n  The fathers may soar...
And the children may know their names...n

What a book! What an incredible journey! I cannot possibly review this book; it has me completely speechless! What a pleasure to partake in Milkman's journey, to be introduced to characters like Pilate, and to be reminded that one can fly if only one tries enough! This is my first African American and Morrison novel, and I'm so glad we'll be doing her next semester! Ecstatic and eager to fish out gems from this novel! Only hope the instructor doesn't take the fun away. :

n  O Sugarman done fly away...
Sugarman done gone...
Sugarman cut across the sky...
Sugarman gone home...n

As good as I thought it would be! Every word and detail was chosen by a legendary writer.

**In these brief moments I have of electricity and internet, through this Irma craze, I present my reading thoughts...**

“Fly and mercy,” Toni Morrison writes in the foreword of this book. “Both terms are central to the narrative: flight as escape or confrontation; mercy the unspoken wish of the novel’s population.”

Flight as a theme was abundantly clear to me at first read: Pilate, the shunned woman without a navel, who uses flight as a means of survival; Macon Dead, her money-conscious brother who uses flight to get richer; Macon Dead Jr., or Milkman, his son, whose flight is a symbol of all things strange and redeeming; Hagar, Pilate’s daughter who flies by night to hunt the man she loves, the one she thinks belongs to her.

Wings take one out of unfortunate circumstances. Wings take one to unseen heights. Careful, wings also take one to unforeseen places. Fly little bird, fly away, like Solomon, the slave who set generations free.

In true Morrison style, the language is powerful and packs an emotional punch. There were moments of sheer delight while I read some phrases, moments when I stopped to ponder how Toni Morrision strings together words, how she elevates the language of the streets. Her dialogue dazzles and pulls me into the pockets of stories within stories. And there are also moments when the stories grow strangely dark and mythical, when prose takes poetic shape and dialogue shifts into weird, secret spaces, like the dark cave of bones and gold that both eludes and follows Pilate and Milkman. A Morrison book is like none other, this is for sure.
n  n   

You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There’re five or six kinds of black. Some silly, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don’t stay still. It moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.

n  n
Later, the trajectory of mercy reveals itself in ungainly terms. Is there any mercy for these characters? There are certainly pleas for mercy, cries of help that are ignored for ages, rage which stems from ignored pleas. There are moments when mercy is badly needed to fix things, and yet, she too, takes flight. Mercy, the perished cry. But Mercy has vanished.

Milkman's father, the man with the weird name and mysterious past, teaches his son to 'own things'. His sister is 'wild', she inhabits the opposite pole. Ownership does not occur to her. When a kind woman brings her cherry jam on white bread, she weeps because the fruit she loves for the taste of sun and earth exploding, the feel of stalk and stone and bark-scraped knees, has lost these elements that forge the relationships between self and world and being that have nothing to do with property, lines of nourishment and communication. Lost those routes to ecstasy, and been, in a way, poisoned by sugar, the white addiction for which women and men were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic to cut cane in stolen fields.

Own things! But Milkman has always had pleasant things for his use, unlike his friend Guitar, who longs for them. Instead of such things, he yearns for freedom of movement; for cars and trains and boats to carry him away, and for power over people. Both of them know they can seek these ends through money. Their desire burns so brightly they forget to be just, to be kind.

In Toni Morrison's books pain is powerful and histories bend hearts. What grows must grow from poisoned soil, reaching for healing in the sun if it can. She peels back skin to show us the potentialities lurking in the root. What will flower out of this? What will fruit? Like slow saplings or sudden briars the shoots of her stories unwind, organic, uncontrollable, smelling of the earth, rank and sweet.

I love this as a story of love both destructive and creative and for its mood and structure, cyclic and fluid rather than linear and climactic. I noticed that action initiated by men is often diffused by women, and when this does not happen there is a dangerous escalation of physical or emotional violence, though this is a severe simplification. The atmosphere reminded me very much of Katharine Mansfield's stories.

This tale is sometimes like a mystery, signed with foreshadowings, flavoured with interludes of anguished self-reflection, male psyches working their half-conscious preoccupations, changing in the unexpected light of their encounters. That Milkman's materialist quest leads him to its spiritual pretext is a fabular gift; how often is someone lucky enough to find what they need when they pursue what they want? Can I allow myself to believe that this doesn't only happen in tales?

Mystery, fable, and also ghost story, for here the dead speak. Morrison tells us in the foreword that it was inspired by her own dead father's unexpectedly active presence in her life. She invites us to hear our dead, and work to fathom their words, however strange.

xxxxx

"Karanlığın tek renk olduğunu düşünürsünüz ama değildir. Beş altı çeşit karanlık vardır. Bazıları ipek gibidir, bazıları yünlü."

Toni Morrison külliyatını artık bu sene tamamlamaya niyet ettiğim ve Sevilen üçlemesini sona bıraktığım için elimde kalan az sayıda kitaptan biri olan Süleyman'ın Şarkısı'na vardı yolum. Yazarın En Mavi Göz ve Sula'dan sonra yayımlanan üçüncü romanı bu. Babasının ölümünün ardından kaleme almış ve yazdığı şahane önsözde bu kitapta bilinçli olarak dişil bir odaktan eril bir odağa kaydığını ve babasının anısına yazdığı için erkek bir ana karakteri anlatmayı seçtiğini söylüyor.

Mevzubahis karakter, kitap boyunca Sütçlü lakabıyla anılan Macon Ölü isimli bir siyah adam. Kitaptaki tüm isimler böyle tuhaf, neden böyle garip isimlere sahip olduklarını anlatı ilerledikçe öğreniyoruz. Bolca İncil göndermesi (kitabın ismi başta olmak üzere - Ezgiler Ezgisi diye de bilinen Song of Solomon'dan geliyor isim) ve çok sayıda mitolojik gönderme de var; kimileri daha görünür (mesela Kirke karakteri), kimileriyse daha örtülü. Örneğin metnin bir uçma hikayesiyle başlaması elbette Uçan Afrikalılar efsanesine referans ama aynı zamanda İkarus'u, Sütçü'nün geçmişini ve kökenini keşfetmek için atalarının peşinde yaptığı yolculuk da Orpheus'un ölüler diyarını ziyaret edişini düşündürüyor.

Dolayısıyla epey alegorik bir metin, ne kadarını anlayabildiğimden emin değilim ama anladığım kadarını da çok sevdiğimi söyleyebilirim. Morrison her ne kadar eril odağa kaydıysa da bence kitabın en akılda kalıcı karakterleri yine kadınlar: Pilatus, Ruth, Kirke ve Hagar çok iyi yazılmış, çok iyi anlatılmış ve hikayeleri insanın yüreğine işleyen kadınlar.

Aidiyetlerimizi ne belirler sorusu etrafında ustalıkla gezinen, ırk ve sınıf kavramlarını her zaman olduğu gibi didik didik eden bir Morrison romanı. Elbette yine büyülü gerçekçiliğe göz kırpan pasajlar, metnin doğal birer parçasına dönüşüp anlatıyı zenginleştiren mistik kısımlar da var. Dili yine ve yine çok çok lezzetli, kitabın çevirisi de ayrıca müthiş. Hem epik, hem lirik, anlatması güç ve çok da sürükleyici bir metin; ancak okuyup deneyimleyerek tadına varılabilecek kitaplardan.

For years I have heard Morrison's name float around, all the praises of how she approaches important social issues through a historical lens and I was so excited when I finally got my hands on this book.Following a black middle-class family through a pivotal moment in America history, we zoom in and explore the complex interactions with each other and the community. Through the last born's perspective, the reader uncovers some dark unsettling secrets that have haunted the family for generations and we witness as he comes to terms with the harsh realities of being a young black man in the early 1900s America.

n  n    “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.”n  n

The book was ever so engaging, I can definitely see why Morrison has such a cult following, her approach to stories is a balance between humorous and depth... Her poetic prose brought the characters to life, giving them a voice and a distinct personality, also capturing the small southern town atmosphere and family dynamics. The narrative also felt fresh as we focus on a black middle-class family owning property in that period of history, leading to a thorough discussion about the class difference within the African American community. The awareness of the main character's privileged life shapes him into a more contemplative person adding a genuine feel to his interactions with his family and other members of the community.

n  n    “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” n  n

n  n

  This story was emotional, certain scenes and taboo topics were weaved into the narrative, yes at first I didn't quite understand what was happening as she tends to switch perspectives without alerting the reader but as the story progressed it felt more concrete and insightful. This wasn't just another book that tackles race (yes it talks about it) but it expands the lenses, showcasing the loss of naivety as some of the children cross that threshold of innocence to facing reality and coming to terms with the brutality of the decaying social system, mental illness, how our current choices can impact the coming generation... As I said a refreshing experience. One aspect that bothered me was the portrayal of some of the female characters, it felt a bit outlandish, they came off as these sex hungry beings it that propel the male character's story arc move forward. Yes, some women were strong but I wish they were well developed or grew at the same rate as the male characters.  I have heard that her other books are even better and I can't wait to visit them in the near future but if you are looking for a lyrical complex southern story I highly recommend this one.

n  n    “Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?” n  n

Thank you for reading

I may come back to this someday but I am very much not in the mood right now for a book this dense, odd and meandering, where all the characters have strange names like Milkman, Guitar and Pilate, and the book seems to be reaching for "clever" as opposed to engaging or interesting.

I loved Sula and The Bluest Eye. It's been too long for me to recall Beloved, but I do remember liking it. This one had my eyes glazing over.

Macon "Milkman" Dead (III.) isn't the most lovable main character one could encounter once he has grown into an adult, to say the least. Most of the other characters around him aren't, either, though, which Milkman feels keenly but never is interested in the why until very late in the book.
His only real friend Guitar is the one to get him into contact with his ousted aunt, his father's younger sister, and her daughter and granddaughter. And only there does he first hear about the history of his family before him being born as the son of a well-off property owner. From then on things around him seem to crumble and reveal new aspects of the world around him - some of the secrets confided to the unwilling Milkman are unpleasant and disturbing, and the feeling of being pushed about by others like a tool is what drives him on a wild goose chaise for gold and into the real past of his family, though away from his only friend. It all ends in a climax which leaves the reader speechless.

Along the lifeline of Milkman many subjects of Black American history are touched and discussed through various characters: the end of slavery (which didn't stop the discrimination and violence), the rise of a black middle class, the fight for equality in the middle of the twentieth century.
And along the traces of his family history, Milkman develops from a self-centered, aimless "crown prince" into a responsible adult able to recognize his own shortcomings.

The song of Solomon is weaved into the whole story, and turns up many times without the reader (or the characters) knowing the meaning. In the end, it is the answer to the riddle, though.

Morrison is known for her fragmented stories centered around women; this novel, her third, has a male protagonist and a linear narrative, but it retained all her usual mythical and magical realism elements. This complex, kaleidoscopic story tackles African-American identity and the relationship among African-Americans, as well as between black and white communities, and it is one of the richest works I've read from her yet. Song of Solomon begins and ends with a leap, an attempt to take flight—and the story that unfurls between these two acts of surrender takes wing slowly, but deliberately.

n  "Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."n

Song of Solomon is a sprawling Bildungsroman that covers about thirty years in the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead Jr., the Midwestern son of a wealthy black property owner, who has been brought up to revere the white world. While his best friend joins a terrorist group to fight against white people's tyranny, Milkman is more interested in escaping from under his oppressive father's wing, and embarks on a journey to the South in search of buried treasure, but ends up uncovering his family's history instead.

Despite the unusually straight-forward narrative, this novel still requires a patient and attentive reader, and I don't pretend to have grasped all of the story's layers. As I've come to expect from Morrison, her cultural insight is impeccable, and the writing as lyrical, powerful, and evocative as ever, but I wasn't as moved by this story as I have been by her other novels; a lot of it comes down to the choice of protagonist. I couldn’t bring myself to care for Milkman, and was instead most fascinated by the female supporting characters, whose trapped, misunderstood existence appears to consist in nurturing and supporting him, all while being met with ingratitude or scorn. I am torn between three and four stars; the former reflects my reading enjoyment, the latter its undeniable literary merit. I am choosing to round up because of the deep impression some passages left; particularly this one:

n  "You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right—that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong'. Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don’t wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. 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."n

bitirip uzun uzun düşündüm bu roman hakkında. toni morrison’ın bence çok daha iyi romanları var evet ama bir yandan da babasının ölümünden sonra yazdığı ve bunu da önsözde çok güzel anlattığı için kıyamıyorum.
baba ölümü sonrası kök bulmaya çalışma, kim olduğunu araştırma, adının soyadının peşine düşme çok anlaşılır şeyler. toni de babasını kaybettikten sonra ilk kez erkek kahramanın olduğu roman yazmış. ve başta da söylediği gibi dişil odaktan eril odağa kaymak, onu zorlamış. bence de toni’ciğim en güzel o dişil odaklarda dolanıyor. bunu tüm kitapları kanıtlıyor. zaten macon ölü’nün ana karakter olduğu bu romanda da kadınların hakimiyeti hissediliyor. macon ölü namıdiğer sütçü’nün doğumundan itibaren yaşamının anlatıldığı bu roman bir bakıma “kahramanın sonsuz yolculuğu” ama tabii ki kölelik, abd tarihi, büyülü gerçeklik, şamanizm, şarkılarla bildiğimiz morrison yolunda bu yolculuk.
isimlerden başlayarak çok zor bir çeviri olduğu belli açıkçası. soyadı ölü, ablalarının isimleri mecdelli meryem, korintliler olan bir çocuk sütçü. roman boyunca süleyman hikayesi de dahil incil’e atıflar var elbette. yunan mitolojisini de dahil edebiliriz. söylenceler ve özellikle çocuk şarkıları, romanın sonunda sütçü’nün çocuk tekerlemesiyle her şeyi çözmesi çok hoşuma giden bir detay oldu.
onun dışında roman intihar olan bir uçmayla başlayıp, kölelikten kaçışı simgeleyen efsanevi bir uçmaya bağlanıp, kahramanın olgunlaşmasını simgeleyen bir uçmayla sona eriyor.
romanın bu asıl ekseninin dışında bence fazla kişi ve olay var. pilatus muhteşem bir toni morrison karakteri ama kızı ve torunu bence her şeye dahil olmalarına rağmen tam derinleşmeyen karakterler olmuş. yan hikayeler yan olaylar bazen beklediğimiz kadar etkili değil. ve gitar’a ikna olmadım. gitar’ın değişen tarafını tam anlayamadım belki de, bilmiyorum.
onun dışında ilk macon ölü’nün hayatı ve feci ölümü, 2. macon ölü’nün manipülatif erkekliği ve beyazlar dünyası için ölüp dirilmesi, 3. macon ölü sütçü’nün ise uzun yıllar sümsüğün teki olması psikolojik olarak o kadar anlaşılır bir biçimde verilmiş ki romanda, hayran oldum.
sibel özbudun gayet yetkin bir biçimde çevirmiş ve dediğim gibi çevirmesinin zorlu bir roman olduğu çok belli.

Song of Solomon is the book that propelled Toni Morrison to literary fame. Published ten years earlier than 'Beloved', I much preferred this earlier work, although both deserve a re-read as both works are multi-layered and reluctant to give up all their secrets with just one reading.
SoS is the generational saga of Macon Dead III, or Milkman, and his dysfunctional family. At first, a bildungsroman of sorts, it is the story of his family in Michigan from the time of his birth in the 1930's to adulthood. Later, Milkman, in his search for identity, retraces his migratory roots, from Michigan to Pennsylvania, where his paternal grandfather was murdered, to Shalimar, Virginia where his ancestors were from. It is only by finding answers through this search that Milkman can make sense of the present and finally be free of the chains that are holding him down.
Morrison is a gifted writer with a poetic voice who packs alot into a 328 page story. Adorned with symbolism, elements of magical realism and African-American Folklore, many themes are touched upon: identity, racism, masculinity/femininity, the emerging economic and social disparity within the black race, memory, family, and probably a few more.
I'll need to revisit this story sometime and maybe it'll reveal itself to me a little bit more. My feeling of it now is that is a work of greatness that tried a bit too hard to be everything when it could've settled for being something.
Highly recommended nonetheless.