Ganz unfassbar unglaublich gut, ganz und gar überragend perfekt, hoffe ich sehr, dass ich dieses Wunder einmal besprechen kann, weil ich gerne in das Lied einstimmen möchte, das Lied zu Ehren Pilates, Macons, Sings, das Lied der Geschichte einer schwarzen Familie, die schon "Dead" und für die aktuelle Generation kaum greifbar ist und doch so weit zurückgreift und tief verwurzelt ist.
Und diese Szenen, die Morrison entwirft, diese Szenen, heilig's Blechle, da zerfließt du beim Lesen wie ein Stückerl Butter im angewärmten Gugelhupf und legst dich sanft in die Schönheit der Form.

“The fathers may soar
And the children may know their names”
~ Epigraph, ‘Song Of Solomon’

When you open a novel by Toni Morrison you know you will be transported to a world of her own unique invention. You will be asked to suspend logic. You will be hypnotized by remarkable prose. You will gape and squirm. “Milkman” Dead. Not Doctor Street. A man with purple wings. A woman with no navel. The Seven Days of an eye for an eye. Ghosts and gold and murder. A story about flight (both mystical and real), obsession, family and mercy told through the life journey of Macon Dead, III. This book is intense and often uncomfortable, so I recommend reading it in small doses. And be patient - the title won’t make sense until the second half. This is my second novel by Toni Morrison, and I found it as deep and enriching as her Pulitzer Prize winner ‘Beloved’ - but neither book is an easy or fast read. Her symbolism and intelligence will put your brain to work. 4.5 stars.

Toni never misses. I’m not sure what to say about this one except that everyone should read it.

It occurred to her that although men fucked armless women, one-legged women, hunchbacks and blind women, drunken women, razor-toting women, midgets, small children, convicts, boys, sheep, dogs, goats, liver, each other, and even certain species of plants, they were terrified of fucking her—a woman with no navel.

I can’t do this to myself anymore. I am leaving prematurely never to return to Toni Morrison.

Like with some men that represent everything I don’t want in a mate, this book has everything I don’t want in a book.

I don’t like when the author tells me exactly how the characters feel, why they feel the way they feel and how the way they feel makes them do the things they do.

I hate it that everyone has a crazy name and a crazy story to match.

I hate when writing is about appearances and not about introspection.

I hate it when I see falsity and pretense creep up amidst the words.

I hated this book.

I can’t wait to go back to Ferrante and be in love again.

I listened to the Literacy Partners Thanksgiving weekend reading of Song of Solomon by various authors. It was awesome, wonderful, excellent, fabulous, overwhelming, uplifting, exhilarating, and finally a terrific reading.

The Dead family is a history of Black rage, love, family, friendship, money, status, and secrets. The story will leave you in awe. Below is a list of authors who were honored to read Song of Solomon for Literacy Partners:

YAA Gyasi
Edwidge Danticat
Tayari Jones
Jacquelin Woodson
Jason Reynolds
Jesmyn Ward
Lorrie Moore
Brit Bennett
Hilton Als
Ocean Vuong
Tommy Orange
Robin Coste Lewis
Jennifer Egan
Margaret Atwood
Louise Erdrich

Quotes:

you want to be a whole man, you have to deal with the whole truth

let me tell you about some other stuff you not gon' have

When you know your name, you should hold onto it

Απλά αριστούργημα.. ❤️

Note:

This book was included in “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”

I own the 2006 edition of “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.” Peter Boxall is the general editor and the preface was written by Peter Ackroyd. This book has compiled 1001 recommended books, primarily novels which were selected by over 100 contributors (literary critics, professors of literature, etc.). For each recommended book there is information on the author and a short blurb about the book.

I use "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" for reference.

The book that showed me what literature could be. Led me to a never ending path of reading for life

One of my absolute favorites, partly for the following:

"You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? he can't value you more than you value yourself."

Song of Solomon is a gorgeous work of fiction and a masterpiece of storytelling. Not as dark as her first two books, The Bluest Eye, Sula, it is more upbeat, but every bit as complex and rewarding. The leitmotif here is the stripping of layers from childhood mythology to reality as Milkman, the protagonist goes on a psychological journey to discover himself and understand where his family came from.

The story takes place in an unnamed town (probably Marquette) in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as we learn from the first sentence:
The North Caroline Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o'clock. (p. 3) This motif of flight is embedded in the stories of several of Milkman's ancestors and in the final scene of the book as well, so it is a clever foreshadowing of what is to come and occurs precisely the day that Milkman is born. Ruth and Macon are a rather unhappy couple: she is eccentric and nagging, he is overbearing and severe. Their children Magdelena called Lena and Corinthians (chosen at random by opening a Bible) and later Milkman (a nickname he earns because his mother nurses him way past his weaning and is caught in the act by the village gossip, Freddie.) She walks down to the shore of the lake and gets some driftwood which she uses to decorate the table which is ignored by her husband.
Ruth let the seawood disintegrate, and later, when its veins and stems dropped and curled into brown scabs on the table, she removed the bowl and brushed away the scabs. But the water mark, hidden by the bowl all these years, was exposed. (p. 12) This is a beautiful metaphor for the rot at the heart of their relationship.

On the less privileged side of town (because Macon is rather well-off, living off of the rent of several buildings in various parts of the city), lives Pilate, her daughter Reba, and her daughter Hagar. Milkman ignores a restriction from visiting the house and meets his aunt, eventually having a long-term relationship with his cousin, Hagar. The house, for a time is a haven for him:
Near the window, hidden by the dark, he felt the irritability of the day drain from him and relished the effortless beauty of the women singing in the candlelight. (p. 29)

There is another incident from Milkman's childhood that has echoes later in his life: during a trip in the car to visit some property that his father wants to buy, Milkman needs to pee really bad, obliging his father to stop the car. Unfortunately, he is a bit maladroit and ends up peeing on his sister Magdalene's dress: He didn't mean it. It happened before he was through...It was becoming a habit-this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had. (p. 35). And indeed, this lack of future drives Milkman throughout the book.

Milkman's family name, Dead is also highly symbolic and the result of a mistake at the Freedman's Bureau following the Civil War.
"Say, you know how my old man's daddy got his name?"
"Uh uh. How?"
"Cracker gave it to him."
"Sho 'nough?"
"Yep. And he took it. Like a fuckin sheep. Somebody should have shot him."
"What for? He was already Dead." (p. 89). That is one of the typical dialogs betweem Milkman and his best friend Guitar. The book does educate on various aspects of life for ex-slaces, how they got their names, the dangers of moving north and the racism they encountered there.

The action in the novel picks up when Milkman breaks up with Hagar sending her into a murderous, self-destructive rage. We also learn of Guitar's involvement with an underground circle of men that take revenge for murders of black people by white vigilantes who get away with it (in otherwords, all of them). The book at this point (after page 99) is a real page-turner as Milkman learns more and more about his past, Hagar slips further and further into insanity, and Guitar turns on his friend also in a homicidal rage over a misunderstanding.

The book has some great opening lines for chapters, my favorite was this one for Chapter 7: Truly landlocked people know they are. Know the occasional Bitter Creek or Powder River that runs through Wyoming; the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, and beach because they cannot claim a coast. And, having none, seldom dream of flight. (p. 162)
And this dreamy one from Chapter 10:
When Hansel and Gretel stood in the forest and saw the house in the clearing before them, the little hairs at the nape of their necks must have shivered. (p. 221)

Overall, the book is wonderfully built and narrated and a true pleasure to read (particularly after about page 100 when it speeds up to a frenetic pace.) I found it to be my fourth favorite Morrison novel in fact (after Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Tar Baby.)
As fleet and bright as a lodestar he wheeled toward Guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in the killing arms of his brother. For now he knew what Shalimar knew: if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. (p. 337)

Fino's Toni Morrison Reviews:
The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song Of Solomon
Tar Baby
Beloved
Jazz
Paradise

Another favorite novel.

Read about Milkman Dead's journey- part cultural and part self-discovery. It is a magical and engrossing tale that uses folklore, symbols, imagery, foreshadowing, allusions, and ultimately irony to tell it (I felt as if I were at Milkman's side when he decoded a telling children's jingle).

The ending may leave some frustrated but I thought it was just right. I also recommend Toni Morrison's "Beloved." It is a darker tale but shares the same phenomenal story telling of this book.

This book takes me back to my college English classes, when I read so many books that were rich in beautiful language but poor in plot and action. There's no doubt that Morrison is a gifted writer, especially when it comes to down-to-earth, authentic dialogue. Her writing is poetic and lyrical without being abstract or fussy -- she describes real things, disgusting things, sadness and passion with an intense energy and verbal power.

But the plot of this book didn't grab me. I remember enjoying The Bluest Eye more and feel like that book had more direction and focus. Song of Solomon, on the other hand, didn't move very much, or very fast. I didn't connect with any of the characters in the book, so all of their actions seemed hollow and arbitrary; I didn't feel that familiar emotional tug when good or bad things happened to them. It read to me more like a vignette of black life in 1940s America rather than a full-fledged novel, with all the moving parts and psychological complexity that a novel entails.

I always feel a bit guilty and apprehensive when I don't like a major classic as much as other readers do, or as much as I've been led to believe I should, because it makes me wonder if I missed something or wasn't being fair to the book. But I can only honestly report what I felt while reading, which in this case is: lovely language; boring story.