"How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it."

In the town of Ruby there have been no deaths. No murders, no rape, no excess violence. A town formed from dream; a continuation of a legacy and vision of the descendants of the founders of Haven. Haven was a town established by Black people recently emancipated, having been rejected for their race, dark skin colour, and class, through hard work and sacrifice. Therefore the people of Ruby, just like any society, have their origin story; a set of rules to administer it; and, naturally, their internal conflicts. But being the patriarchal society it is, the set of rules is administered by the male leaders of the town, and just like in all patriarchal societies, these rules are meant–among other things–to control women's bodies, and their sexualities as well.

So when a group of traumatized women seek refuge in the outskirts of the town, in what was a former school for Indian girls ran by nuns, their free lives, uncontrolled and unsupervised by men, draws the attention of the town. They become
both scapegoat and threat for and to the male leaders of Ruby, and eventually violence erupts.

This book was so good, so vast, and so difficult. The complexity of its structure; the many full formed characters that are hard to keep up with; the different ancestry lines explored; this book required effort. It took about halfway through the book for all that had been set to unspool itself, but I had complete trust in Toni Morrison and I can say that the trust and effort were certainly more than rewarded. This book felt similar to Song of Solomon in its language and how myth, the "unnatural", and the mysterious blend so richly into the narrative of the story.

Serpentine, slinky, and always on the move, this is a sort of miniature epic. With a huge sweep of time and geography, generations and characters, the single greatest underscoring I left with, from the many offered, is this—being a woman in a man’s world is a motherfucker. You fucking men make me sick.

It was nice to hear her voice - both Morrison's actual reading voice and her literary one - and I'd like to revisit this title in print form.

There are some other Toni Morrison books that I've not yet read that I want to get to.... But not too quickly. Since she passed away last summer, we know that there are no new Toni Morrison novels coming - unless there are some manuscripts squirreled away, yet to be released or discovered. So I'm trying not to rush through the rest of her work, but to space them out and relish each one.

SO SO SO GOOD. honestly i think my favorite toni morrison book that i've read. interwoven storylines, magical realism, found family--what more could one ask for?

Paradise (1998) was the first novel Mama Morrison published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. It completes her "Beloved trilogy" (as she herself called it) which also consists of Beloved (1987) and Jazz (1992). There is no obvious continuation of a story between the three books, however each of the three novels consolidates major historical landmarks in the African American experience and the difficult choices people have had to make to live through them: American slavery and the struggle to claim oneself in its immediate aftermath in Beloved; urban migration and the formation of (counter) modernity in Jazz; and western migration with its contrary aims of citizenship and utopian separatism in Paradise.

In the introduction, Morrison writes that by writing this novel she "needed 1) to examine the definition of paradise, 2) to delve into the power of colorism, 3) to dramatize the conflict between patriarchy and matriarchy, and 4) disrupt racial discourse altogether by signaling then erasing it." According to Morrison the idea of paradise is no longer imaginable or, rather, it is overimagined, which amounts to the same thing. Modern paradise has four of Milton's characteristics: beauty, plenty, rest, exclusivity. Eternity seems to be forsworn.

Paradise is structured into nine sections. The first is named "Ruby" after the town on which the book centers. The rest are named for women implicated variously in the life of the town and the Convent. The Convent women are Mavis, Grace (known as "Gigi"), Seneca, Divine (whose name is actually "Pallas"), and Consolata (also known as "Connie"). The Ruby Women – or children, in the case of Save-Marie – are Patricia and Lone. Though the chapters are named for specific characters, in telling their stories, Morrison tells the parallel histories of the town of Ruby and the Convent 17 miles south of it, and how the men of Ruby become intent on destroying the Convent women.

I didn't know much about the novel before jumping into it despite its iconic opening line and paragraph.It is an eery opening, one that will immediately put you on your toes. It almost feels Blockbuster-esque. This novel opens with nine men going in for the kill:

n  They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time. No need to hurry out here. They are seventeen miles from a town which has ninety miles between it and any other. Hiding places will be plentiful in the Convent, but there is time and the day has just begun.n

The killers are men who are prominent figures of Ruby, a purposefully isolated, peaceful all-Black town in Oklahoma with a population of 360 people – (white) outsiders are strictly excluded to the point where the town's leaders decide they must eliminate the nearby Convent which in fact is not a convent but rather a former embezzler's mansion now inhabited by a group of women with troubled pasts.

I often see parallels between Morrison's and Naylor's work and the women of the Convent as well as Paradise's narrative structure often reminded me of The Women of Brewster Place, one of my favorite novels. Though Morrison's work is A LOT harder to digest than Naylor's. I kid you not when I tell you that it took me two months (!) to finish this book, and I still can't wrap my head around it. Sure, I'm giving this novel a high rating because that's what all of Morrison's books deserve, but I wasn't able to make sense of this through my first reading of it. And that's perfectly fine. Morrison's book are like a 10-course-meal. It takes time and effort reading them, chewing on them. And Paradise (as all other Morrison novels) is a book I will need to reread time and time again in my life to try and get it. Morrison's books are among the most complex, intellectually challenging reads I've ever had the pleasure of discovering.

Before Ruby, there was Haven. Founded in Oklahoma in 1890, Haven was founded by a group containing nine complete families. Haven flourished for several decades before faltering in the post World War II period. Preferring to renew the mission begun by their forefathers of self-sufficient isolation from the outside world, in 1949 the twins Deacon and Steward Morgan lead a group of 15 families out of Haven to establish a new all-Black town. The men take "the Oven" (= a large and sturdy brick and iron Oven which was the first thing that was built in Haven) with them when they leave Haven at the expense of other supplies as a symbolic gesture. The new founded town is named "Ruby", after the younger sister of the Morgan twins who dies when she is repeatedly refused medical attention because of her race. The name of the town, therefore, belies the way in which it is founded out of the indignation of exclusion, and the inability of Black men to protect Black women in the outside world.

Though there are 15 founding families of Ruby, we learn that there are hierarchies. Of the 15 there were nine considered "racially pure", a number that has dwindled to seven. And the town also has a strongly patriarchal structure, despite claiming to "protect" its women.

At the point at which the book opens, there is great anxiety about Ruby's future. The town has seen increasingly open signs of division. Steward and Dovey Morgan have not been able to have children and Deek and Soane's sons die at war, leaving no Morgan heir to Ruby's leadership besides K.D. Smith, an often insolent young man who angers his uncles by spending time chasing after Gigi, one of the Convent women.

The Oven has been taken over as a hangout spot for local youth, and one day it is graffitied with a Black Power fist with red-painted nails. The elder generations believe that the young do not understand or respect Ruby's history, encapsulated in their desire to modify the slogan that appears on the Oven: though it now says only "… the Furrow of his Brow", the town elders claim it used to say "Beware" at the beginning, whereas the younger generation wishes to make it "Be the Furrow of his Brow".

The old men of Haven construct the Oven so that their women would not have to work in the homes of white families where their wives and daughters were subject to sexual abuse and mistreatment. Their preferred slogan – "Beware the Furrow of his Brow" – is a warning to always keep in mind the judgement of God, while the vast majority of the younger generations of Ruby believe that the words on the Oven are and always were "Be the furrow of his brow" which lends itself to a far more aspirational interpretation as an encouragement to attempt to live your life as if you are a part of God. The younger generation's take on the slogan can also be interpreted as more is more daring and rebellious, they ask for action – and they're not afraid to spark disapproval, even if it's God's. I found this generational struggle to be one of the most interesting aspects of this novel. Here we have this clash between a more backwards-facing older generation and a younger generation who is ready to tackle their own future and take matters into their own hands.

Finally, the town is scandalized when the Convent women make a rowdy appearance at K.D. and Arnette's wedding, a wedding partly intended to ease the conflict between the Morgan and Fleetwood families and to conceal Arnette's earlier aborted pregnancy by K.D.

Eventually, after a series of selectively interpreted "signs", and based on the perception that the Convent is corrupting the town with its amorality and purported witchcraft, Sergeant Person, Wisdom Poole, Arnold and Jeff Fleetwood, Harper and Menus Jury, Steward and Deacon Morgan, and K.D. Smith decide during a meeting at the Oven to destroy the Convent and kill its women.

n  Bodacious black Eves unredeemed by Mary, they are like panicked does leaping toward a sun that has finished burning off the mist and now pours its holy oil over the hides of game.
God at their side, the men take aim. For Ruby.n

The women came to the Convent by accident, in flight from fraught lives (and abusive husbands and dead babies; parental betrayal or neglect; abandonment by lovers and violent pasts), but one by one they were drawn into staying permanently. The first was Mavis; Gigi, Seneca, and Pallas then followed. They did not all get along – Mavis and Gigi in particular often clashed. However, they seemed to find in the Convent an escape from troubled circumstances (often related to men) where they were listened to and cared for without judgment. Throughout the novel, the women of the Convent provided a safe haven for all those who came to its doorstep. However, they were perceived as a corrupting influence – the men of Ruby were both frightened and disgusted by the idea of women who do not need – and, in fact, actually, shun – men. It is a frightening ending, but one that seems, unfortunately, realistic.

In the end, they are successful in shooting the women on sight. Since they have killed one white woman everyone fears the white law they presume will be involved now. However, when Roger Best arrives to bury the bodies, he finds nothing – no sign of a fight, no sign of murder, no sign of any woman whatsoever. The absence of any body spares the town the attention of white law enforcement. However, though he bodies themselves might have disappeared, the ramifications of the attack are evident in the town. Menus succumbs to his renewed alcoholism. Deek is unusually troubled and goes to the Reverend Richard Misner for spiritual assistance. K.D. and Arnette continue to build their family and look forward to assuming a position in town where they can make life difficult for K.D.'s critics.

Most of all, there is a sensation that the deal brokered by Ruby's founders with God is broken and that death has finally arrived in town: the last chapter takes place at the funeral of Save-Marie, one of Jeff and Sweetie Fleetwood's disabled children. The town remains divided, but Richard Misner decides to stay, in part because he feels he can be useful in this flawed town where change and forces of the outside world must inevitably arrive.

However, this wouldn't be a Morrison novel, if she didn't immortalise these women in some way and gave them their due. In hauntingly beautiful closing passages each woman reappears. They appear suddenly and surprisingly to figures from their past. Finally, Connie rests her head in the lap of an older woman from her past, Piedade, who sings to her as they face the ocean in a place called "Paradise."

[If you haven't watched the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, do yourself a favor and find it somewhere.]

The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup, I say a little prayer for you--but more on that in a moment. Reading this after reading The Bluest Eye is probably like reading Dubliners and then following it with Finnegans Wake. Well, maybe not quite (I wouldn't know as I haven't read either one), but this one is definitely much denser than The Bluest Eye and has a cast of characters as large as the Bible. It's not something you read with the TV on in the background, or while having a conversation with your spouse.

Not unmanageable, and certainly not unenjoyable (there's a wedding scene that is simply mesmerizing, or should I say Divine, hence the song from My Best Friend's Wedding, you know where Julia Roberts sits annoyed and horrified as the whole family breaks into song). I would compare it to one of those jigsaw puzzles where the main image, on closer inspection, is composed of hundreds of smaller images. Despite it being divided into sections based on characters, you don't get a single character's whole story in their section. Just keep on reading.

Typical Morrison. 1. Sexism/colorism in historical context. 2. Folk/new-age religiosity. 3. More style/devices than narrative/characters.

in 2017, it was the year of virginia woolf. in 2018, it was the year of marcel proust. in 2019, it will be the year of the female nobel prize laureates. hurrah!

AUGUST: toni morrison (1993 winner, two years after the last female winner, because "[in her novels], characterized by visionary force and poetic import, [she] gives life to an essential aspect of American reality".

in an unexpected turn of events, this month became not only an opportunity to celebrate her nobel win but her entire career. unsurprisingly, this novel had that mixture of harrowing and beautiful honesty that will guarantee, just like with Beloved, it will stay with me for a long time.

for this book, i should have done what i did when reading One Hundred Years of Solitude: make my own family tree and quick note with the character personae. similarly to márquez' novel, this story deals with the complete story of an entire town, its families' families and inter-relationships. that is to say, there are a lot of names here. a little assistance at keeping track of every new character would not go amiss here.

it takes some skill to write a story about hopelessness and finding hope in the end. about trying to get away from the evilness in the world, having that dark stain seep into your world nevertheless, and finding the joy in dancing under the rain. i find it best to get into this novel as blind as possible; your stomach might churn from it at the beginning, but it will pay off as you allow morrison's plot to slowly unravel in front of you. did i say "some skill"? i meant a whole world of abilities, all encapsullated into a single woman. just sit back and let her do her job.

I picked this book up at a Friends of the Library sale and didn't give it much thought... It was a mild read, somewhat sad, somewhat rich.
I actually finished the book a week ago and the last chapter has got me still milling over whether I think it's a masterpiece or a flop. Any book that still has me thinking a week later should probably get more than 3 stars.. I might just re-read that last chapter and see if I get it this time.

This was a challenging book to read but I found it fascinating and hard to put down. A creative way to tell a story about the mistreatment of women, feminism/sisterhood, and patriarchy in a all-Black community. I like how Morrison wrote each chapter introducing a new main character and bringing pieces of the story. It was not until I got to Patricia's chapter that things started coming together. Only a genius could write in this way and pull it off. It is very well written, I may have to read this one again to appreciate it even more.

Audible version. What a gift to hear Toni Morrison give voice to her work! I believe I will go through her entire catalog this way. Paradise is a monumental work. It is about a collection of African-American families who set off to create their own town, free from the outside world and white influence/prejudice. The narrative includes the migration and what embarking on the journey would entail.

The story kicks off with an act of terror and violence. We then go back to the beginning to see what leads to this attack. The cast is vast. Over fifty characters from nine different families and a few outsiders. Eighty percent of the book I would give 4.5 stars and it kept me interested, but there was 20 percent that was just too much back story and/or too much detail into family tree/genealogy leading me to 3 stars for those sections.

I think I would have had a better experience listening or reading over the summer when I could give my full attention to all the details and subplots. I was genuinely invested in many of the storylines. There is a powerful theme thread throughout the narrative of a group of people creating their own Paradise, their own Garden of Eden. But like Adam and Eve, there is a fall from grace. By the time we return to the terror and violence it is even more horrific and tragic because we intimately know the individuals involved.

Toni Morrison’s work often has a small element of magical realism, and it is evident here, especially at the end. I absolutely love how the last word or phrase are the title of the novel.

This book was selected by one of my professors, an expert in African American literature who has published a couple of books of his own, for a 400-level college lit class.

On the first day that we started this book, he walked in, sat it down on the table in front of him, and said, "I hadn't read this book in a while. I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. I don't think I do."

A week later, I knew I didn't.

Morrison has long been lauded for her evocative lyricism, but here more so than in her other novels it seems like she is just too in love with her own language. There is one passage in particular regarding a pair of hyper-sexualized rocks in the desert that, though beautifully wrought, is largely unsubstantial. And what a trick to play on the reader, when it is revealed that the rocks she had just spent so much time and effort describing didn't even exist.

In addition, Morrison doesn't always seem concerned with whether or not the readers can follow the story. She often eschews characters' names in favor of "she" and other times refers to them by nicknames or other identifiers. Given that she is using an omniscient point-of-view, this can create a lot of problems. In one section for example, one of the girls is alone in the convent for the first time, but the narrator is giving historical information about the house that the girl couldn't possibly know.

I think there is a foundation for a good book here, but it needed more editing.