Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)

Book Review: Song of Solomon is what would've happened if Zora Neale Hurston and Gabriel Garcia Marquez made a baby. This novel combines insights into urban and rural black culture and community with bits of myth, ghosts, folklore, voodoo, or (if you want to go there) magical realism. There were moments I thought I was reading Marquez, other moments I was reading Hurston, and all the time I was reading our Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison. While black and white relations are addressed, more of the book addresses black history (all the way back to Africa), black interactions (even as affected by white culture), and even more so internalized racism and feelings of racial identification. Our protagonist's father is a slumlord who preys on the black community (as whites do), and is largely rejected by black folk, but although wealthy he is too vulgar for the white folk. His son has been raised apart from the culture of the black community, and has to learn (and want) to be black. In a book where the act of naming is highlighted, his nickname is "Milkman," and although black he's a white man who undergoes a transformation. The book is literally his journey, his flight, into finding his culture. Song of Solomon has deeply affecting characters (if you don't love Pilate, you don't love nobody), examines many sharp aspects of American culture, heavily faceted storytelling, and Morrison does well at mostly bringing all these shards together in a comprehensive mosaic. This is an important book about being black in America.

Why the "mostly"? Genius as it is, there are a few false notes. The ending, as others have noted, could be stronger, it's anti-climactic (ah, if it had, with a little rearranging, ended about seven paragraphs earlier). More problematic for me is about 97% of the time Toni Morrison is writing about America and it is fall-on-your-knees brilliant. There are sections where I'm thinking, wow, she's the American Garcia Marquez, she's the American Murakami (or maybe they're the Colombian or Japanese Morrison?). But that other three percent of the time Morrison seems to decide: "Oh wait, I'm writing an important novel, let me throw in a significant statement, let me add a sweeping view of history, let me drop in a disjointed metaphor or have my characters talk like Cornel West." No! The story is profound, it is significant, it does create a view of history, the story itself is the metaphor. The story doesn't need these PBS moments, it's great already. Toni Morrison won the Nobel, she doesn't need to make sure the slower critics catch on that this is a significant novel. Fortunately, almost all these moments are in about the first third of the book, and don't weigh down the rest of it when she really gets going. Song of Solomon, amazing storytelling, one of the important American novels of our time, of any time. [4½★]