Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) in Reading Challenges

Mar 28, 2020 Jessy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

buen libro, aunque a veces me perdía, pero creo que es por mi versión del libro, que no tenía división por capítulos.

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Sep 27, 2015 Behnaz rated it liked it

Shelves: psycholgical-books, gioco-di-squadra, i-expected-more

Beloved is a difficult book to write a review about.

The book narrates the story of Sethem an ex-slave who fled from Kentucky to Ohio. The house she lives in "124" ( "spiteful", "full of child's venom" ) is haunted. The ghost is the two year old daughter of Sethe whom she killed herself when after 28 days of freedom a posse arrives to retrieve her and her children ( according to a certain law slave owners were given the right to pursue slaves across the state borders) rather than allow her to be Beloved is a difficult book to write a review about.

The book narrates the story of Sethem an ex-slave who fled from Kentucky to Ohio. The house she lives in "124" ( "spiteful", "full of child's venom" ) is haunted. The ghost is the two year old daughter of Sethe whom she killed herself when after 28 days of freedom a posse arrives to retrieve her and her children ( according to a certain law slave owners were given the right to pursue slaves across the state borders) rather than allow her to be recaptured and forced to live a life as a slave in "sweet home", the plantation in Kentucky she worked in. Her main intention was to kill all of her children but she succeeded only in killing her, "Beloved".
The book starts when Sethe lives with Denver, her daughter in 124. They both are rejected by their community and they barely go out and socialize with other people. Therefore when Paul D. from sweet home arrives and "Sethe allows him to try to make her happy", the first thing he does is taking Sethe and Denver to the carnival. Sethe was overdressed for the event as she forgot how to dress and behave in social events. Her two sons, Howard and Buglar, escaped from the haunted house and the too strong and too heavy story of sufference their mother carries on her shoulder when 13.
The story becomes disturbing and sometimes unbearable when a 20 year old girl named Beloved arrives in 124. First Denver and later Sethe start to think of her as the missing part of their family, the two year old girl whose body rests in a tomb on which just a word is written, her name, Beloved.
Beloved seems to be in 124 in order to take revenge from Sethe. Although the author later claimed that Beloved is not the ghost of Sethe's daughter and her presence should be interpretated as a story of missing in which Sethe finds her daughter in a girl who has never known a maternal figure and viceversa, the unexpected arrival, the mean behaviour, the final disappearance of Beloved and her conversations with Denver make the reader think Beloved is a supernatural incarnation of Sethe's daughter. Therefore the story becomes similar to an unconvincing ghost story, which is a pity because the other topics that Morrison touches, like the psychological effects of slavery which are simple to recognize in the conversation between Paul D. and Sethe, are perfectly represented.

I was disturbed not by the horrors described in the book but by the way in which they were narrated. The excessive sentimentality has always a contrary effect.

Yet I'm happy I've read this book and I'm curious to read other Morrison's books to have a better idea of her style. ...more

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Jan 11, 2016 lonelypepper rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, pulitzer

Amatissima è stato con me per soli quattro giorni, tanto ci ho messo a leggerlo. Quattro giorni intensissimi durante i quali mi sono lasciata trascinare dal dolore, dalla rabbia, dalla sofferenza e dai segreti dei protagonisti. La crudeltà della schiavitù, il senso di impotenza di fronte a un'ingiustizia conclamata, l'amore di una madre. L'amore assoluto, l'amore puro. Descritto in modo così magistrale (eppure semplice) che al momento opportuno arrivi a capire quella madre che uccide i suoi figl ...more

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