Review: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.  Heartbreaking and spellbinding.  Unforgettable.  I don't know what else I have to say besides that.  I understand why Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature and why this book won the Pulitzer.  I cannot believe I had not read it until now.  If you haven't read it, please go out, get a copy by hook or by crook, and read it NOW.

This story of the shame of slavery and one mother's decision to make the ultimate sacrifice for her children is absolutely a must-read.  What Sethe does to try to save her children the humiliation and pain she has experienced at the hands of whitepeople, and the consequences thereof, will stun you.  The book hit me in the gut and then stabbed me in the heart.  It's been a long time since I read a full-length novel centered around the Civil War and/or Reconstruction era, and maybe never since I read one from the perspective of a former slave.  It crushed me with guilt, but Morrison's beautiful words were also a salve for that pain.  I'm simply unable to adequately put into words what this book is and how it made me feel.

An unequivocal five out of five Whatevers.  I got my copy from BookMooch, but it is staying on my permanent shelves.  I want to read it again in a few years, and a few more after that.  This book is another in my overarching quest to read the Pulitzers.  I'm up to a paltry total of six, now.  This one is just bewitching, much like Beloved herself.  Read it.  As soon as you can.

2013-9