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50books_poc2007-09-13 01:06 pm
helens78) wrote in 50books_poc2007-09-13 01:06 pm
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4. Beloved by Toni Morrison
This is the first of my 50 books that isn't a re-read. I picked up Beloved by Toni Morrison a couple days ago at the library -- primarily because it's a modern classic, and I'd not ever read it, and can't remember having read anything else by Toni Morrison. I think I may have read The Bluest Eye at one point, but I honestly don't remember -- if so, it was so long ago that I don't remember any details about it.
Beloved is a slave narrative with a slight supernatural bent to it; there's a definite presence of ghosts/demons/haunting in it. At the same time, it almost seems wrong to classify it as a fantasy, because while ghosts may not be real, it's entirely possible that the people who lived at that time would have believed in them completely. The reality of the story is definitely up for debate.
This isn't the first slave narrative I've read (the first one was Octavia Butler's Kindred, which I remember thinking was the most difficult book I'd ever had to read, and one of the most powerful), but apparently it's one of the first to go into detail about sexual abuse and violence, things that were a universal part of slaves' experiences but had apparently not made it into print form before. Over the course of the story, I found myself wincing at things and recoiling from them, as if events like those couldn't happen to people -- but the worst part about a book like this is that the events in it, even if it's fiction, were very real to many people, that not only did things this bad happen, things even worse than this happened. Over and over and over. It's horrifying.
There's also a lot of moral squick to it in the sense that there's a particular slaveowner who's shown as being less evil than the typical ones of his day, who gives the slaves more freedoms -- and yet he's still a slaveowner, and people are willing to kill and die to get away from him. You see the sympathy and gratitude the slaves have toward this person and it's horrifying, too, because no, he was never a good person, never a good man, never someone to whom gratitude was actually owed -- and yet he's presented charitably through the eyes of former slaves because he was so much better than people who came before or after.
So yes, it's an incredibly powerful and important story to have out there, and a part of history that needs to be remembered, absolutely.
But...
I don't like the writing style in this book. I don't like the structure, I don't like the ratio of imagery/description to plot, I don't like the changing point of view, and I really don't like the way the transitions are handled (which is to say: very badly). I'm not saying I have issues with any story that contains flashbacks (what stories don't?), but if it's three pages and I'm wondering "wait, that guy's dead" and it still takes me several more paragraphs to realize I'm in a flashback? The transitions need work.
I'm pretty okay with universal POV stories; I don't mind the Sharpe books where a paragraph can be Sharpe and then some random page and then Sharpe again. I do mind when we're given a few pages from a random stranger's POV and yet it serves no purpose, reveals nothing about the characters being observed, etc. I don't like flitting randomly from third to first for a chapter for no discernible reason. I don't like it when books contain single sentences that go from present tense to past tense -- and this is the first book where I spotted three tense changes in a single sentence.
The hallmark of a well-written book, for me, is a strong narrative that carries you through without dropping you off to the side of the road. You can do all kinds of crazy stuff within that narrative, but you absolutely need to carry your readers along with you. Modern fiction fails spectacularly at this more often than not, and I think this is an excellent example of a book that fails. Unpleasant as it is to give such a negative review to the book itself, I have to say that while the story's an important one and a vital one, the writing fails to deliver. (I have no doubt there are many who would disagree; you're welcome to, although I hope you'll be polite about it!)
Beloved is a slave narrative with a slight supernatural bent to it; there's a definite presence of ghosts/demons/haunting in it. At the same time, it almost seems wrong to classify it as a fantasy, because while ghosts may not be real, it's entirely possible that the people who lived at that time would have believed in them completely. The reality of the story is definitely up for debate.
This isn't the first slave narrative I've read (the first one was Octavia Butler's Kindred, which I remember thinking was the most difficult book I'd ever had to read, and one of the most powerful), but apparently it's one of the first to go into detail about sexual abuse and violence, things that were a universal part of slaves' experiences but had apparently not made it into print form before. Over the course of the story, I found myself wincing at things and recoiling from them, as if events like those couldn't happen to people -- but the worst part about a book like this is that the events in it, even if it's fiction, were very real to many people, that not only did things this bad happen, things even worse than this happened. Over and over and over. It's horrifying.
There's also a lot of moral squick to it in the sense that there's a particular slaveowner who's shown as being less evil than the typical ones of his day, who gives the slaves more freedoms -- and yet he's still a slaveowner, and people are willing to kill and die to get away from him. You see the sympathy and gratitude the slaves have toward this person and it's horrifying, too, because no, he was never a good person, never a good man, never someone to whom gratitude was actually owed -- and yet he's presented charitably through the eyes of former slaves because he was so much better than people who came before or after.
So yes, it's an incredibly powerful and important story to have out there, and a part of history that needs to be remembered, absolutely.
But...
I don't like the writing style in this book. I don't like the structure, I don't like the ratio of imagery/description to plot, I don't like the changing point of view, and I really don't like the way the transitions are handled (which is to say: very badly). I'm not saying I have issues with any story that contains flashbacks (what stories don't?), but if it's three pages and I'm wondering "wait, that guy's dead" and it still takes me several more paragraphs to realize I'm in a flashback? The transitions need work.
I'm pretty okay with universal POV stories; I don't mind the Sharpe books where a paragraph can be Sharpe and then some random page and then Sharpe again. I do mind when we're given a few pages from a random stranger's POV and yet it serves no purpose, reveals nothing about the characters being observed, etc. I don't like flitting randomly from third to first for a chapter for no discernible reason. I don't like it when books contain single sentences that go from present tense to past tense -- and this is the first book where I spotted three tense changes in a single sentence.
The hallmark of a well-written book, for me, is a strong narrative that carries you through without dropping you off to the side of the road. You can do all kinds of crazy stuff within that narrative, but you absolutely need to carry your readers along with you. Modern fiction fails spectacularly at this more often than not, and I think this is an excellent example of a book that fails. Unpleasant as it is to give such a negative review to the book itself, I have to say that while the story's an important one and a vital one, the writing fails to deliver. (I have no doubt there are many who would disagree; you're welcome to, although I hope you'll be polite about it!)