Toni Morrison

A. S. Byatt

Beloved

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

chris

“Sethe,” he says, “me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. “You your best thing, Sethe, You are.” His holding fingers are holding hers. 

biddy

"Sethe," he says, "me and you, we got more yesterday than any-body. We need some kind of tomorrow."

He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. "You your best thing, Sethe. You are." His holding fingers are holding hers.

Trust and rememory, yes, the way she believed it could be when he cradled her before the cooking stove.

The weight and angle of him; the true-to-life beard hair on him; arched back, educated hands. His waiting eyes and awful human power. The mind of him that knew her own. Her story was bearable because it was his as well—to tell, to refine and tell again. The things neither knew about the other—the things neither had word-shapes for—well, it would come in time;

She let her head touch his chest, and since the moment was valuable to both of them, they stopped and stood that way—not breathing, not even caring if a passerby passed them by. The winter light was low. Sethe closed her eyes. Paul D looked at the black trees lining the roadside, their defending arms raised against attack. Softly, suddenly, it began to snow, like a present come down from the sky. Sethe opened her eyes to it and said, "Mercy." And it seemed to Paul D that it was—a little mercy—something given to them on purpose to mark what they were feeling so they would remember it later on when they needed to.

Down came the dry flakes, fat enough and heavy enough to ash like nickels on stone. It always surprised him, how quiet is was. Not like rain, but like a secret.

"You run," said Sethe. "I been on my feet all day."

"Where I been? Sitting down?" and he pulled her along.

The room is just as it was when they entered—except Beloved is not there. There is no point in looking further, for everything in the place can be seen at first sight. Denver looks anyway because the loss is ungovernable. She steps back into the shed, allowing the door to close quickly behind her. Darkness or not, she moves rapidly around, reaching, touching cobwebs, cheese, slanting shelves, the pallet interfering with each step. If she stumbles, she is not aware of it because she does not know where her body stops, which part of her is an arm, a foot or a knee. She feels like an ice cake torn away from the solid surface of the stream, floating on darkness, thick and crashing against the edges of things around it. Breakable, meltable and cold.

It is hard to breathe and even if there were light she wouldn't be able to see anything because she is crying. Just as she thought it might happen, it has. Easy as walking into a room. A magical appearance on a stump, the face wiped out by sunlight, and a magical disappearance in a shed, eaten alive by the dark.

"Don't," she is saying between tough swallows. "Don't. Don't go back."

This is worse than when Paul D came to 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is crying because she has no self. Death is a skipped meal compared to this. She can feel her thickness thinning, dissolving into nothing. She grabs the hair at her temples to get enough to uproot it and halt the melting for a while. Teeth clamped shut, Denver brakes her sobs. She doesn't move to open the door because there is no world out there. She decides to stay in the cold house and let the dark swallow her like the minnows of light above. She won't put up with another leaving, another trick.

Dora Tominic

They could have their talks easier there: at night when Sethe and Paul D were asleep; or in the daytime before either came home. Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstanding more thrilling than understanding could ever be.

Oh but when they sang. And oh but when they danced and sometimes they danced the antelope. The men as well as the ma'ams, one of whome was certainly her own. They shifted shape and became something other. Some unchained, demanding other whose feet knew her pulse better than she did. Just like this one in her stomach.

It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too.

clara

Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

“Your love is too thick”, he said. “Too thick?”, she said, “ Love is or it ain’t. Thin Love ain’t Love at all.”

"Why you think you have to take up for her? Apologize for her? She's grown"

“ I don't care what she is. Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing."

"I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think of it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened."

"A man ain't nothing but a man," said Baby Suggs. "But a son? Well now, that's somebody.»

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

cotarded

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

Bria

Chloé

If you haven't read beloved you should. Fucking recked me especially considering its based on a true story with a creepy magical realism twist. I've always wanted to read a Toni Morrison novel simply cause she's so revered and her writing is just beautiful. EVERYONE SHOULD READ BELOVED.

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.

brutal. powerful. can’t decide wether i should call it moving, it hurts. 

donna 

i don’t think i have words to do this book justice. it’s hard, it’s beautiful, it’s perfect. 

lily taggart

Dani

"Beloved" es una novela histórica que te deja sin palabras. Te va a gustar si te interesan los temas como el trauma, la memoria y la esclavitud. La trama es compleja y se presenta de una forma original que te engancha desde el principio. La autora escribe de una manera muy realista, lo que hace que la historia sea cruda e impactante.

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

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

Rebecca Lum

there’s not much more i can say about Beloved that hasn’t already been said. it’s amazing that books like this exist. This is not a story to pass on.

mara henderson

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.



charisa

”Sethe,” he says, “me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

i’m at a loss for words at that ending. what power and heartbreak morrison commands through this story. what physical and psychological devastation she unfurls through detailing the horrors of american slavery. i understand now why this book is often categorized as magical realism, but i honestly think the mainstream label does it injustice. fantasy here is inextricably linked to loss and abuse and the nightmarish effects of intergenerational trauma. i felt chills during some of the scenes, especially as morrison began to chip away at sethe’s backstory. 

not an easy book to read by any means; beyond just content, i’ve heard of comparisons between morrison and faulkner in terms of serpentine writing styles. and for sure, i had to re-read multiple sections because my sieve brain could not ABSORB. but the perseverance was well worth it — this is a momentous story on so many levels.

Emmm :p

Michael Springer

Horror fiction is as difficult to define as any literary genre, but it often follows the same structural pattern: things start off normal (at least in the context of the story), then slowly horrific or otherworldly elements begin to creep into the story. These elements continue growing, continue taking more and more control of the characters' lives, and become more of a driving force behind the characters' actions. Finally, the climax arrives, wherein we discover whether the characters will succumb to this horror or whether they will somehow triumph/escape from it. 
 
This is a theme that runs through just about every horror film ("Drag Me to Hell," "Hellraiser," and "From Hell" as three examples with one word in common), and also much of the best horror literature ("The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Yellow Wallpaper," "Frankenstein," "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?" most of Stephen King's canon, and, in an inverted manner, "Blood Meridian"). Plenty of exceptions don't follow this structure, but it's very common in what is accepted as horror literature. And, an actual outside force can be the horrific element, like in Stephen King's "It," or the horrific could be the descent into madness, like in "The Yellow Wallpaper." 

Now that I'm done waxing eloquent on horror fiction, I'm going to tell you about a lovely, frightening ghost story called "Beloved." 

Sethe lives with her daughter Denver, and with the ghost of a baby that died before she'd even given it a name. Sethe posthumously named the baby Beloved, from the one word carved into the baby's headstone. 
 
Paul, a man who was a slave on the same plantation as Sethe a decade ago, shows up one day and begins living with the two--well, three--of them. The ghost of Beloved interferes when Paul and Sethe are getting it on in the kitchen, and this causes Paul to go into a rage that chases the ghost of Beloved away. For a very brief period of time, it looks like everything will be okay.

Then, on the way home from a carnival, the three come across a pretty woman, immaculately dressed, who is sitting by the river. The woman doesn't seem to know where she is, and is starving. So, they take her back home with them. It doesn't take long for Denver to realize the woman is Beloved, the ghost of the baby having somehow found itself a new body. But for Sethe and Paul, this realization is much more gradual. 
 
As the story goes on, we learn more about the past: the plantation Sethe came from, the lives they lived before finding their way to freedom, and the death of Beloved. As the story goes on, we begin to realize that both the past and the present are more disturbing and venomous than they seemed at first. In order to keep this review relatively spoiler-free, I'm not going to say much more about the story.
 
I will say, though, that "Beloved" follows the horror format that I discussed earlier. The horror that underlies the whole story is a combination: first, the supernatural element of Beloved's ghost. But, more frightening than the ghost itself is the growing sense that Beloved is simply the past haunting the characters and driving them crazy, while also driving them away from each other. The third part of the combination is the horror that was catalyst to both these other horrors: slavery. Slavery is the underlying horror, the first domino, the reason for impending madness and for angry ghosts. 
 
"She cut my head off every night. Buglar and Howard told me she would and she did. Her pretty eyes looking at me like I was a stranger. Not mean or anything, but like I was somebody she found and felt sorry for. Like she didn't want to do it but she had to and it wasn't going to hurt. That it was just a thing grown-up people do--like pull a splinter out your hand; touch the corner of a towel in your eye if you get a cinder in it. She looks over at Buglar and Howard--see if they all right. Then she comes over to my side. I know she'll be good at it, careful. That when she cuts it off it'll be done right; it won't hurt. After she does it I lie there for a minute with just my head. Then she carries it downstairs to braid my hair. I try not to cry but it hurts so much to comb it. When she finishes the combing and starts the braiding, I get sleepy. I want to go to sleep but I know if I do I won't wake up."
 
Sometimes within paragraphs, the time shifts. We go back to Sweet Home, the plantation where Paul and Sethe met; we shift to Sethe's escape from slavery. These shifts help to create the sense that the past can't be separated from what is now occurring. The past is almost a prison, claustrophobically surrounding the present and giving the sense that Sethe is almost forced into her actions by the horrors of her personal past, and the horrors of slavery. 
 
I feel like, instead of reviewing the book as I usually do, I've been brainstorming for a report. That wasn't my intention, so I'll actually say some evaluative stuff now. This book is every bit as good as it's supposed to be. The writing is poetic and haunting, the characters all fully fleshed out, and plenty of the imagery is unforgettable. 

This is considered by some people with even more sway in the literary world than myself to be one of the great books of the 20th century. From the limited pool of books I've read, I'd have to agree with this assessment. This is one you should read. 

Which leads me to my final digression: why do so many of the covers for this book make it look like chick lit? On Goodreads, I picked a cover that works with the subject matter, but the actual copy I own makes me think of doilies and fancy china, not ghosts, anger and madness.

Special Edition

Colleen

4.5 Stars

*A heart-wrenching story of the ways we are haunted by the past*


The story started out deceptively simple: a former slave living in a house haunted by her dead baby girl. It seemed like a ghost story, like more of your standard haunted house. Oh, but this story reaches out and pulls you in and takes you somewhere unexpected.


  “There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.”

It’s easy to see why this book is award winning and why it has become a classic. Morrison’s writing is exquisite. I would equally recommend the audiobook read by the author. Either way, it is an engaging and heartrending story that delves into the horrors of slavery, the far-reaching consequences of evil, and the endurance both of trauma and the human spirit.


  “Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.” 

I really thought this would be a five star read. The start of this book is absolutely stunning! I was entranced from page one by the writing and the characters. Unfortunately, the story did lose momentum in the second half. The timeline started jumping around, and the narrative became fractured. Some of that fit stylistically with the disintegrating mental state of the main character, but the sudden jumps in time and writing tense got harder to follow. And the pacing noticeably lagged towards the end. Nevertheless, this is still a monumental and beautiful story.


  “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.” 

This book is important both as a wonderful piece of classic literature and as a window to a horrible time in history. I would recommend this to anyone even if it isn’t their usual genre.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 5 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 5 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 5 Stars

Joana da Silva

ONE OF FIVE NEW VINTAGE FUTURE CLASSICS READING GUIDE EDITIONS

At first I was very confused on time, place, character relations but when I got in I started to love it a lot. It is some of the most beautiful and clever writing I have ever read, and the story itself is intriguing, very sad, eye-opening and slow in the beginning but in the end I couldn’t put it down. I love this book a lot and I hope to read more of Morrison work as her writing is some of the best.

Sadie Hoffman

Jessica Ford

I wanted to like this book, but I had a really hard time with it. They style of writing was very disjointed. Lots of free-flowing thoughts. Maybe I just didn't get it. So few of the characters were likable. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure I would read another book by Morrison.

A heartbreaking book about families and ghosts and the scars both visible and invisible that slavey left on those who survived it. It was a tough read but beautifully crafted, a ghost story that leaves a sad little chill down the spine. 

Krys C

A heartbreaking book about families and ghosts and the scars both visible and invisible that slavey left on those who survived it. It was a tough read but beautifully crafted, a ghost story that leaves a sad little chill down the spine. 



renee badenoch

When Toni Morrison passed earlier this year, I realized I hadn't read any of her books. Beloved had been recommended to me by multiple friends, so that's the one I started with (I eventually hope to read them all). 

I liked a lot of aspects of the book, including its beautiful lyricism, its strong female relationships, and the shifting narrative perspectives between characters and places in time. I loved the motif of a ghost of the past haunting your present as a metaphor for trauma. Just as the characters in the book have to reckon with the trauma of slavery, so too do the present day readers. 

All in all, it was a perfect entry point for Morrison's work, and I look forward to exploring the rest of her oeuvre.

Vanya de Lang 

I read this book for my university english class. In my opinion, the book is exceptionally written. 
The author has a pleasant and enriched writing style. Even though I wasn't inlove with the story, as I am not a fan of this particular genre, I am extremely impressed by how it was written.

Beloved

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