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For the past few years, I have been rereading Toni Morrison’s novels. She wrote 12 novels and Love was the eighth one. Each reread has brought a deeper understanding of her meanings and of the complexity of life and love. I first read Love in 2004, the year after it was published. I have lived through a lot of permutations of love in the last twenty years. As we all know, rereading unveils different aspects of books and life because we are both the same and changed as the decades go by.

My reading log from 2004 tells me I loved Love. I got that two women who were close friends as children were forced apart by certain adults which caused their love for each other to become hate.

In a fashion which has become normal today but was less so two decades ago, the story jumps about between the present and the past as it gradually reveals the events that drove these females apart and then brought them back together. I said in my remarks that it was probably her way of telling the story that brought Ms Morrison so many lousy reviews.

As I age, I find that my understanding of my life and my past changes regularly as I write about it and as I read/learn more and more about life and the world. Some days I don’t know if I am getting more clarity or more confusion. Life is messy. Kids have virtually no knowledge about why the adults around them do what they do and very much less control over events.

The novel makes that clear and shows the tragedy of it all. It is a theme in Morrison’s writing. She combines the racism, the dubious effects of integration on Black lives, economic changes, political disputes, to present a scene that is rich in complexity.

Bill Cosey was a successful and wealthy owner of a famous hotel and resort for the colored people of the East Coast, with the best food, the best music, the best accommodations. He was also crazy for women of all types and slightly crooked with money. When he dies, the two women of this story are left to fight over a large inheritance.

Having written this much, I am suddenly struck by how much these conflicts sound like white people conflicts. Is that partly what Toni Morrison is getting at? It could be. Human beings, no matter the color of their skin or their places in society, are all caught in the complications of life. If we could truly understand this, we might have a different world.

In any case, we love at our own risk. Every time!