Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

A runaway slave finds that even when free, the torment of slavery may never end.

Book Review: Beloved should be enshrined as a classic now, but I'll try to curb my enthusiasm and wait the requisite time. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has all the unlimited promise of The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon, without the limitations of those books. This is such a leap forward (I haven't read Sula or Tar Baby yet) that some may wonder if Toni Morrison went to the crossroads at midnight for the ability to create perfection. Here she writes with immense power, but immaculate control. Much of the novel has a modified or muted stream of consciousness to it, until Morrison shows what stream of consciousness really can be. Beloved is not an easy book, it's harsh and difficult although still accessible. Sometimes readers have to work for something really good, and by "good" I mean great. There is an intensity, thought, and density to the writing that rewards re-reading. Even more difficult are the descriptions of the horrors of slavery, the physical, emotional, and mental tortures, and those terrors that linger even after "freedom." The "aftermath" of slavery (mentioned on the back cover) is just a continuation of that bondage, for enslavement never leaves the book's characters. All the main characters are damaged, none of them is whole, and all seek, painfully, slowly, to become whole throughout the novel. This book speaks to slavery as nothing I've ever read: "There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks" one character says. Beloved is not pretty, sweet, sentimental, romantic, or nice. It may be, just maybe, hopeful. It is a ghost story, folklore and myth, it contains the haunting of memories and the supernatural. Although I would not call this magical realism, some may choose to do so. But if it is, well then Toni Morrison grabbed magical realism, wrestled it away from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and made it her own. She took it away from him. It's hers, her own magical world, her own thing. But Beloved is more than that. There is the strength of humanity, of community, of motherhood ("She began to sweat from a fever she thanked God for since it would certainly keep her baby warm"). This is a discussion of American history without announcing that it's about "American History," it just is. Morrison writes about a former slave's moment of freedom, that: "... she saw her hands and thought with a clarity as simple as it was dazzling, 'These hands belong to me. These are my hands.'" That even with a "good" slave owner, there is nothing good in slavery. That the original sin of slavery lasts, perhaps even past death. Beloved is a great, if difficult, book. Brilliant. A classic. Right now.  [5★]