"It's not possible, she thought, for anything to be this black."
Tar Baby often gets left out of most assessments of Toni Morrison's illustrious career"It's not possible, she thought, for anything to be this black."
Tar Baby often gets left out of most assessments of Toni Morrison's illustrious career, sandwiched as it is between the heavyweight champions Song of Solomon and Beloved, and while it's true that it doesn't feel quite as...hefty? portentous? exalted? as those twin masterworks, that shouldn't deter you from what is another richly dense and allegorical story*. This is a book you will wrestle with long after you finish it.
All of Morrison's novels are defiantly Black stories about Black people, of course, but I feel like Tar Baby celebrates and interrogates Blackness in way unique to her other books (of the 5 I've read to this point, anyway). In a novel full of vivid characters, Jadine emerges as the fulcrum: what obligations does this beautiful, world-traveled young Black woman with mink-colored eyes have to the people who raised her, and can she break free of their suffocating traditions and expectations? But without those traditions and expectations, what else does she have? On a primal level, what did she give up, as an in-demand fashion model who graduated from the Sorbonne, to accept the largesse of her white benefactor? Where does Jadine Childs belong?
*In those same assessments of Morrison's writing, her gift for dialogue isn't usually included, but a good chunk of this novel is powered by dialogue, and her ear for these characters' voices is spot-on....more
I was all ready to give this book 4 stars until I did something I haven't done in ages: I flipped back to the beginning and ended up reading the wholeI was all ready to give this book 4 stars until I did something I haven't done in ages: I flipped back to the beginning and ended up reading the whole thing again. Something about this story kept me in its sway, the harshness of the fable, the circularity of the narrative, the richness of the community, an author in total command. It begins with a brilliant overture, introducing us to the small town of Medallion, Ohio (the Bottom), then follows with a series of set pieces that are vivid in imagery and difficult to shake.
In Sula Peace, Morrison centered her novel on an elusive woman who's so loathsome she's virtually mythological but is so admirably true to herself she earns your sympathy. She also created a cast of supporting characters -- from Sula's best friend Nel to the wounded soldier Shadrack -- who are indelibly captured, often in just a line or two. No matter how horrific -- and there are certainly three or four sudden lurches into violence -- or how symbolic her story gets, Morrison manages to keep it teeming with life and even some subtle humor.
This novel is certainly great, but I'm only giving it a high 4 stars because I've read Beloved and I know how much greater Toni Morrison's writing becThis novel is certainly great, but I'm only giving it a high 4 stars because I've read Beloved and I know how much greater Toni Morrison's writing becomes. That it's a first novel is almost unfair....more
I've noticed that I haven't written many reviews for books I've awarded 5 stars, though I've written plenty for lesser, more forgettable books. What'sI've noticed that I haven't written many reviews for books I've awarded 5 stars, though I've written plenty for lesser, more forgettable books. What's that about? Why aren't I praising these best-of-the-best books, which represent less than 7 percent of all the books I've rated on this site, to the heavens, but I'm perfectly content to expend 1,000 words on the generic 3-star books?
Why, for example, is Song of Solomon a great novel? Is it enough to call it a symphonic masterpiece of beauty and depth and mystery and mythology, and trust that anyone who's read it knows what I'm talking about? Besides being an enticement for others to read it, the 5-star rating here is also a handshake agreement between like-minded readers. Yep, it's saying, now you know how we all feel about it, too. Resorting to cliched critic-speak could only diminish it somehow.
Permit me this, then: Song of Solomon is everything I want in a novel. Its characters are unforgettable, its dialogue rollicking and diamond-sharp, and its journey is extraordinary. As in her previous novel, Sula, I remain in awe of Morrison's ability to conjure a whole universe of ordinary people and imbue them with all the grandeur of epic drama....more
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