Benjamin Dancer's Blog, page 14

Toni Morrison: HOME

"I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts." -Cee

Damn, huh.

What a great story about siblings. About regrets. About home.

One more chapter to go...

Print Edition

The print edition of my literary thriller PATRIARCH RUN is now available on Amazon!

All April proceeds go to Jefferson County Open School. The money is being used by the school's PTSO, in coordination with Lighthouse Writers, to bring local authors into the classroom.

Amazon.com

Review: BELOVED

Beloved by Toni Morrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ever since I read the phrase, “124 was spiteful,” I’ve wanted to be like Toni Morrison. I was in college then and a fairly young reader. I read the first page of BELOVED six times, maybe more, before I felt like I could turn it.

Truth be told, the first time through BELOVED I had no idea what I was reading. But it was already my favorite book–long before I was sophisticated enough to comprehend its contents.

I wrote my own stories, and as my craft matured, I came to realize that I could never be like Toni Morrison. I realized that I would have to admire her from a distance.

The only thing I’ve read better than BELOVED is Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I weep every time I hear her read that story. The old woman. What I’d give for a conversation with a blind old woman like that.

The characters I came to know in BELOVED still live with me two decades after I first met them. Their joy. Their grief. The wisdom I received. Their mistakes teach me how to live my own life. Their strength, their grit, inspire me to push through when times are hard.

Hard times...BELOVED puts all that into perspective.

I owe a lot to Toni Morrison’s work. She is my mentor, and she is with me every time I sit down to write.



View all my reviews

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN can be understood through the characters of Anton Chigurh, Llewelyn Moss, Carla Jean Moss or Sheriff Bell.

If we were to chose to see the story as one about Anton Chigurh, it's a story about power, about violence. It's a suspenseful thriller. Chigurh is an antagonist with near supernatural power–not all that different than the antagonists we find in the horror genre.

If we were to chose to see the story as one about Llewelyn Moss, it's a story about the power of consequence. About how our choices can direct us down a path we never intended to be on. About how easy it is to ruin our own lives.

If we were to chose to see the story as one about Carla Jean Moss, it's a story about victims. About how our fate, whether we want it to be or not, is tied to the people we decide to love.

I chose to see the story as one about Sheriff Bell. It's the story about the wisdom of an old man. Someone who has lived his life, who has walked down the same path on which I find myself. Someone who can tell me a little bit about what's to come.

Cormac McCarthy might be the only author I know who can kill off the central characters, end the story, finish the plot, and then include another chapter--and make that extra scene work. Sheriff Bell's monologue is almost like an addendum to a finished work. And it's my favorite part of the book. It works because the story is about an old man and what his character has to offer the reader.





View all my reviews