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The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison

Start date: February 1, 2021

Finish date: February 19, 2021

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Aug 08, 2013 Cheryl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: afro-american, audiobooks, mesmerizing, vintage, nobels, fiction

“There can’t be anyone, I’m sure, who doesn’t know what it feels like to be disliked, even rejected. Momentarily or for sustained periods of time,” Toni Morrison stated in her author note, as she explained the context of this novel. Imagine a Nobel Laureate reading her work, and then explaining her art. I listened to this via Audible and I was spellbound. Inflections with each character switch and mood, exquisite dialogue performance—I might as well have been in the same room with her.

The bluest “There can’t be anyone, I’m sure, who doesn’t know what it feels like to be disliked, even rejected. Momentarily or for sustained periods of time,” Toni Morrison stated in her author note, as she explained the context of this novel. Imagine a Nobel Laureate reading her work, and then explaining her art. I listened to this via Audible and I was spellbound. Inflections with each character switch and mood, exquisite dialogue performance—I might as well have been in the same room with her.

The bluest eye. Oh what great use of personification. This story, laden with historical and literary context, is narrated by young Claudia and follows three black girls: Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola. Raised in small town Ohio following the Great Depression and during a time laced with blatant racism and segregation, let’s just say, the girls were the bearers of grown folks’ wrath.

Pecola’s parents are indifferent towards her. She must call her mom, Mrs. Breedlove, while the blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl her mother takes care of, calls her Polly. When Pecola sees the same mother who beats and yells at her oohing and aahing at the little girl, the blue eyes become her way of wanting to be acknowledged. Maybe if she had blue eyes… Later, the bluest eye will play a role after Pecola goes through a horrific ordeal and we get to hear from her directly.

Pauline Breedlove (Pecola’s mother) on the other hand, loves her job as a housekeeper because she gets to escape her life with the abusive husband, poverty, and invisibility. In her world, no one notices or acknowledges her: the black woman. Shopping for her family is a pain. But in her white employers’ world where she must purchase items and make decisions on their behalf, vendors respect her duty and title. At these moments within the story, Claudia’s first person narration veers to a third-person narrator once you start to get into the adults’ heads (like crazy Cholly’s, for example) and more mature issues are raised.

Toni Morrison started this story in 1962—working on it while getting her MA. In 1965, it started to take the shape of a book. In elementary school, she had a friend who told her that she wished she had blue eyes. Very blue eyes in a very dark skin? She was repelled by her friend’s desire. With the book she tried to “hit the raw nerve of racial self contempt, expose it, then soothe it.”

I’ve never run across an author who writes like Toni Morrison. While reading two of her works simultaneously this week, (I also read Paradise) I noticed her signature style. It’s the good kind of expectation, like buying a Coach purse knowing that there are certain things about it that will not let you down. The lyrical syntax is prolific, the narrator voice oblique, and the story structure will take leaps and bounds.

The second half of this book was my favorite. In the beginning, there is a certain voice that pierces the narrative throughout and I wondered what it was (the white house and Jane playing). Towards the end, I understood the art as I heard from Pecola (in a weird, artistic kind of way) and it was a deeply emotional moment. ...more

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Jun 21, 2020 Megan rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It is mind-blowing that this was Toni Morrison’s first novel. It’s expertly crafted and all the characters, even the villains, are drawn with sympathy. Their humanity is understood. The terrible things some of them do are not condoned, but the generational trauma, pain, rage, humiliation, lack of resources and internalized self-hatred that lead to their choices is explained.

This is the story of Picola Breedlove, as witnessed by two neighbor girls. Picola’s fondest wish is to have blue eyes, she It is mind-blowing that this was Toni Morrison’s first novel. It’s expertly crafted and all the characters, even the villains, are drawn with sympathy. Their humanity is understood. The terrible things some of them do are not condoned, but the generational trauma, pain, rage, humiliation, lack of resources and internalized self-hatred that lead to their choices is explained.

This is the story of Picola Breedlove, as witnessed by two neighbor girls. Picola’s fondest wish is to have blue eyes, she thinks this will make her beautiful and acceptable. It’s heartbreaking, the deep belief in their own ugliness so many of the characters have, which is one of the terrible costs of white supremacy and European beauty standards.

Picola is shy and gentle and yearns for love. Her home is full of domestic violence. Her father is an abusive alcoholic and her mother gives as good as she gets, while taking refuge in church-going morality. Picola is contrasted with the two scrappy sisters whose family take her in briefly when her home situation becomes untenable. The story is told from the eldest’s point of view. Their family is poor and struggling, but still has love and self respect, and the girls, especially the eldest, who gets angry easily in reaction to all the injustice and colorism she sees around her, will fight off bullies and mean girls.

We also get to know a variety of neighborhood residents. I particularly enjoyed the unapologetic, man-hating prostitutes that befriend Picola.

The residents of Picola’s Black neighborhood are contrasted with the richer Whites many of them work for, and the differences in situation and attitude are both wrenching and thought provoking. Picola’s mother is a housekeeper for a White family and lavishes all her love, care and organization on them, while doing the bare minimum for her own family. We learn about her girlhood, hopes and courtship, and we watch as young love self-destructs in the face of poverty, racist power structures which steal job opportunities and addiction.

Picola is raped by her father. We know this to start out with, as she’s pregnant in the beginning of the story but looses the baby, and the sisters reflect back on what’s happened to try and figure things out. The rape scene is about 3/4 thru the book and is terrible but not graphic.

The entire story is brilliantly framed with a children’s nursery rhyme, and the lines take on different significance throughout the story.

This is not an easy read but it is an important one. The language, as in all Morrison’s work, is beautiful and gut wrenching.

CW: rape, incest, racism, sexism, racial violence, colorism, bullying, animal cruelty, spoiled children, neglected children, prejudice, Jim Crowe, segregation, poverty, lack of opportunity, armed voyeurism, theft, pedophilia, charlatan minister, anti-immigrant sentiment, classism, elitism, middle class morality, prostitution, absent fathers, sudden death. ...more

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