Beloved is the Great American Horror Novel. Sorry Stephen King: evil clowns and alcoholic would-be writers are pretty creepy, but they just got nothing on the terrifying specter of American slavery! I literally got chills -- physical chills -- over and over while reading this book. To me, great horror has the scary element (e.g., a ghost) and then, lurking behind it, something so vast and evil that trying to think about it can make you go insane. Beloved did that! It worked as horror! And then a More...

I don't give books low marks lightly. If anything, I am prone to being carried away by the author's enthusaism and rate books more highly than they deserve. I am an aspiring author, myself, and that also leads me to be kind to the books.

That being said, I really hated this book.

I like fantasy and magical realism. I find the dreams and allegories that live just underneath the skin of the world we can more readily see and touch endlessly fascinating. I like my stories intense and emotional, and I More...

I hate this book. But I guess I should say why. Some might say that I was too young to read this book since I read it when I was 15 but I'm a few years older now and I still hate it with seething anger. I heard that Toni Morrison was a good writer so when we had to pick a book from this long list I decided to read it. BIG MISTAKE!

I didn't like any of the character -at all-or the plot. I know the book is supposed to give you a view on the cruel treatment of slaves but after I finished I actually More...

"Beloved

You are my sister

You are my daughter

You are my face; you are me

I have found you again; you have come back to me

You are my beloved

You are mine

You are mine"

It's 6 o'clock in the morning and I have finished with one of the best books I have ever read in the course of my short life.
I am sleepless and I need a moment to organize my thoughts, sort out my feelings. Come back to real life. But I can't.

A part of me is still with Sethe and her daughters, Denver and Beloved at 124. A part of me i More...

x

After "Cloud Atlas" knocked me around, I looked over my groaning to-read shelf in search of another chewy, thoughtful read. I picked "Beloved" out of the bunch and read over Toni Morrison's name and I knew that I was in good hands.

Here is another book that stormed my psyche and dosed me with emotions and impressions that shifted parts of me with tectonic force. From page one, Morrison throws you into the lives of black women and men who grew up as slaves and suffered unimaginable acts of cruelty More...

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Book #23: Beloved, by Toni Morrison (1987)

The story in a nutshell:
To understand the importance of 1987's Beloved, you need to understand that before this first More...

This is probably my least favorite book I have ever read. I think I hate it even more because so many people like it so much. Unlike really trashy novels, people actually try to argue that this is a great book. But it definitely embodies all the things that make me hate books. It's heavy handed with its message, which ultimately ruins some pretty spectacular imagery. Its also just a giant pastiche of people who can actually write, which makes it just feel disjointed and annoying since it switche More...

I have long believed in ghosts, but not in the supernatual or paranormal sense. I believe ghosts are memories or what Toni Morrison names as "rememory." I heard on NPR this week a man say that he was the grandchild of slaves and when he went into the voting booth and cast his ballot for Senator Obama he saw his grandparents faces, rememory. I once went to Auschwitz in Poland and my friend said to me as we walked thru the sadness, "they are looking at us, they are in the flowers," rememory. I hav More...

Unfortunately, I just could not get into this book. I tried reading it as a class assignment and again on my own, but alas. It wasn't the writing style, which was...a cute attempt for creativeness but resulted in harming the progress of the story (much like Faulkner's Sound and the Fury actually). Don't misunderstand me, I love being exposed to different styles such as stream-of-consciousness, magical realism or what have you - but I feel that this book fails, miserably. I am also not a fan of M More...

My first book by Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in 1931), the first black Nobel (1993) laureate for literature. Published in 1998 and many considered as her greatest work, Beloved won that year's Pulitzer award.

This is also my 124th book included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die 2010 edition and I say that there is absolutely nothing like this. The theme is multi-layered: pointblank, it looks like a plain ghost story. But if you dig deeper, it is an anti-racial novel in More...

Toni Morrison may be my favorite contemporary author. She is certainly in my Top 5. Each and every one of her novels is extraordinary. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and although it's not quite my personal favorite, it's probably her masterpiece as well as one of the greatest creations in the history of the written word. Morrison's prose is exquisite, which makes reading her books pure joy. If she was simply writing nonsense, the pleasure would still be all ours. However, she weaves More...

I hated this book. There's just no nicer way to put it. Toni Morrison is definitely NOT my favorite author. I got stuck reading this for a book report my junior year of high school and I wanted to take it outside and burn it. If it wouldn't have been a library copy, I probably would have. I don't know what else to say. I won't go into grand detail about all the things that made this book awful because I would be here all night. Needless to say, I will never pick up another book from her. Before More...

If it weren't for a long plane ride, I probably wouldn't have gotten past the first 30 or so pages of this novel. But I'm glad I did because the novel is very beautifully written and well-constructed, though not necessarily a page-turner. The prose is very lyrical and dream-like, as it weaves the reader in and out of the past, but can also be confusing, especially if you read the novel in short chunks on the subway. The book basically explores the return of Paul D., a slave who once worked for t More...

White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way . . . they were right. . . . But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place. . . . It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread . . . until it invaded the whites who had made it. . . . Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so s More...

Is Beloved a Great Novel? Certainly it is a very good one, holding as it does the unique distinction of being one of the few eminently popular 'serious' novels that appeal equally, which is not to say universally, to casual, serious and professional readers alike. But is it Great? Is it one of the greatest? Or isn't it?

I ask because I get the sense that Beloved's status as a/(the?) Great (American) Novel tends to garner a range of support less unequivocal than that of, say, Moby Dick, or works b More...

Every time I read this book I love it more.
Eventually I'll be able to write about it and feel I'm doing it justice.
In the meantime, here are a few thoughts, beginning with a favorite scene, one that is at the heart of Beloved--Baby Suggs' sermon in the Clearing:

"She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She di dnot tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure.

"She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace More...

Toni Morrison's Beloved is one of the greatest achievements of the 20th Century. Studying the present state of African-American existence and slavery's long reach into people's lives today in the United States, Beloved gets a constantly discussed and debated social and political message across through the use of surrealism. The aspect of Beloved that is truly profound is not the character development (which is deep and well-crafted) or the presentation of Morrison's main intent (which is both e More...

confusing, boring, and pretentious, this is the book that convinced me that the pulitzer doesn't mean shit.

Amatissimo
Romanzo di straordinaria intensità, che apre uno squarcio brutale e al contempo delicato e poetico sulla condizione degli schiavi neri d’America nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento.
Le violenze fisiche e psicologiche perpetrate ai danni di un intero popolo, umiliato e tormentato per secoli, vengono trasfigurate da una forte simbologia, talora di sapore fiabesco, che sortisce inaspettatamente l’effetto di renderle ancora più crude e strazianti che se fossero descritte in modo realistico e More...

Man. Having finished this novel, the need to Repent somehow feels more urgent than the need to Review. This is a devastating work of art.

While I'm more prone to prefer the style and approach of, say, Cormac McCarthy, Morrison's work compares very favourably with his in certain respects - and also contrasts favourably as well. Hers, like his, is the kind of prose that from start to finish places you right down deep (bewilderingly deep, until you get acclimated) into the psychological and ontolog More...

I chose to read this novel for a variety of reasons. For many years now, I have heard of the brilliance of this book. This book has been billed as the “best work of fiction of the last 30 years” by the NY Times and has also been placed within the top 10 of various lists of best fiction of the 20th Century. With praise like that, it is almost impossible not to disappoint, but for a lot of reasons, I though this book was very much a four-star book instead of a five-star book.

The story concerns Set More...

I'm struggling to write my book review of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which, quite frankly, left me speechless. After turning the last page, I found myself in one of my favorite reading predicaments: there was nothing for me to do but sit there and feel the story wash over me. I couldn't analyze, I could vocalize, I could only be with the narrative. A day later, I still feel like that's all I can do. But I'll try.

Beloved is inspired by the story of a fugitive slave, Margaret Garner, who, to save he More...

This is the worst book that I have ever read. It epitomizes what elite academics love about literature: It is dark and nasty (which, to an academic, means realistic) and it is obscure and incoherent (to an academic, this means deep and profound). This is like the deliberately hideous painting that is called "art" by intellectuals: Common-sense individuals question its merit and are told it is complex, beautiful, and beyond the untrained understanding and crass sensibilities of the uneducated. I More...

I read about half a dozen pages of this before I chucked it.

The description of the male servants/workers f***ing the cows (poor creatures) because of the girl's good looks totally disgusted me.

I would never have picked it up if it weren't on the reading list for my uni class.

Admitting that I am not a fan of this book is a gross understatement. And this, given that I read it before Oprah filmed her genuinely pathetic and ill-conceived movie version. The fact that I am giving this one star has more to do with my respect for Toni Morrison than with any regard or lack thereof that I have for this book. Which is probably antithetical to the very purpose of the rating system, but I persevere nonetheless in bending it to my will. Avoid this book if you value your sanity. More...

I read this book in college and remember it with sincere hatred. The only reason I am giving this book 2 stars is because the story is incredibly original and Morrison is a truly gifted author (as she tells the stories in characters point of views, using every unique style of speech to convey the story). This has to be one of the most difficult books I have ever read. The book switches narrators without being told who is narrating the story, so you have to figure out either by their style of spe More...

E' un libro che mi ha riempito la testa di interrogativi dato che la lettura è stata una sorta di lotta contro me stessa e non arrivavo a comprenderne il motivo. Non sono riuscita ad apprezzarne la storia corale, di testimonianza, recupero e ricordo, e solo in parte quella fatta di ruscelli individuali.
Se l'intenzione era denunciare l'inumanità e la spoliazione del sé operata contro le donne di colore, se una delle tante nuance di un'opera in cui il simbolismo si utilizza in quantità industriale More...