Rated 5.0 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
With books like these, there is no review, there’s just your experience reading it. It’s likely good in ways I’m not yet able to appreciate. I might never be able to. Morrison writes with such care and craft, thinks about the meaning and context of her language, her word choice, she layers meaning of the smallest details and does it so seemlessly that it will be obvious to those who are looking for such things and invisible to those who aren’t. It’s like magic, really. An illusion. Is this a description or a metaphor or a critique? All three? None above? Dealers choice. I read this book years ago, when I got into Morrison and went on a bit of a spree. My first book of hers was Jazz, back in early highschool, seven thousand years ago, and that the sweetness and beauty of Jazz must have cocooned me against the distress of the other novels I read after. I read this book, forgot about it ocmpletely then I saw a list of top ten most banned books in America in 2024. (List of 2025 isn’t yet out interestingly). And there it was, on a list of good but very bog standard YA titles like Perks of being a wallflower, not all boys are blue, Flamer etc. Somehow a Toni Morrisons book ended up number three, and the shock of seeing her there prompted me to read it again. I’m glad I did, probably. It’s a gorgeous piece, exceptionally distressing and brutal. Morrison, I believe, never pulled a punch in her whole goddamn life. Ten million-ten
