Winner of the 1978 National Book Critic's Circle Award for fiction. "Beautiful and satisfying . . . an unusually wise and large-spirited book . . ....
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Jan 22, 2009
brian
rated it: 
i have a great idea for a wildly over-the-top romance novel. slap a likeness of blair underwood on the cover, airbrush some dreadlocks on his head, a tropical landscape in the back… ready? ready:
crazy dreadlocked black man is found hiding in the closet of a wealthy white couple’s carribean house. rather than take him to the police, Valerian Street (the white millionaire) invites him to dinner. now check it: Valerian and Margaret (a former beauty queen!) have two black servants More...
crazy dreadlocked black man is found hiding in the closet of a wealthy white couple’s carribean house. rather than take him to the police, Valerian Street (the white millionaire) invites him to dinner. now check it: Valerian and Margaret (a former beauty queen!) have two black servants More...
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Oct 25, 2010
Rachel
rated it: 
Everyone knows that Beloved is Toni Morrison's most famous work, but I would argue that Tar Baby is better. There are so many relationships in this book and so many layers to each of those relationships. Love, sex, race, gender, class, ethnicity, even geography...there isn't much Morrison doesn't take on in this beautiful story. And, of course, there are always those heart-stopping passages that Morrison's writing never fails to produce. Tar Baby is an absolute must-read, and if you have the pri
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Jul 27, 2007
Anne
rated it: 
Pretty much any possible interaction between blacks and whites, rich and poor, man and woman, is played out in this novel - there are no real resolutions and some of the relationships are wildly overplayed, but overall this is an incredible piece of literature that I could see spending an entire semester on in college. It is basically the story of the rich white Valerian who retires to the Caribbean where his much younger wife broods over the absence of her college-aged son who is racked by whit
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Jan 26, 2008
Jon
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Outstanding. Brilliantly plays with the intersections of gender, race, and class. Very insightful, imaginative, and intelligent.
I also really enjoyed the narrative structure. It will keep shifting focus between the different characters, but it uses dialogue as a bridge. So, for instance, a long passage delving into the history and psychology of Valerian, followed by a conversation between him and Sydney, followed by Sydney's history and perspective. The net effect is a collection of in More...
I also really enjoyed the narrative structure. It will keep shifting focus between the different characters, but it uses dialogue as a bridge. So, for instance, a long passage delving into the history and psychology of Valerian, followed by a conversation between him and Sydney, followed by Sydney's history and perspective. The net effect is a collection of in More...
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Jan 22, 2008
Cy
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Toni Morrison is a stunning writer and this book is an absolutely breathtaking example of her literary opulence. An amazing, complex piece of literature, it considers themes of race, gender, love and freedom in ways that don’t crash and burn in attempt to resolve them but mandate the reader to question herself as to many of her approaches and underlying assumptions about existence. Brutally romantic and painterly, I believe this work of art adds both blossoms and seeded fruit to the anticoloni
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Jan 18, 2012
Mmars
rated it:
I'm wondering how many 1 and 2 star ratings came from readers thinking this would be a good Caribbean vacation beach read. I also wonder how many of them were clueless to the meaning of the term "tar baby". Sigh... There should be no need to discuss that, it's rather obvious that, well, ALL the characters, black, white and mulatto, were tar babies. Inextricably stuck to who they are, no matter where they are, they cannot escape themselves, their pasts, their childhoods. In fact, WE ARE
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Oct 03, 2010
E
rated it:
This book almost seemed like a fable or allegory. There are the rich white couple,Valerian and Margaret, who take their black servants for granted and except for the old retainers, Sydney and Ondine,don't even bother to learn their names,calling one "Yardman" and one "Mary" even though that isn't her name.
Sydney and Ondine are the faithful black servants who have
been in service all their lives and know their place.
Their More...
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Apr 13, 2011
Dimas
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I haven't read all of Toni Morrison's novels (Sula, Paradise, Love) but I have read most of them. Out of her novels that I've read, Tar Baby is easily the most digestible. Not to say that it doesn't have depth, it's just a little easier to read and more mainstream. If someone came up to me and said they wanted to start reading Morrison, and I knew they weren't strong, attentive readers, I would definitely recommend this book.
It's her most modern book. The story takes place during the More...
It's her most modern book. The story takes place during the More...
Jul 21, 2011
Susie
rated it:
Not sure what I think of this book. I heard it in my car on CDs, read by the awesome Alfre Woodard. I thought she gave it a lot, but it was, to me, an odd story. I found the characters interesting, but I couldn't understand the appeal of Son (Sun?) to Jaydine. I'm trying to understand why she found him attractive - because he was dangerous? Everything a beautiful, educated black woman should walk away from? Because he brought out in her her inner "black girl" that was the complete
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Feb 01, 2012
Roger
rated it:
Following the mighty success of Song of Solomon in the late 1970s, Morrison spent five years working on her fourth novel, Tar Baby. With lukewarm receptions upon its publication in 1982, Tar Baby looks at clashes between and within races. Morrison also demonstrates her brilliant range as a novelist as she expands her vision of the black community beyond the rural, small-town settings of her previous three novels. She moves her setting to a remote island in the Caribbean and alternates the isolat
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May 12, 2008
Provocative, complex, intimate. Personal favorite of all the Morrison novel's I've read so far. Tar Baby allows access to thoughts/emotions that take me days to digest but seem effortless for Morrison to recount, specifically regarding Jadine's choices or lack thereof. Rich detail, constantly re-reading and re-learning.
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May 03, 2008
Athena
rated it: 
Whew. This book was a roller coaster. It started off very slowly, but picked up quite strongly in the middle. At this point, the writing became exquisite! It was, however, like trudging through mud....chocolate flavored mud. It was hard, but delicious.
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Apr 14, 2009
Doria
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Dec 01, 2011
Marie/Mimi
rated it:
Toni Morrison really has a beautiful way with words. I believe this is the first novel she had published (I think, I think) and it is marvelous. She describes colors in metaphors much like Zora Hurston does and her characters are never flat or simple. I didn't give this book 5 stars because of two things - there are characters I absolutely despise (Jadine and Margaret) and you don't know what happens at the end (whether or not Son ever finds Jadine again!). Oh well! It is a beautifully writ
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Jun 11, 2010
Marion
rated it:
A complex tale dramatically presented addressing race, class, and gender issues as they relate to a white landowner and his family who reside in the Dominican Rebublic, the family's black servants, and a black young woman who was orphaned at age 12, who was subsequently sheltered and educated by the white family who then has to make choices of association and direction in her adult life that are influenced substantially by white values.
Morrison's storyline can be challeging to follo More...
Morrison's storyline can be challeging to follo More...
Jan 11, 2011
Valerie
rated it:
To write this off as a romance novel does not do justice to Morrison's intricate study of the complex and delicate relationships between and among people. In this tale, Morrison deftly and inextricably weaves emotion into landscape - the point of view flows seamlessly from person to place to animal to create the space in which all three interact, dream, yearn, and ultimately fail to understand one another. Ghosts lurk in the corners of rooms and minds and islands; history weighs heavily on con
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Jan 27, 2009
Crystal
rated it:
the best novel ever written in my opinion! the significance of black female sexuality and the relevance of love in everything that we do and every decision we make.
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Jul 14, 2011
Mia
rated it:
After reading Morrison's Tar Baby I felt slighted. Although I know that a perfect resolution is not required, I felt as though she left the primary characters' conflicts unresolved. Jadine and Son especially. Maybe I am a hopeless romantic and wished for them to make it, for their love to sustain them where ever they traveled, whether from Isle des Chevaliers, New York, Eloe to Paris. The situation on Isle des Chevaliers, at Valerian's house seemed a bit more tidied up. Morrison conveyed a
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Jan 28, 2011
Deb
rated it:
What a relief after reading some YA fiction to pick this one up. Toni Morrisson, she can write, and she writes for adults.
Beautiful descriptive, allegorical passages. The section about our lovers in New York is stunning. She captures the intensity and the all consuming nature of new love perfectly. I could reread that section many times.
And it was erotic. The shower scene, wow, it gave me goosebumps.
The book works with the complex relationships between bla More...
Beautiful descriptive, allegorical passages. The section about our lovers in New York is stunning. She captures the intensity and the all consuming nature of new love perfectly. I could reread that section many times.
And it was erotic. The shower scene, wow, it gave me goosebumps.
The book works with the complex relationships between bla More...
Mar 28, 2008
Laura
rated it: 
OK, I really tried to get into this, but finally gave up. I love the intro!
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Oct 03, 2009
felt very much like the same themes as in Beloved, which I loved, but without the overwhelming grief of that book and set in a much different time - 1600's in this new world called america, where everyone is coming from somewhere else - barbados, england, another plantation - and their figuring out their religion and their commerce and how they are going to live.... she paints the complexity of women and their relationships to each other and men better than almost anyone I know, and the book lin
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Sep 02, 2009
Alwa
rated it:
Bizarrely terrible and tone-deaf, from the woman who got it so painfully right in The Bluest Eye. "Tar Baby is the story of the love affair between a beautiful black model, molded by white culture, and a black man who represents everything she both fears and desires"? No, really, give me a fucking break. It's funny that someone mentioned how truthful and real the characters seemed, especially the reaction of one character to finding Son in the closet, as that particular exchange was wh
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Apr 24, 2011
Tanuj
rated it:
Should a writer of Toni's calibre restrict herself with a not-so-grand ambition?
Toni is a master at managing conversations and a writer who reveals her characters more through these, and occasional interior monologues, than actions. In 'Tar Baby', her characters talk out everything, either with themselves or with others; each conflict inside their hearts is mightily verbalized. And all that is fine. So very fine. Because the conflicts are of import: conflicts around the true cultu More...
Toni is a master at managing conversations and a writer who reveals her characters more through these, and occasional interior monologues, than actions. In 'Tar Baby', her characters talk out everything, either with themselves or with others; each conflict inside their hearts is mightily verbalized. And all that is fine. So very fine. Because the conflicts are of import: conflicts around the true cultu More...
Sep 19, 2008
Kristen
rated it:
This was the second fiction book I read in Peace Corps and I'd like to re-read it. I don't remember loving it, but when I read the quotes I pulled out of it, it sounds like it might be a book I'd enjoy now:
p. 9
"The men had already folded the earth where there had been no fold and hollowed her where there had been no hollow, which explains what happened to the river. It crested, then lost its course, and finally its head. Evicted from the place where it had lived and for More...
p. 9
"The men had already folded the earth where there had been no fold and hollowed her where there had been no hollow, which explains what happened to the river. It crested, then lost its course, and finally its head. Evicted from the place where it had lived and for More...
Jan 17, 2010
Maggie
rated it:
"Her voice seemed warm on the inside, cold at the edges. Or was it the other way around?"
"It's because I do love it that I'm complaining. I'd like to know if it's permanent. Living like this you can't figure nothing."
"The moment he saw her something inside him knelt down."
"I guess the person I want to marry is him, but I wonder if the person he wants to marry is me or a black girl? And if it isn't me he wants, but any blac More...
"It's because I do love it that I'm complaining. I'd like to know if it's permanent. Living like this you can't figure nothing."
"The moment he saw her something inside him knelt down."
"I guess the person I want to marry is him, but I wonder if the person he wants to marry is me or a black girl? And if it isn't me he wants, but any blac More...
Jun 24, 2008
Corina
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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May 16, 2010
Valarie
rated it:
I was ready to give this book five stars, but I've got to admit that I hate unfinished endings. Otherwise, though, this was a great story that intertwined magical elements into realistic relationships expertly. The complications of any romantic relationship are shown here and magnified. Toni Morrison is a great author and I"m sorry that it took me so long to find that out - but Beloved really put me off to her for many years.
Aug 15, 2011
Gwenyth
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Oct 01, 2008
Drick
rated it:
Whenever I have [tried to:]read a Toni Morrison novel, I have feeling that there is a whole lot more here than I am getting. Her language and imagery is so rich and imbued with the African American experience that I am sure I miss as much as I learn. This story primarily takes place on the Carribean island of Dominque and centers of the characters involed in a home away from home of an elderly white couple, their two black servants, the servants niece who has become a European model and a strang
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Jan 13, 2010
I was reading Tar Baby over lunch and the waitress asked what it was about. I couldn't easily answer her because it would have been something along the lines of "becoming", which isn't really a socially acceptable answer. As with all of Toni Morrison's books the story itself is simply supporting material. The language is always colorful in words, style and cadence.
