In stark contrast from books that are neatly wrapped into a beginning with challenge, middle with more challenge, and ending neatly wrapped together where the reader feels conclusion, aka chick flick books like Eat, Pray, Love (Ugh, you know that didn't sit well for me, and now a movie! The only redeeming factor is that the author is an NYU alum.). Today's book, Toni Morrison's first novel The Bluest Eye, was vivid, courageous, and a sign of the time. I really enjoy Morrison's depiction of the race issues of the day. Couple that with a story of incest, violence, and hate and you have a heavy-hitting text. Morrison is a wonderful storyteller weaving in time from end to beginning and back again. She paints pictures that are clearer than the bluest sky and she is able to present characters who live in our world, better than most. Two examples of these, the first on explaining the feeling of not getting the real meaning of the gifts she would want for Christmas:
"But I did know that nobody ever asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Had any adult with the power to fulfill my desires taken me seriously and asked me what I wanted, they would have known that I did not want to have anything to own, or possess any object. I wanted rather to feel something on Christmas day. The real question would have been, Dear Claudia, what experience would you like for Christmas?"And the other how she describes how a black girl would want blue eyes, the type of doll white girls get for Christmas. Morrison captures the struggles of some in the Black community today and for all ages. She gave me a glimpse of the feeling, though I will never truly know it. A strong read for anyone wanting to step in the shoes of someone needing love and much more.
Themes are deep and the book has some violent moments, similar to yesterday's read. What's next? Vacations are fun reading times! Listening to one and reading another.
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