DNF at 40%. This was my second attempt and I throw in the towel. Not a favorite Morrison.

I don't think I can say anything intelligent about this novel without a stronger background in women's & Black lit. There are many stylistic choices which gave me pause, whose purpose may be hidden to me by my capital-p privilege. I have foremost in mind the constant revision of established narrative, where we revisit the past from a new perspective and change, cloud, clarify our perception of particular events. Not to say that women's lit is the only tradition to capitalize on multiple points of view, but oral narratives, and the ways in which oral narratives alter our opinions about people & about the past, seem especially important to so many of the major works by women I've read.

If the canon, the written language, has been controlled by men, then spoken language, for women, must be a powerful antidote, especially at the moment when dialogue (understood not only as words between inverted commas but as the intermingling of worldviews & dialects) suffuses the novel.

Rather than press these clumsy fumblings any further, I'd rather unpack the words "challenge" and "difficulty," which I've seen many commenters use to describe their experience of reading this novel.

What is our physical and emotional response to a text which we -- later -- describe as challenging? Muscular tension. Sighs and furrowed brows if we're especially theatrical. Adjusting position in our chairs. We suddenly find ourselves uncomfortable. Our pleasure has been interrupted. If an unchallenging story is a clear, well-marked country lane, then a challenging work is a 5 o'clock cloverfield snarl. Our eyes, our thoughts, had been cruising along and then unexpected obstacles forced us to tamp down on the brake pedal. Though we may not experience the same sickening stomach plummet that accompanies an urgent application of brakes, there is still a kind of shock that follows the interruption of our readerly pleasure.

What do these obstacles consist of? Confusion: the inability to connect, associate, synthesize the present words with the previous words. Disappointment follows confusion, disappointment in ourselves to "live up" to the text. Or frustration, if we feel the text has played us unfairly, if we feel it has pretensions which don't merit our energy and time. In this regard, it threatens us, or at least our image of ourselves as intelligent readers.

Consider: the text and the reader integrate with each other under ordinary circumstances. When the story's humming along we don't think of it as an object, as a thing separate from ourselves. It's simply here, and here is where we are. The shock I described before can be said to be the shock a fish experiences when removed from water: the sudden realization of otherness, a thing other than ourselves whose pleasures we took for granted until this moment. Suddenly in our hands we find something strange and unfamiliar, a thing which threatens us, or at least our opinion of ourselves, and which, most shockingly, has been there all along!

For myself, I have found it useful when confused or frustrated by a text to plunge deeper into it. Often, the momentary confusion resolves itself a page or two later; the author intended the confusion in order to inspire a certain emotional response in one's reader. Occasionally, I have missed a fact as I read which caused me to misread successive sentences. I have also found myself treading water when confronted by an unfamiliar style, approach, worldview, which became familiar to me -- became 'easy' -- only after much exertion and patience.

In summary, the words "challenge" and "difficult" do not describe a text. They describe one's experience of the text. All texts are easy in that they comprehend themselves.

“They shoot the white girl first.”



Toni Morrison is one of my favourite authors of all time. I loved every single book of hers I ever read. So I was surprised, while reading this one, of finding myself less invested in it than I expected. Then I went to read other reader's reviews and apparently we all have mixed feelings about this one. I guess it's not one of her most beloved works - yes that was a pun - but a very good read nonetheless. I had some trouble keeping myself interested in some parts, while others were as beautiful as ever. So, overall, I think I just expected another favourite and end up with a very good read instead.

It's funny, I've tried to get many of my friends to read this book and they all start and then stop, while I've read it twice (I rarely read books more than once, even if I really like them).

I just loved the complexity of this non-linear book. Each chapter is devoted to the main women in the novel, including the town itself, Ruby. Ruby is an all-black town in OK, founded by freed slaves. This is a town that prides itself on its history and on its racial purity among other things. It is these beliefs that head the town toward the path of destruction when some women, who are not like the citizens of Ruby, move in to the convent on the outskirts of town.

I'll admit, the first few chapters left me wondering what was going on...how did it all connect. But I have found all of Morrison's novels to be difficult in the beginning, but I felt thoroughly rewarded by the end.

It seems sacrilegious not to like something by Toni Morrison, one of the big names of the 20th century in American lit. But I will remember nothing of this book in six months.

It's praised for its lyricism, its almost poetic quality. It's a meditation on a number of subjects.

Unfortunately, that rips the idea of story right out of the book and what we get is a whole lot of "telling" and philosophizing and precious little "showing," or story.

There are so many characters in the book, none of whom are fully realized, that it's all but impossible to make sense of the town's web of connections.

I love Morrison's early novels. I think The Bluest Eye is genius. But this one just doesn't work for me. One reviewer said it feels like jumping from James Joyce's Dubliners straight into Finnegan's Wake. That's a pretty accurate reflection of my reaction to reading this one.

Why did I read this book before reading Beloved and Jazz when it is supposed to complete the trilogy? I'm bummed by that. I couldn't help it, I found the book on my shelf and decided to read it along with The Bluest Eye. Then there I was, reading it and thinking, why was this book not titled, “Beware the Furrow of His Brow,” or “Furrow of His brow,” or, “The Oven?” I won’t spoil it, you will have to read it to see why I say that and you'll probably agree with me (I did hear though, that Toni Morrison wanted to call it, “War” but her editors disagreed).

The story. A group of people settle in Oklahoma during the 1950s, forming an all-black town they name Ruby—after one of the founders who died on the way when she was refused medical attention because of the color of her skin.

When it became clear she needed serious medical help, there was no way to provide it. They drove her to Demby, then further to Middleton. No colored people were allowed in the wards. No regular doctors would attend them. She had lost control, then consciousness by the time they got to the second hospital. She died on the waiting room bench while the nurse tried to find a doctor to examine her. When the brothers learned the nurse had been trying to reach a veterinarian, and they gathered their dead sister in their arms, their shoulders shook all the way home.

At first, Ruby was a conservative town, where the women wore no makeup and went to church regularly. Later, the town faced intergenerational issues: “young people were getting harder to identify and when friends or relatives visited Ruby, they did not always attend services, as people used to do.” Then in came a mansion-turned-convent that later became housing for women running away from all kinds of issues. Women the town considered wild women.

Oh my, change is hard sooo hard, what do we do about it, oh let’s go on a shooting spree? You get some idea about these men during their town meeting. They don’t like change, want things to remain the way they were decades before. But if their psychotic move had not been introduced at the beginning of the book (like Morrison does in her novels: announce what's going to happen and then tell you later) I would have been like, whaatt just happened? You don’t want people in your town so you come up with a plan to kill them off and hide the bodies? Ok, then.

Every single character had an issue in this book. I didn't mind it. Sure, you all have issues. I get you through your backstory and I empathize. At times. I really do. Then I forget about you once your other friends are introduced. Wait, there you are again, interacting with one of the other characters. But you still haven’t redeemed yourself. And then, whoosh, you’re smashed by yet another character and I’ve forgotten about you again: wait, remind me, what was your background again? Still no redemption?

This wasn’t as lyrical as The Bluest Eye, but the plot between backstory was amazing. I wanted more from the characters though. Examples: more of Consolata (the nun who has an affair with a married man), Billie Delia (the girl painted as the “wild one” because as a little girl, she wanted to ride a horse so badly, she dropped her panties and lifted her arms for an older man to help her on) and Mavis (the mother who kills her twins by leaving them unattended in a hot car). These characters all had jaw-dropping stories and it made you want to stay with them, hear their stories and see them move the plot forward through their narrations.

"But there was no pity here. Here, when the men spoke of the ruination that was upon them—how Ruby was changing in intolerable ways—they did not think to fix it by extending a hand in fellowship or love. They mapped defense instead and honed evidence for its need, till each piece fit an already polished groove."

One can perhaps encapsulate Paradise in a single sentence as "Everything that worries them must come from women." The novel's built upon conflicting binaries: men and women, tradition and modernity, past and future, limits and freedom. Biblical allusions abound. The first exodus out of Oklahoma to Haven to set up a new all-Black community in 1890, after getting shut out of opportunities and progress, rejected by prosperous towns & the lighter Blacks. The second exodus to Ruby in 1949, named for a woman who dies due to Jim Crow, after Haven fails. The Moses like figure of Big Daddy.

There is obsession over purity. Fifteen founding families but only nine of note, then eight, then seven. An obsession with colour, 8-rock Black, and censure for everyone who strays. Collective but hollow myth-making. It all comes back to the wayward women of the convent: "Not women locked safely away from men; but worse, women who chose themselves for company, which is to say not a convent but a coven." A few prominent men of Ruby don't like that, wherein lies the trouble. The novel has a very interesting structure, and the town is a character of its own. The last 50 pages or so are absolutely brilliant, just recast the rest of it so astoundingly.

Morrison is a CRAFTSWOMAN with words, and the beauty of her stories is insurmountable. Paradise is not an easy read, and has too many names and stories to follow at times, but every moment flows with the next in ways that are masterful.
The way that we attempt to find a paradise with those that are healed, rather than broken, can be harmful, and Paradise exemplifies this idea. Gather with the broken hearted, and your grievances shall be heard. Surrounding yourself with those that have stories that can intertwine with yours is better than attempting to assimilate to an unknown crowd.
Furthermore, Morrison hints at the dangers of isolation in Paradise, and does so in ways that invert her normal narratives.
Paradise may not be my favorite read of Morrison’s, but damn it was worth the week of tough reading and contemplation it took.

4-5 stars, somewhere in there idk.

Toni Morrison is the freaking GOAT. Some of her sentences are absolute scull crushers. Her books are some of the most challenging materials I’ve ever encountered, yet I can’t stop picking them up!!!

I loved the first half of this book, then hit a wall around page 200. I’m really glad I stuck with it though because the ending was incredibly unexpected and worth the buildup.

On to the next one... the year of Toni continues...

قبل از این کتاب سه اثر دیگه از موریسون خونده بودم و تقریبا با روال روایتیش اشنا بودم . اتفاق بزرگ پایانی بی این که خواننده شخصیت ها رو بشناسه یا از ماجرا خبر داشته باشه تو همون فصل اول تعریف میشه. بعد کم کم تو هر فصل شخصیت ها معرفی میشن و تیکه های پازل ماجرا کنار هم چیده میشن تا به اون اتفاق برسیم. به خاطر همین ترتیبه که هیجان و جذابیت داستان های موریسون بالاست. به خاطر روایت غیرخطیش ، خوندن داستان هاش کار چندان آسونی نیست ولی این پیچیدگی توی بهشت به اوج خودش رسید. هم تعداد شخصیت ها خیلی زیاد بود و هم ماجرایی که ازش صحبت می شد خیلی گسترده بود. خوندن بهشت با وجود همه هیجان و جذابیتش، کار بسیار بسیار سختی بود و جا داره که یک یا حتی دو بار دیگه بخونمش تا با اطمینان و دقت بیشتری تیکه های پازل داستانی رو کنار هم بچینم و شخصیت ها رو از هم تفکیک کنم

موریسون به روال همیشه سراغ سیاهپوستا رفته و از تاریخ خیالی گروهی از سیاهپوستا حرف میزنه که بعد از رانده شدن از جانب سفیدپوستا به نقطه ی دیگه ای مهاجرت کردند و شهری مخصوص خودشون بنا کردند. نسل خانواده ی سازنده ی شهر جایگاه بالایی بین مردم کسب می کنه و قرار بر این میشه تا هیچ سفیدپوستی به شهر راه نداشته باشه، ازدواج ها همه بین خودیا باشه، پاکی حرف اول رو بزنه. با گذر سال ها و تغییر نسل، ارزش ها تغییر کردند و شکاف عمیقی بین تفکرات نسل دوم و سوم ایجاد شده و مدینه ی فاضله ای که قرار بود جاودانه باشه با زوال آرمان های ابتداییش مواجه میشه. از طرفی کمی دورتر از این شهر ساختمان یک صومعه ی قدیمی هست که پناهگاه تعدادی زن بی پناه شده، زنانی که ازادی عملشون به مذاق مردان شهر خوش نمیاد و اون ها رو تهدیدی برای شهر شون - بهشتشون- می بینن و ادامه ی ماجرا

تعداد زیادی از ساکنان شهر نقش اصلی در پیشبرد قصه دارند و از طرفی هر یک از زنان ساکن صومعه هم برای خودشون گذشته ای دارن که اونها رو راهی این نقطه ی ناآشنای دوردست کرده، نقطه ای که فقط در ظاهر بهشت امنی برای اونهاست پس تعداد شخصیت ها و قصه های تکمیلی خیلی زیاده و روایت پیچیده و مبهم و غیرخطی موریسون هم فهم قصه رو سخت تر می کنه. یعنی برای شناخت یه شخصیت یا آگاهی از تک تک ماجراها گاهی باید تا اواخر کتاب صبوری کرد. موریسون ضمن روایتی که از حال و گذشته ی کاراکترها میده فلاش بک هایی هم به گذشته ی خیلی دور می زنه و تاریخچه ی بنای شهر رابی رو تعریف می کنه. با این که جامعه ای که موریسون تصویر می کنه هنوز درگیر جنگ برای حقوق اولیه و مبارزه علیه نژادپرستیه ولی موریسون به نقش زنان توجه ویژه ای داشته. تا اونجا که غیر از فصل اول که همنام با شهر "رابی" ه بقیه فصول به نام یکی از زنان صومعه یا شهره. زنان این داستان بیچاره اند، در جستجوی "عشق" هستند ، نه حقی دارند و نه حتی فکرش رو می کنند که می تونند حقی داشته باشند.

بهشت بعد از "دلبند" و" جاز" قسمت سوم از یک تریلوژی به قلم موریسونه که خوندنش هرچند سخت اما بسیار شیرینه . مفاهیمی که موریسون با این داستان نمادین به سراغشون رفته ارزش چند بار خونده شدن و تعمق رو داره

پ.ن: دنبال دختر سفیدپوستی که اول از همه تو حادثه ی تیراندازی کشته میشه نگردین. هیچ کس نمی دونه بین کانی ، سنه کا، پالاس ، ماویس و جیجی اون کیه

They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.

So, famously, begins Toni Morrison's Paradise.

But we never learn who the white girl is. Apparently, Morrison said she started with race, and then erased it by never identifying who the white one is. Does that bother you? she seems to ask implicitly. Does it unsettle you? Do you feel like you can't understand these characters unless you know which ones are white and which ones are black? Are you not sure which ones you're supposed to or allowed to identify with until you know their race?

In an interview, Morrison said of her decision to not identify the white girl, "Does it interfere with the story? Does it make you uncomfortable? Or do I succeed in making the characters so clear, their interior lives so distinctive, that you realize (a) it doesn't matter, and (b), more important, that when you know their race, it's the least amount of information to know about a person."

It's like Morrison is holding up a mirror and demanding you l0ok into it, and examine how important race is to you. It's more than a novel; it's a psychoanalysis of the reader.

I think I know who it might be, based on one line a character says to her, but I'm not going to say who it is, or look for more details. I think that defeats the whole point.

***

The writing in this book is nothing less than beautiful. Check this out: The venom is manageable now. Shooting the first woman (the white one) has clarified it like butter: the pure oil of hatred on top, its hardness stabilized below. Outside, the mist is waist high. It will turn silver soon and make grass rainbows low enough for children's play before the sun burns it off, exposing acres of bluestem and maybe witch tracks as well.

***

It's not magical realism in the overt way of, say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There's not explicitly magical, and there are arguably practical explanations for everything. But there's an element that everything is not all it seems, and that these somewhat plausible explanations aren't actually the answer.

It's often a little difficult to follow, intentionally so. Things are kept vague: one character, for instance, is described only as "him" and you're supposed to guess from context clues which character he is that you've already met. He happens to be an identical twin, one of the two leaders of the all-black community known as Ruby located a few miles from a haven for women known as the Convent (used to be nuns "saving" Native American girls and forcing them to be Christians, but now is just a place where a handful or two of women live together).

Point of view can be disorienting, too. There are chapters titled with names of women, either the ones in the Convent or in Ruby (i.e. Consolata, Pat, Seneca, Divine aka Pallas, Gigi) but that doesn't mean that character will be the primary point of view for that chapter.

I found Pat (a resident of Ruby) to be the most interesting character. She was the most challenging to those around her. She refused to hop on board the us/them mentality of the Ruby residents (for instance, light-skinned black residents of Ruby were discriminated against and considered racially impure--despite the fact that Ruby was founded to escape racism).

***

It's the women who make this book. The men manufacture divisions and hierarchies, and the women resist them and create communities. In this book, women are connecting with and supporting one another, in spite of themselves, in spite of all the reasons they have not to. Wives and mistresses, black and white, light-skinned and dark-skinned, outsider and insider. All of them defiant.



~~~~~~BOOK RIOT'S READ HARDER CHALLENGE~~~~~~

#13: An Oprah Book Club selection

Ruby. A utopia. A paradise created by some, for themselves.
A convent. Non-conformative and uninhibited. Created by some, for all

The hopes and dreams of the town's people of Ruby, their fears, and their purpose are all becoming tainted. But from what? Impure women or the transformation of the oppressed to the oppressor.?

This book really speaks to so many different aspects of the world landing it in my top two Morrison reads.

I don't think it's coincidence that the setting of this particular story is during the Civil Rights Movement era. Just as women are left out of the fight in "purifying" Ruby, they were also left out of the patriarchal movement for equality in the Black community. What men think and say, and how they plan and operate is no place for a woman's involvement. Females can fight for their own rights later. After the men.
This story seems to be a warning that any fight for equality can become repressive. Also, when women stand by quietly and believe that they are a threat to progress, destruction can and will occur to themselves, their families, and all of their surroundings.

This reoccurring idea of having a perfect Paradise not be tainted by impure and free thinking women, was actually undone by a bunch of male holy-rollers.
And we see, that in the end, the road to Paradise is narrow, but not insurmountable. Its's so simple, yet still very complex, just like this novel. From a very young age, I was taught that God is Love and love is the only true way to paradise. So love—hard and deep. Love those who look different than you and whose ways may differ from yours. Love those who don't know how to love themselves. Love yourself. That is true Paradise.