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Sula

Toni Morrison

Start date: March 1, 2021

Finish date: March 21, 2021

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Sep 15, 2014 Barbara rated it really liked it

'The Bottom' is a community of black families in the hills above the valley city of Medallion, Ohio where white families live.

The story begins in the early 1920's - just after the end of WWI - and traumatized soldiers are returning to town. The main characters in the story are Nel and Sula, who bond as young schoolgirls in 'The Bottom.'

Nel is the only child of a repressed mother determined to control every aspect of Nel's life.....

…..while Sula grows up in a rather raucous extended family. This ...more

55 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2015 Chris Blocker rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Having read other early Morrison novels, I found nothing surprising in Sula. There's the same gorgeous language and calming tone one will find in The Bluest Eye or Beloved, all layered over some of the most horrific scenes in print. More recent Morrison novels are told in the same beguiling whisper, but lack the urgency, and as a result, much of the story, that her earlier works show so abundantly.

Compared to the other early works of Morrison I have read, Sula was similar, but its characters and ...more

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Aug 27, 2009 Christina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cultural-african-american, fiction, historical-fiction, classic-literature, classics, literature, zora-canon

Toni Morrison writes for black people. This book is evidence of that.

Told from an omniscient narrator, we see the world created by Toni Morrison, the Bottom, located in Medallion, OH. The Bottom was really the hills above Medallion. Tricked by white farmers, black people agreed to take land way up in the hills based on a promise of rich fertile land with God looking down on them. Not really understanding how hilly land works, the Black people agreed to getting a piece of the bottom, which they Toni Morrison writes for black people. This book is evidence of that.

Told from an omniscient narrator, we see the world created by Toni Morrison, the Bottom, located in Medallion, OH. The Bottom was really the hills above Medallion. Tricked by white farmers, black people agreed to take land way up in the hills based on a promise of rich fertile land with God looking down on them. Not really understanding how hilly land works, the Black people agreed to getting a piece of the bottom, which they were told was the best land there was. However, the land was hilly, backbreaking, and the wind lingered, but the Black people worked it as best as they could, taking small consolation that they could look down on White people everyday.

Toni Morrison discusses huge themes about race, sexuality, womanhood, feminism, and Black culture. She starts off with Shadrack, a black war Veteran, who was in WWI, and suffered from combat shock, combat fatigue, or presently known as PTSD (although it was never mentioned). He was hospitalized, although his condition was unknown, for a year before being released because the hospital needed more beds. Morrison sheds light on the treatment of black men after war, and how racism eats at everything, including the treatment of Black American war veterans. Black men were treated horrible, untreated for problems, barely tolerated, and left to fiend for themselves without any support, although they served their country.

Shadrack becomes the Bottom's "crazy", as he annually has a National Suicide Day on January 3rd, to allow people the option to give themselves a concrete death date. Shadrack was fearful of death because he couldn't anticipate it. He was not afraid of death itself, but of the uncertainty of death. "He hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day." (p. 14)

The novel breaks off into the lives and generations of women who hail from Medallion. Helene Wright, mother of Nel, wife of Wiley Wright, makes a place and a name for herself in the Bottom. She raises her daughter Nel with manipulation and ensures that little Nel does not have an imagination or enthusiasm. Nel, is a fixture of the Bottom, being raised there her whole life, she never ventures out of the bottom to see life in the outside world, except for one time when her mother took her to Louisiana to see her dying great-grandmother. However, Nel notices how Blacks are treated in the world, and either doesn't understand, or despises the treatment received, as she is ashamed at how her mother acts around the white men they encounter. In this small view of traveling, we see Morrison identify the harsh realities of living while Black in the Jim Crow era, and how Blacks had to survive minute to minute tipping ever so carefully as to not be out of line around white people. The dehumanization, being emasculated, humiliation and loss of dignity is what Black people had to deal with during these times.

We also learn about Eva, and her generation of family. We quickly find out about Hannah and Plum and how they're family survived. Here, Morrison talks about motherhood, the sacrifices, dangers and plights that go along with raising kids. We also see how Eva demonstrates tough love with her son Plum, but to the extreme, and how she explains what a mother's love is to Hannah during their time growing up. The explanation she gives to Hannah about being loved is something the Black community doesn't really talk about. Black people are often in the place of survival and don't have time to know what real love is all about. All they know is that if food is on the table, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head, that's love. However, love is more than that, but because of the nature of survival in the black community, love has a different meaning to most.

Sula, is the daughter of Hannah, and she is befriended by Nel, who wants to cultivate this friendship with Sula, who her Mother doesn't approve of because of who Sula's mother is. They grow to be best friends, sisters even, and are inseparable until they graduate from high school. Here, the story splits and we learn about the singular life of Sula and Nel, and how their choices have made them the woman they become.

To me, Sula and Nel represented choices that black women had in the community during that timeframe (1920-1965). You were either considered to be a whore/restless woman because you enjoyed sex, men, or freedom and had no morals or values, or you were a mother/wife with morals and values. There was no in between. Sula and Nel embodied those choices. One grew up to have morals and values (Nel) and one chose her freedom to do what she wanted (Sula). However, those choices spilled over into each other's lives, and betrayal, loss of trust, and loss of friendship is all detailed in the lives of Nel and Sula as they lived their lives in the Bottom.

Toni Morrison is a classic novelist. She writes for black people. So reading this novel as a person who is not black, may not understand all the nuances and connections that happen while reading this book. However, to read and see a world such as this, is refreshing. However, the pain/terror/fear/acceptance of living while Black is also detailed in this book. There are so many layers to her writing that cannot be articulated, and that in itself makes this book a classic. Morrison is not just telling a story about 2 girls named Sula and Nel and their lives in the Bottom. Morrison is showing black life in all its glory, and allowing people to see for themselves how Black people overcome, adapt, survive, love, parent, and are resilient in life in this world made for whiteness.

I would recommend everyone reading Toni Morrison. I rate this a 5.
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