying to do (bring empathy for different characters, how that is different at the time).
I cannot believe I was able to finish this novel with so many trigger warnings involved. Please read at your own risk.
The way Toni writes abt the world from a kids perspective is insane her style is encompassing
My best friend, who is an undergrad in English Literature, was surprised when I admitted that I havenât read Toni Morrison. She said, âI couldnât sleep for two nights after I read The Bluest Eye. Maybe, you should start with that.â I ordered the book that very moment. No surprises there. :) When the book was delivered, I told my friend that I was beginning to read The Bluest Eye; she sent me the best tease ever. âEnjoy the pain!â I didnât know what she meant then. I presumed that the book might be sad, and depressing, and that I would drown in my own tears. Mind you, not all touching books make me cry. Some unassuming books like Michael Morpurgoâs The Butterfly Lion, and Gabrielle Zevinâs The Storied Life of AJ Fikry made me sob like a baby. :) Because they warmed my heart. So, I braced myself to enter a dark world constructed by Toni Morrison. I finished reading it last night, and I didnât cry. But, I shuddered. I shuddered like I held hands with Frieda, and Claudia, and saw Pecolaâs life shatter into smithereens. I shuddered as though I was guilty for not having done anything to help Pecola. I shuddered because the pain was raw. It was so raw and deep that my eyes went dry; I had no tear to shed. The Bluest Eye has scarred me for life. But, thatâs not a complaint. One canât complain because extraordinary books are bound to do that to emotional readers. I found The Bluest Eye unsettling from the very beginning, from the time I learnt that âthere were no marigolds in the fall of 1941⌠because Pecola was having her fatherâs baby that the marigolds did not grow.' I felt a lump grow in my throat. It kept growing and growing when Morrison revealed that Pecola was a diffident 11-year-old black girl, who was bullied at school, found no love at home, and raped by her own father. And ironically, her last name was Breedlove. Pecolaâs life could be a curse by itself. But, what made Pecola unhappy was that her eyes were not blue. She wanted the bluest eyes in the world. Did she pray for blue eyes because she thought the world would embrace her, and not ridicule her for being âblack and uglyâ? Morrison wrote in her foreword and afterword, âWho planted that thought in her head? Who made her believe that blue eyes are beautiful?â Morrison asked those questions on our behalf. Morrison asked those questions for people, who are made to feel small about their appearances, which are not in their control. âAlong with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another â physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.â When poor Pecola went to a phony healer and dream interpreter, asking him to change her eyesâ colour, her helpless act was reminiscent of Philip Careyâs (the protagonist of Of Human Bondage) desperate prayers. He would sleep naked on the coldest night, hoping God would make him ânormalâ, and make his club-foot disappear. The next morning, he would wake up to see his feet not touched by God, and from then on he would withdraw his love for God, becoming an atheist. All for appearance, which is the most transient element of human life. The most striking aspect in The Bluest Eye was Morrisonâs choice to not antagonise three sex-workers, who were Pecolaâs neighbours. Morrison didnât offer sympathy either. They were what they were. And, after Frieda and Claudia (Pecolaâs friends, who were as old as herself), they were the ones who didnât see Pecola through the prejudiced tinted glasses, which everybody else wore. I loved them, and their curious names â China, Poland, and Miss Marie. âLove is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the loverâs inward eye.â Unlike Philip Carey, who made peace with his clubfoot, the young, gullible Pecola lost her sanity in the war against whatâs carelessly called a society. And, thatâs what would happen to a girl, who was raped twice by her father, and excluded by her community. Sanity, the most fragile thing of all, is the first to cave in. Maybe, just maybe, Pecola was happy there, in the world thatâs created by her madness, in the company of her imaginary friend, who sang praises about her blue eyes. At least, she was free from prejudices there. The Bluest Eye was Morrisonâs raw, profound, excruciating commentary on racism, feminism, human rights, love, sex, mental health, and many more significant themes which are still alarmingly relevant. I find it alarmingly relevant because most of us â women particularly â receive unsolicited advice about the aesthetic importance of shaving armpits, waxing the part between the nose and the upper lip, wearing matching lingerie, trying fad diets to attain size zero, only to look more feminine. One cannot go about changing the nincompoops, who offer such futile advice, but one can seek solace in a book like The Bluest Eye that transcends the definition of beauty. You â regardless of wherever you are, however you look, whatever people say about you â are beautiful!
Iâd say this book does justice to its principle message... demonstrating the devastating and disgusting reality that young black girls experience when it comes to beauty (especially given the time period). The message is still important today as white, blue-eyed, pristine beauty is constantly forced upon society as the ideal. The only part of the book that seemed excessive or unnecessary was the delving into of the character Soaphead Church... a disturbed pervert who for me didnât add much to the plot or message. Not a comfortable read, but thatâs precisely the point, as Morrison explains she wants the readers to judge themselves and see how they contribute to the very problem the book unveils.
my first toni morrison book ever and it changed the trajectory of my life
so many images in this will sit with me for the rest of my life
The alienation that comes with beauty standards and the drive for love shouldnât ever be underestimated. Tough but vulnerable read that provides a very clear window to every characters worldview. And great writing ofc. i usually donât read notes but the context provided at the end is brilliant and so worth it.
For now this is 5 stars. I had an idea of what it might be like to read a Toni Morrison book, and I am pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the ride and didn't feel too pretentious along the way despite the very heavy-handed moral infusion in her books. I think I shall be reading this book in a physical format someday, but my first pass of it as an audiobook was fantastic. Toni Morrison's narration is perfect for all characters, specifically Piccola. The helplessness and indifference that Toni Morrison affects in her voice is absolutely perfect (although audio was hard because the writing of this book is so elegant and beautiful that I frequently had to rewind passages to relisten and take it in). I loved Morrison's writing style more than anything else. I thought her narrative building was wonderful, and I found her characters to be excellently crafted. In her author's note, she says "I didn't want to dehumanize the characters who trashed Picola and contributed to her collapse. One problem was that centering the weight of the novel on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smash her. This leaves readers ending up pitying her instead of interrogating themselves for the smashing. My solution was to break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader. The exclusion does not satisfy me now. Many readers remain touched, but not movedâŚâ" These are some parts of the book/concepts explored/sections of writing that I enjoyed -"Slowly, like Indian summer moving imperceptibly towards fall, somewhere between retina and object, between vision and view, his eyes draw back and hover at some point in time and space, he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. How can a 52-year-old immigrant store owner with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth see a little black girl" -"And all of our beauty, which was hers first, and which she gave to us all of us, all who knew her felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves of her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness, her simplicity deprecated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with Health. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous." -Author's note "When I started writing The Bluest Eye, I was interested in something else, not resistance to the contempt of others or ways to deflect it, but to find the tragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, self-evident."
traumatizing but beautiful ?
I don't know what to say about this book. It made me think, it made me uncomfortable but most of all, the story and lyrical left me in awe. Pecola's story will not be for everyone nor will it be understood, but it needs to be told. It's a cautionary tale that comments on the impact of racism, toxic masculinity, grief, pain and the Black experience of that time.
Easily one of my favorite books this year!! Toni Morrison is just an incredibly talented author, and I think this book was written masterfully. So beautiful in its assessment of the depths of human cruelty and the consequences of our relationships. 10/10
This book is very close to perfect.
Jenna Bush on The Today show just recommend this book for the month of December! YAY! I read it a few years ago ! It is so good ! Everyone should read this book .
took a while to get invested into the story, but it gets better as it goes. Listened to the audiobook but I think I'd have preferred a hardcopy
Highlights
âWhen Sammy and Pecola were still young Pauline had to go back to work. She was older now, with no time for dreams and movies. It was time to put all of the pieces together, make coherence where before there had been none. The children gave her this need; she herself was no longer a child. So she became, and her process of becoming was like most of ours: she developed a hatred for things that mystified or obstructed her; acquired virtues that were easy to maintain; assigned herself a role in the scheme of things; and harked back to simpler times for gratification.â
We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils.
You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction [âŚ] They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance.
If Cholly had stopped drinking, she would never have forgiven Jesus. She needed Cholly's sins desperately. The lower he sank, the wilder and more irresponsible he became, the more splendid she and her task became.
Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.
Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover's inward eye.
And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us -all who knew her-felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness.
Then Pecola asked a question that had never entered my mind. "How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you?" But Frieda was asleep. And I didn't know.
There is really nothing more to say - except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
âplucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world â which is what she was herself. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us.
This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn't matter. Its too late.
Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked peo- ple love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover's inward eye.
Our astonishment was short-lived, for it gave way to a curious kind of defensive shame; we were embarrassed for Pecola, hurt for her, and finally we just felt sorry for her. (..) And I believe our sorrow was the more intense because nobody else seemed to share it. They were disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by the story. But we listened for the one who would say, "Poor little girl," or, âPoor baby," but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been. We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils. I thought about the baby that everybody wanted dead, and saw it very clearly. (..) More strongly than my fondness for Pecola, I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls(..)
Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovey surging.
Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people.
Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left. Try as she might, she could never get her eyes to disappear. So what was the point? They were everything. Everything was there, in them. All of those pictures, all of those faces.
Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.
If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.
We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair. What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth. Cholly Breedlove is dead; Our innocence too. The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too. There is really nothing more to say except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
Cholly, by his habitual drunkennes and orneriness, provided them both with the material they needed to make their lives tolerable. Mrs. Breedlove considered herself an upright and Christian woman, burdened with a no-count man, whom God wanted her to punish. (Cholly was beyond redemption, of course, and redemption was hardly the point--Mrs. Breedlove was not interested in Christ the Redeemer, but rather Christ the Judge.)
When I learned how repulsive this disinterested violence was, that it was repulsive because it was disinterested, my shame floundered about for refuge. The best hiding place was love. Thus the conversion from pristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love. It was a small step to Shirley Temple. I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement.
Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes.
