Paradise
by Toni Morrison
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2020)
Read in June, 2008
I'm not going to be able to capture all of the thoughts and responses this book has interred inside me as I am not a good reviewer in any sense, but still I can't just leave this space blank.
This is the first novel of Morrison's I've read, and it quickly struck me in places as yet untouched and/or verbalized, a space that narrows the more one reads, and as such does what authors I've most loved manage to do: further my understanding of myself and the complexities of the world/reality aroun...more
This is the first novel of Morrison's I've read, and it quickly struck me in places as yet untouched and/or verbalized, a space that narrows the more one reads, and as such does what authors I've most loved manage to do: further my understanding of myself and the complexities of the world/reality aroun...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors and, up until this book, I've liked everything she's written. Her writing is ripe with imagery and she imbues her characters and settings with tangibility as if they were people she knew and places she'd been rather than figments of her imagination. The only other author I can think of who commands such a talent for descriptive detail is Don Delillo. Both use language in inventive ways so that you aren't just reading the same old descriptions of kis...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
1 comments
Read in July, 2007
I am still reading (just a few pages left), but I thought that I would make my first goodreads entry so that my friends will not think that I invited them to sign up for no good reason.
Paradise is my first Toni Morrison book, and I will say that the first two-thirds of this book were a challenge. I kept telling myself that all of the individual stories about the experiences of various people in Ruby, Oklahoma served a greater purpose, but it was difficult for me to really invest in the diff...more
Paradise is my first Toni Morrison book, and I will say that the first two-thirds of this book were a challenge. I kept telling myself that all of the individual stories about the experiences of various people in Ruby, Oklahoma served a greater purpose, but it was difficult for me to really invest in the diff...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in January, 2004
Another book which exemplifies the kind of writing I hope to grow into years from now. This is a fine, complex, ambitious novel, about an all-Negro town, Ruby {named for the dead sister of one of the Founders}, in the West and, more importantly, a mansion miles away from the town, where the novel opens with the hunt of the notorious house’s inhabitants. The wanted, the lost, and the heart-broken all find themselves at the former Convent, the former home to stolen Arapaho girls, straying at t...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
While it definitely isn't as pleasant to read as her other works, I think Paradise has a value all its own in the way she takes on the grand mythology of America, Judeo-Christianity, and humanity itself. These mythologies are steeped in conflict and that is what "Paradise" is essentially about--seemingly inescapable conflicts between groups who are separated by age, race, gender, or religion.
The style is rather cinematic in a way--we don't get the same intimacy with the characters ...more
The style is rather cinematic in a way--we don't get the same intimacy with the characters ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 1998
Before reading this book, I had read every prior Morrison novel--from the uneven-but-pretty-good-with-one-amazing-extended-metaphor ( Tar Baby) to the very good ( The Bluest Eye) to the overwhelming ( Beloved). I had a very high opinion of her.
And then I read Paradise.
The Nobel committee should have asked politely ...more
And then I read Paradise.
The Nobel committee should have asked politely ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2003
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. It is t...more
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. It is t...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Why does everything have Oprah's stamp on it these days?!
Anyway, not Morrison's best, but still somewhat compelling.
The town of Ruby is fissured by ancestral feuds and financial squabbles, not to mention the political ferment of the era, which has managed to pierce the town's pious isolation. In the view of its leading citizens, these troubles call for a scapegoat. And one readily exists: the Convent, an abandoned mansion not far from town--or, more precisely, the four women who occupy...more
Anyway, not Morrison's best, but still somewhat compelling.
The town of Ruby is fissured by ancestral feuds and financial squabbles, not to mention the political ferment of the era, which has managed to pierce the town's pious isolation. In the view of its leading citizens, these troubles call for a scapegoat. And one readily exists: the Convent, an abandoned mansion not far from town--or, more precisely, the four women who occupy...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 1998
This is the ultimate "town with no pity" book. Unlike some of her other novels, such as Love or Jazz, it also contains some likable or at least non-repugnant characters. The structure of the novel bears a lot in common with both classic Greek tragedy and Louis L'amour westerns. Knowing what a genius Morrison is, I'm sure that's no coincidence.
I listened to this book on tape, over a decade ago. Her occasionally dense or confusing syntax isn't at all an issue when you hear someone r...more
I listened to this book on tape, over a decade ago. Her occasionally dense or confusing syntax isn't at all an issue when you hear someone r...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 1999
recommends it for:
patient readers
I read this as the first selection for an AP-Chicago book club that never met. I loved Morrison's "Song of Solomon," but I found this book to be very hard to follow, basically impossible to follow. I remember another woman who read the book before I did suggested I create a family tree of the novel's characters to keep up with them. Sorry, I'm not that patient. STill, I did follow the basic plot of the novel and lilked it. I am convinced that this is the kind of book a person must read...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This is the first Oprah book club pick that I read and now I totally trust her judgment when it comes to book club suggestions.
The story is both disturbing and moving at the same time. Some scenes were pretty graffic and required me to remind myself that this was fiction, while others made me smile or laugh out loud.
I have now read this book 4 times, and with each read, I find a small story within the story that I didn't notice before.
Toni Morrison writes with a passion that must come...more
The story is both disturbing and moving at the same time. Some scenes were pretty graffic and required me to remind myself that this was fiction, while others made me smile or laugh out loud.
I have now read this book 4 times, and with each read, I find a small story within the story that I didn't notice before.
Toni Morrison writes with a passion that must come...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
"Never. Could she? Well, he had not asked her to be one- so enjoy the stove heat, the nape of his neck and the invisible presence of kittens."
"She believed she loved him absolutely because he was all she knew about her self- which was to say, everything she knew of her body was connected to him."
"In any case, with something like amazement, he'd said, 'Your eyes are like mint leaves.' Had she answered 'And yours are like the beginning of the world' aloud, or wer...more
"She believed she loved him absolutely because he was all she knew about her self- which was to say, everything she knew of her body was connected to him."
"In any case, with something like amazement, he'd said, 'Your eyes are like mint leaves.' Had she answered 'And yours are like the beginning of the world' aloud, or wer...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
I loved this book. It's NOT a dystopia. It's asking you to rethink your understanding of paradise on Earth. How can paradise mean something other than an isolated, physical space? How do you CREATE paradise in relation and through a refusal to differentiate between body and spirit? (That doesn't mean that paradise should be purely metaphysical, but attatched to the land in a different way. Through relation, not ownership.) Ruby is not paradise, but the women of the convent have something else to...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2007
The first chapter of this book nearly stopped me from reading on. It made no sense until later chapters, when each woman has been introduced, and Consolata's comes, where everything starts to come together. The plot is basic enough, it's the background story behind everything that complicates this story, from power plays, inferiority complexes, skin color, to secret relationships. This is one of those books where, even if you didn't love it, you kinda want to reread to remember what parts in the...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
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.
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.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
I think I would have liked this better if I had been provided with a list of characters and some notes identifying each. There were so many, and I kept getting them confused. Of course, I was listening to it on tape, which didn't help. Still the story lines were interesting, and Toni Morrison is a great reader. I was confused by things, but not interested enough to listen or read it again. Then again, from reading others' reviews online, it sounds like many were confused. Maybe it was Morr...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
This is a rich and complex tale that spans many generations and many issues. It's the kind of book that makes me want to sit down with other readers and discuss it in depth. I only wish that Morrison had included an illustration of the family trees that Patricia had been working on in the book - it would have made it a tad easier to keep all the characters and their relationships straight. I found this book to be very absorbing and thought-provoking. I think I'd like to read it again one day.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This was my second attempt to read a Toni Morrison novel. I can't remember what the other one was, but I had to give it up because it was too depressing. I had the same experience in this book, it was just too ugly for me - people being relentlessly brutal to each other. It doesn't give one much hope for human relationships.
I enjoyed her style in the beginning, the way she wove the backstory into the action - even though it was a grim scene of men hunting down women.
I enjoyed her style in the beginning, the way she wove the backstory into the action - even though it was a grim scene of men hunting down women.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2005
An interesting study and fictional account of the dynamics of an all black town (which did exist). The main idea I took away from this book is that the idea of paradise or utopia means that something (or someone) must be excluded. Also the idea of victim and the danger in perpetuating that role especially in front of children. Also the idea of rigidity (in thought and action) and how that goes against nature; trying to keep things the same can cause much devastation.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in May, 2007
i have ownwed this book for a long time but was rearranging my shelves recently and decided i should finally read it. it was a beautifully and lyrically written story about freed slaves and the all black towns they settled in oklahoma and the generations, changes, and controversies that followed. their commentary on being judgmental and exclusionary is really powerful. a timeless book i'm sure with a message that would touch anyone alive today.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
