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Jan 17, 2009

brian rated it:

#4. paradise. ah… paradise. a profound frustration. here we have the best and worst of toni morrison. check the story: nine families trek across the west to create an all-black town in oklahoma divorced from mainstream american society. cut off from:

“Television.”
The congregation rippled with laughter.
“Disco.”
They laughed, merrily louder, shaking their heads.
“Policemen.”
They roared with laughter.
“Picture shows, filthy music.” He continued with fi More...

26 comments like (15 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2007

Cheryl rated it:

I picked this book up at a Friends of the Library sale and didn't give it much thought... It was a mild read, somewhat sad, somewhat rich.
I actually finished the book a week ago and the last chapter has got me still milling over whether I think it's a masterpiece or a flop. Any book that still has me thinking a week later should probably get more than 3 stars.. I might just re-read that last chapter and see if I get it this time.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2007

Shayla rated it:

It's funny, I've tried to get many of my friends to read this book and they all start and then stop, while I've read it twice (I rarely read books more than once, even if I really like them).

I just loved the complexity of this non-linear book. Each chapter is devoted to the main women in the novel, including the town itself, Ruby. Ruby is an all-black town in OK, founded by freed slaves. This is a town that prides itself on its history and on its racial purity among other things. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Bridgette rated it:

Toni Morrison is able to weave a tale so intricate that it may take several readings before one can figure out what happened.

One of the wonderful things about this summer has been that I've finally gotten around to reading new authors--authors who have been on my "to-read" list for a long time but never quite made it off the list. This summer has been a time to discover such authors as Maya Angelou, Dorothy Sayers, and, now, Toni Morrison.

The Author

Paradis More...

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Jun 10, 2011

Anna rated it:

Paradise is a masterpiece by Toni Morrison, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. I first became acquainted with Morrison, a literary giant, when I read her first novel, The Bluest Eye many years ago. Her novels are difficult to read because of her lyrical prose, her symbolism, use of figurative language and involved plotting. Paradise is no different. When I first began to read the novel, I found it difficult to follow the story line. It begins with a violent act in the presen More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2009

Peppers rated it:

Paradise is the final book of Morrison’s trilogy examining blackness in America, though her trilogy could just as easily be about love. Beloved we see a mother’s love, in Jazz we understand another all-consuming romantic love, and in Paradise we examine the love of God and use of religion. A town called Haven, later named, Ruby, run by men, who decide to kill women who have been victims of their own lives, ruining one paradise with intention of saving another. There is inherent irony in Toni Mor More...

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Jun 23, 2009

Lavonne rated it:

I didn't write my review of this right away, as I was still trying to decide exactly how I felt about this book. It was very difficult to read and about half way through, I went online to read other readers' takes on it.

Either people loved it or they hated it. If they loved it, they had read it two or three times and read/watched numerous interviews with the author as she explained her themes, just so they could understand it. I am willing to explore deeper meanings in a book, but i More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Tim rated it:

Why is it that so often in life the very thing you’re trying to avoid becomes you? Why do the oppressed become the oppressor? Why do the abused become the abuser? Why do those who demand openness and equality become insular and elitist? Why does the love that we strive so hard to obtain turn into a protective curse when we attempt to contain it vs. allowing its empathy and compassion to extend to all? These open-ended questions are only the tip of the iceberg in Toni Morrison’s "Paradise" More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 19, 2011

Kenny rated it:

Paradise is a novel by Toni Morrison which talks about the men from Ruby, Oklahoma, women who are Connie, Mavis, Gigi, Seneca, and Divine, who are part of the Convent, and also townswomen, who are Pat, Lone, and Save-Marie. The men from Ruby, Oklahoma, and the women from the Convent are quite similar. In the beginning of this book, it starts out highlighting the town of Ruby, Oklahoma, and then it goes on with women who are from the Convent, who are given their own chapter. Each chapter has More...

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Jun 04, 2010

sheena rated it:

There is a special hell for black people who only give Toni Morrison three stars. Please don't send me there.

Paradise is the story of black God-fearing utopia (nah, not an oxymoron!). Ruby, the town where the story is set, prides itself on its "absence of the unsaved, the unworthy and the strange." The townspeople are preoccupied with pleasing the Lord and fighting the "threat of white immigrants". Something has to happen, so not far off lurk ex-pat heathens who More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Roger rated it:

Paradise was Toni Morrison’s first novel after winning the Nobel Prize. Her success and acclaim as a writer make every novel she publishes a battle against proving she can surpass what she has already accomplished. With Paradise, there seemed to be a consensus among critics and reviewers that the work was, of course, brilliant but it didn’t match the power of the works that made her famous. But Paradise is as original and breathtaking as Morrison’s other major novels. Returning to the rural life More...

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Apr 12, 2009

Lisalit rated it:

"They shoot the white girl first."

I have yet to be disappointed in Toni Morrison. This novel centers around a town founded by freed slaves who were rejected in other towns, immersed in its own history and fully self-sufficient. But there is an underlying current of unease. The town has split into two factions of founder's descendants, and debates are raging. The children are different, moved by the civil rights movement and other signs of the times. Outside of town is More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2011

April rated it:

I am a huge Toni Morrison fan, and I have always heard that Paradise was her "worst" novel. It seemed to leave a lot of people feeling unsatisfied, and though I don't like to go into a book with preconceived notions, it is hard to avoid. Therefore, I didn't have high hopes for Paradise.

I actually enjoyed it, and I think that I would have enjoyed it immensely more had I read it in print and not listened to the audiobook. Don't get me wrong - Toni Morrison's reading of her More...

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Aug 19, 2009

Ruth rated it:

This is the first Toni Morrison book I've read, and so the review is with the caveat that I can't, like so many others, compare it the all the "much better books" that she has written!

I found this a very thought provoking story about our tendency, as humans, to build structures that are unsustainable, about the futility but also the danger of tight control over communities (particularly religious and ethnic communities), and about the multiple shades of grey of every charac More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 19, 2011

Jason rated it:

If there were half stars available I would definitely top this novel out at 2 1/2. I like what she was trying to do, but in the end she does way too much, makes the novel way too dense, way too spread out (each chapter is the story as told by one of the NINE main characters, so you have basically forgotten the previous chapter by the time you wade into the next one), and the whole thing (especially the metaphor of the oven in the center of town) just too heavy handed. I think maybe Morrison wa More...

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Dec 30, 2010

C rated it:

I liked this very much. Possibly the Morrison book I liked best. There are probably a lot of biblical metaphors I'm still not getting, just like Toni Morrison's other books, but I think I could understand this book better. This is very good. Morrison won the Nobel Prize for a reason. This is the story of an ex-slave town that had to relocate (but some of them were also ex-lieutenant governors, they were not just ex-slaves, which is very bizarre to me. Ex-slaves were allowed to be lieutenant gove More...

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Feb 16, 2011

Sam rated it:

The book starts with an act of cold blooded violence. In typical Toni Morrison style the scene is both lyric and gruesome. I had some trouble getting through the second quarter of the book, as the scope and scale of characters introduced were hard to keep track of. However, the second half of the book was incredible...exquisitely written, with layer upon layer of complexity.

Paradise is, at its heart, the story of a town. More specifically it is the story of the women and men who live More...

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Apr 11, 2010

Drew rated it:

I don't know how to say anything about this book. It feels beyond my capacity to review. This is the third Toni Morrison book and again I'm in awe. I didn't feel as attached to any of the characters in this book as in the other two. There were names coming and going and it was difficult to keep them all straight. That may have been her intention, though, because this story was more about a group of people and their attempt at creating their own Paradise. I was especially struck towards the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

One of my all-time favorite books. This book was being read while Oprah was on trial in Texas. I remember wondering about this book because she had a few book clubs from Austen in the audience and one woman kept saying she "didn't get it." Oprah kept repeating to re-read the last few lines of Chapter 1.

The books starts "They killed the white girl first....." So I dragged my heels reading this one. BIG mistake! Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I di More...

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May 31, 2010

Lauryij rated it:

Toni Morrison is one of those writers who seem to feel that it's ok to go off onto dreamlike tangents, since she's a genius. Well, she is a genius, but I don't enjoy a book that leaves me befuddled at the end. The ending doesn't have to be happy, the ending can be open to interpretation; all that's ok with me. But when I have to say "huh?", mull it over and STILL can't understand a lot of the book, I don't enjoy it. After reading the reviews, I see it's not just me (I AM a fairly intel More...

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Nov 06, 2009

Marie rated it:

The part of the book concerning the town of Ruby, Oklahoma, a small black town founded in 1890 was very interesting and made me wonder if there were many towns similar to that. The people inhabiting that town were very dark skinned and very nice looking. On there way there to find a place to start over from another area many miles away they went to other black towns but were turned away because the lighter skinned blacks did not want intergration with the dark familes.

The part of th More...

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Jun 29, 2008

Kelly rated it:

This book has THE BEST opening chapter I have ever read. I HATED the ending. I was mad at Morrison who refused to provide answers to the ending. Basically, she said if the reader doesn't get it then the reader doesn't deserve to be helped/given the answers.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2009

Ksenija rated it:

maybe it's because i read Morrison's Jazz just before this, which i think is her best book of all, that i'm just not raving about paradise. because Jazz was so complex, i get the feeling that toni said "must make next book even MORE difficult!" and then went to work. it feels unnecessarily thick at parts, especially when the lineage of the characters is being sorted out and you're trying to keep track of 40 main players.

that being said, Morrison writes as beautifully as e More...

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May 28, 2009

Jessie rated it:

A literary miracle, the lives that unfold here, the personal and communal history, the intertwining of scapegoating-violence and shame--and healing too. Two quotes on embodied theology that shine for me:

244, Consolata to Lone:
" '...faith is all I need.' "
Lone to Consolata:
" 'You need what we all need: earth, air, water. Don't separate God from His elements. He created it all. You stuck on dividing Him from His works. Don't unbalance His world.' More...

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May 14, 2011

George rated it:

'Paradise' was a book I chose to read for a pre-req course to get into my Bachelor of Education. The English Lit. course was called gender issues in literature.
I found this book to be so rich in symbolism and motifs that I read it twice before I wrote my paper on it. Seeing as this course was only a first-year Eng.Lit. course, I kept it simple but if any of you out there like Morrison, I highly recommend this book. In particular, keep your eyes open to all the 'food' symbolism and meta More...

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Apr 23, 2010

Stacey rated it:

Ok, I admit I had to reread chapters 1-3 several times ...but once you get the hang of the structure, it gets a little easier to follow. I did not say easy, just easier. But if you read Toni MOrrison, you have come to expect a few challenges. When I finished I was pleased with the novel. It still stands as one of my favories. The prose, characters and the whole tone of the book are distrubing, but necessary to really understand the struggle these women, the town and our history had to have faced More...

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Jun 04, 2009

Rachel rated it:

I originally read this back in college but decided to re-read it, partly because I thought I would get more out of it now, and partly because the English language options in our library are limited. I remember being disgusted by the men in this book in college, but the older I get, the more I believe I understand fear and intolerance. Therefore, while I still found their actions disgusting, I was a lot more sympathetic toward them and was not as angered by Morrison's decision to leave open the More...

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Feb 03, 2012

Milly rated it:

The message of this book was great and I get it (at least I think I do), but why does the language and the flow of the book have to be so daunting and confusing? What's wrong with keeping the prose out of the poetry highway? Seriously, I'm a smart girl, pretty high IQ (140 range), but I don't like to read something and feel as if though the author was trying either to lose me or show me how smart I ain't (like that, don't cha)....I mean, I'm reading fiction so it's totally and completely for enj More...

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Jul 27, 2011

Jane added it

SPOILER ALERT. I did stick with this book, found it worth going fwd with. I liked the atmosphere of the town, the Convent. But a place where people can show up and stay rent-free? --Please. That's what folks expect of us older women. Nope, we are savvy in how we manage our property. A town w'out law enforcement?? Frankly, the way the men decided to attack the Convent women seemed pretty illogical and ill-thought out. And the characters? Not fleshed out AT ALL. By ending, had no clea More...

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Mar 19, 2009

Carmen rated it:

This is a challenging book to warm up to, but worthwhile due to Morrison's craft and daring. It's a suspenseful story in that it starts at the horrific beginning and the reader is compelled to make it through to the last page in order to find out what led to the bloodshed. Morrison's writing is masterful, here describing a a country wedding: "There would be the shouts of sugar-drunk children; the crackle of wedding gift paper snatched from the floor and folded so neatly it seemed more valua More...

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