"Beloved" by Toni Morrison

 

 I finally read Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved," after picking it for my book club, having meant to read it for years. 

Ink will forever be spilled on this masterwork, and rightfully so. "Beloved" is the great American novel. Far too much to be placed into genre, this novel of the trauma of slavery in the American experience, is one of the most intense, heartbreaking, thought-provoking pieces of literature you will ever read. And one of the most difficult, and rewarding. 

 The story of Sethe, her daughters Denver and Beloved, sons Howard and Buglar; her mother-in-law Baby Suggs and Paul D, "Beloved" rightly stands as one of the major novels of the last century. The questions Morrison explores-- of personhood and freedom and hope and despair-- come from the America in which it is placed, and follow us to this day. And a great many smarter than I have written about them. The horrifying circumstances these characters went through were the real life, lived experiences of an untold number of people, and the devastation left with the reader cannot begin to comprehend what life was like for people in these situations. 

"Beloved" is also one of the most expertly written, and beautiful books I have ever read. In the later half of the novel, there is a section of several chapters told in the first person from Sethe's, Denver's and then Beloved's point of view, and how perfectly Morrison brings each of their voices out-- as well as the combined experience of all those who have come before them-- is heartbreaking, brilliant and they will take you breath away. 

  In the final chapter, our narrator repeats, and repeats again, "This is not a story to pass on." No one today living can say,  with any certainty, what art will survive hundreds of years into the future. But long after those of us alive when Morrison published "Beloved" have gone, and our customs and dress and habits are looked at as the dusty foreign things last in time, this novel will be read. And remembered.