Song of Solomon in Classics Without All the Class

Dec 04, 2017 Leo Walsh rated it it was amazing

A classic tale that I haven't read since the 80's, for a contemporary American lit class. It's still amazing, the mark of a great work of art. Mostly because Morrison can spin a sentence and dialog so they read like the blues or Miles Davis bopping a solo over a swing-beat. She's that good.

The tale's a magical realist coming-of-age story. It's main character Macon 'Milkman' Dead III goes on a quest for his roots. Learns the history of his family's naming. For instance, his surname "Dead" is an A classic tale that I haven't read since the 80's, for a contemporary American lit class. It's still amazing, the mark of a great work of art. Mostly because Morrison can spin a sentence and dialog so they read like the blues or Miles Davis bopping a solo over a swing-beat. She's that good.

The tale's a magical realist coming-of-age story. It's main character Macon 'Milkman' Dead III goes on a quest for his roots. Learns the history of his family's naming. For instance, his surname "Dead" is an antebellum Civil war artifact. A Reconstruction agent asked Milkman's grandfather who his former owner was, and he replied, "He's dead." The agent wrote "Dead" as the family's surname, and they held it ever since.

Names are important throughout the book. From how Milkman got his nickname (in a creepy but funny incident that happened when he was a young boy) to how his family chose first names by randomly selecting them from the bible. Which lead to the hysterical result of his illiterate grandfather picking the name Pilate from the bible and, unaware what it meant but liking the looks of the letters, bestorwed it to his daughter, Milkman's eccentric aunt Pilate.

But the names that matter seem to be people's nicknames, which are "real" names. Milkman is Macon III's real name since its emblematic. Same goes for his best friend, the black nationalist Guitar Banes. And Railroad Tommy, and Hospital Tommy... which echo back to bluesmen with nicknames like "Muddy Waters" and "Lightning Hopkins." As does the name of places, like "Not-Doctor Street," where Milkman lives with his money-obsessed father and lonely, love and sex-starved mother.

Morrison uses Milkman's quest to uncover what it means to be a black male in America. Where moving on is a cultural trait, personified by the magical-realist flourish of having one of Milkman's ancestors be a "Flying African," a medicine man who flew (literally flew, on his own wings) with several of his eldest sons back to Africa after being beaten by his owner, but accidentally dropping Milkman's grandfather, a young boy whom he'd been unable yet to teach to fly, while flying away.

Milkman tries several ways to be a man, rejecting most of them. He rejects his father's overt materialism. He rejects Guitar's black nationalism, but not Guitar as a person. He at once rejects and embraces, though, the folkways of his people. The hunting. The blues. The hanging around the barbershop and chewing fat. And learns, by facing his fears of inadequacy, that he is, indeed, not only adequate. He's better than adequate.

Because he's the ancestor of a medicine man so powerful he could fly.

An amazing, amazing book. Capped off by one of the most incredible, ambiguous endings ever attempted in literature. And pulled off, nicely. 5-stars, but I'd give it 10, 100, 1,000, etc if I could. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review