Brilliant but painful to read.

n  This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late.n

Quintessential Morrison. The Bluest Eye is powerful yet opaque. This is a devastating story about internalized hatred, the hegemony of white notions of beautify, and a desperation so pervasive that sexual violence against a child is only one part of the story rather than the pivot around which everything else turns. The evil here is symptomatic and not the cause. This isn’t a light read, but it is vitally important and a cornerstone in the Morrison canon.

Necessariamente duro e tão tristemente necessário. O Olho Mais Azul é um livro poderosíssimo sobre a devastação provocada pelo enraizamento, muito mais do que mera aceitação, da discriminação racial. Pecola assimila na alma os preconceitos e os padrões de beleza de uma sociedade profundamente racista. Para esta menina, negra, pobre, marginalizada, ter olhos azuis é a única escapatória. É muito triste ver como a família e a escola, que deveriam ser sempre espaços de crescimento pessoal e de valorização, se transformam em espaços de violência e aniquilação do mais belo e mais puro dos seres.

"Confundíamos violência com paixão, indolência com lazer, e pensávamos que imprudência fosse liberdade. Nossa masculinidade era definida por aquisições. Nossa feminilidade, pela aquiescência."

"O mal existia porque Deus o criara. Ele, Deus, cometera um erro de julgamento desleixado e imperdoável: fizera um universo imperfeito. (...) Deus fizera um mau trabalho e Soaphead desconfiava que ele próprio poderia ter feito coisa melhor. Na verdade, era uma pena que o Criador não lhe tivesse pedido conselho."

I’ve been sitting on this review for a while now, unsure what to say after turning the last page two weeks ago. Not just a book to be read, this is a story to be revelled in, sink your teeth into the incredible writing of Toni Morrison and the heart wrenching story of Pecola Breedlove…. a young girl who wishes for her eyes to be blue so that she is as loved as the blonde haired blue eyed children of her community.

This is the kind of book that stays with you. That is the joy and reason for literature isn’t it? Reading stories that alter your way of thinking, change how you perceive certain things and invoke discussions. Toni Morrison is a master of her craft and the bluest eye is a pillar of her legacy. If you haven’t read this then go to the bookstore right now and pick it up.

Esta historia está estructurada por las estaciones del año, de tal manera que podemos deducir que los acontecimientos narrados transcurren en el tiempo de un año, aunque se hacen retrospectivas de ciertos personajes. La narración corre a cuenta de Claudia una niña que es parte de la historia, y adicional, hace uso del narrador omnisciente para contarnos cosas de los personajes.

Las primeras líneas condensan y resumen un hecho, en esos primeros párrafos donde todavía no hay otoño o primavera se presenta el fundamento de todo, ya esos párrafos en sí mismos son una poderosa historia que no necesitaría más, pero el genio de Toni Morrison hace que lo que cuenta, se expanda y se multiplique.

“Aunque nadie diga nada, en el otoño de 1941 no hubo caléndulas. Creímos entonces que si las caléndulas no habían crecido era debido a que Pecola iba a tener el bebé de su padre.”

Aquí Claudia y su hermana Frieda son dos niñas que en su inocencia han plantado semillas en su pequeña huerta y han decretado que si florecen, entonces el bebé qué hay en el vientre de su amiga Pecola , nacerá sano y fuerte, el símil es poderoso sin ellas percibirlo han transformado un hecho terrible en algo sagrado, el surgimiento de la vida misma, en sus mentes infantiles aíslan un hecho inclasificable, del resultado, para ellas un bebé es un milagro y deben ayudar a que se haga realidad.

Me podría pasar analizando cada personaje y cada párrafo de este libro, con singular alegría y pasión, no hay desperdicio en estas líneas, sólo hay una escritura potencializada, que mezcla inteligencia con genio de tal manera que nos regala algo que parece fluye sin tropiezos y que es ligero como el viento, yo me pregunto cómo se puede lograr algo así.

Tanto Pecola, como Claudia y Frieda son niñas negras que viven con sus familias, son pobres en distintos niveles, porque desgraciadamente en la pobreza existen infinitos pisos que se parecen un poco el infierno, donde cada uno tiene su propio sufrimiento, y cada descenso significa mayores suplicios, pero ellas, sobre todo las hermanas tienen ciertos respiros y momentos que hacen que su niñez sea un poco más respirable aunque no significa que buena o siquiera regular.

Hay escenas poderosas por si mismas que no necesitan adjetivos o énfasis en lo terrible que son, Pecola es una niña fea, callada y que siempre anda como anestesiada ante la vida, un día, tiene un poco de dinero y decide ir por unos cuantos dulces, es tímida y le cuesta hablar con la gente, ante este panorama, se desarrolla este actitud por parte del tendero:

“¿Cómo puede un tendero blanco, un inmigrante de cincuenta y dos años, con sabor a patatas y cerveza en la boca, la mente esmerilada por la Virgen María de ojos de gacela, la sensibilidad embotada por una permanente conciencia de pérdida, ver a una niña negra? Nada en su vida había sugerido jamás que tal acto fuera posible, por no decir deseable o necesario.”

Es decir, mientras la niña señala el dulce, el tendero desvía sus ojos de Pecola, como si esto fuera una suprema humillación, ¡mirar a una niña negra!

La historia tiene dos grandes pilares donde reposa su complejidad y discernimiento, en la mirada inocente de Claudia, y en la objetividad como se presenta a los personajes mostrando debilidades, virtudes, todo un amasijo y sobre todo el origen familiar, que podría dar pistas sobre su comportamiento presente.

No hay que pensar que lo acontecido a Pecola es el tema central del libro, no lo es, es solo un hecho que une todo, pero realmente el libro trata del tema mismo de ser negro en un país de blancos, pero visto con una mirada inquisitiva, conocedora, objetiva, que busca y explora a través siempre de una historia que en superficie transcurre cristalina pero que en el fondo arrastra todo tipo de cosas y cada cual deberá saber que encontró en ella, pero siempre lo más importante es la profunda reflexión sobre los individuos y como sus pequeñas acciones pueden matar al corazón más puro.

Un tema paralelo, es un secreto deseo de Pecola, que ha nacido de ver la publicidad de los dulces o de ver películas de Shirley Temple, ella lo que más desea en el mundo es tener los ojos del azul más bello, y cada día alimenta ese deseo como si de un cachorro se tratara, lo alimenta, lo cuida, siempre está pendiente de él, y en su fuero interno sabe que si consigue tenerlos, dejará su fealdad atrás y la vida se vestirá de cosas buenas.

El final llega al inicio, donde Claudia reflexiona sobre las caléndulas en ese otoño inolvidable.

El mejor libro que he leído de Toni Morrison, aún cuando los anteriores me encantaron, debo decir que este fue mas allá de lo que esperaba.

The first time I read a Toni Morrison book was also the most recent time. I read Beloved in the eleventh grade, all those many years ago now. Bold choice on the part of my English teacher, but he took his chances and that’s why we loved him. I didn’t always understand what was going on. I did tap into a spiritual line, however, following every word with awe. That book did things to my mind that I still remember today, despite never having picked it up again (something that will change soon enough).

I have just finished Morrison’s first book, The Bluest Eye, and I know for sure she is probably in my current list of top 5 authors. Definitely top 10, but probably top 5. There is gravity in her every word, and the scenes she chooses to sketch are uncompromising. She grabs you by the balls and forces you to look at things you may never have wanted to look at. And you can’t look away! Try as you god damn might, you cannot look away. I may not even necessarily agree with the minute ways in which she went about creating the structure for this story. Her foreword shows that she agrees:

“One problem was centering the weight of the novel’s inquiry on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smash her and lead readers into the comfort of pitying her rather than into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing. My solution – break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader – seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now. Besides, it didn’t work: many readers remain touched but not moved.”

It doesn’t even matter. I think a lot of readers, myself included, are touched and moved. Besides, the book is good enough to work itself above and beyond any of these trifling complaints, and Morrison herself accurately describes why:

“When I began writing The Bluest Eye, I was interested in something else. Not resistance to the contempt of others, ways to deflect it, but the far more tragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident. I knew that some victims of powerful self-loathing turn out to be dangerous, violent, reproducing the enemy who has humiliated them over and over. Others surrender their identity, melt into a structure that delivers the strong persona they lack. Most others, however, grow beyond it. But there are some who collapse, silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible. The death of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily in children, before their ego has “legs,” so to speak. Couple the vulnerability of youth with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and a world, which, in its language, laws, and images, re-enforces despair, and the journey to destruction is sealed.”

“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.”

I want to start this review by saying that, in my opinion, none of the descriptions I found of this book or of its plot truly described what The Bluest Eye is about. They say it's a book about the obsession over beauty, and the story of a black girl who wanted blue eyes. Despite the title, this book is not about eyes nor about the girl who wanted blue eyes per se, but rather about identity, love, self-hate and desire. It follows the stories of different characters as they grow and develop their sense of self, each of them distorted in some unique way.

It is the story of women who fight to retain their passion among people who use violence to beat desire out of them; of men who despise themselves and their instincts, turning into perverts, rapists and pedophiles. It is a hard, heart-breaking story, which, just like any other Toni Morrison's novel, cuts deep under your skin and you know, from the moment you close the book, that it will never leave you completely.

Toni Morrison's characters, the most tragic, poetic, horrible and unsettling people you can imagine, survive in a hostile world which only allows them to live lives that have already been decided for them; lives made without choice, without hope, without a possibility to escape. You can either be this kind of black woman or this other kind of black woman; you can either be this kind of black man or this other kind of black man. You can never, for example, be white; or be one of those neat black women who own a big house with crinoline and linens, and pretty fake flowers, and straighten their hair and wear Sunday shoes. On the other hand, those women can only be themselves, and so on.

"They never seem to have boyfriends, but they always marry. Certain men watch them, without seeming to, and know that if such a girl is in his house, he will sleep on sheets boiled white, hung out to dry on juniper bushes, and pressed flat with a heavy iron. There will be pretty paper flowers decorating the picture of his mother, a large Bible in the front room. They feel secure. [...] Her hips assure them that she will bear children easily and painlessly. And they are right.

What they do not know is that this plain brown girl will build her nest stick by stick, make it her own inviolable world, and stand guard over its every plant, weed, and doily, even against him. [...] A sidelong look will be enough to tell him to smoke on the back porch. [...] Nor do they know that she will give him her body sparingly and partially.

He must enter her surreptitiously, lifting the hem of her nightgown only to her navel. He must rest his weight on his elbows when they make love, ostensibly to avoid hurting her breasts but actually to keep her from having to touch or feel too much of him."

Pecola cannot have blue eyes; a fatherless boy cannot have dignity, a sad misanthrope cannot have a healthy relationship with a woman. Those things are simply out of reach. People are doomed, maddened by desire or by the effort of eradicating it from their bodies and souls. They blame themselves, their ethnicity, their parent, God. Or, in the end, they just stop trying to find a reason for their useless existence, and simply accept what life had given them. Physical pain, deformity, rape, incest, pedophilia, ugliness. There is no escape, no happy ending, for any of these characters.

A terrible, powerful story, or rather collection of stories; guaranteed to touch you deeply and resonate with you, regardless of your age, gender, ethnicity or religious background; as it is the story of the tragedy of being human.

tw: domestic abuse, animal abuse & death, incest, pedophilia, rape

wow. this is the first book i've read by morrison and i 100% anticipate i'll read more because every other line is so hard hitting and gorgeously phrased with innovative and genius descriptions, as well as insightful and tragic commentary on why the characters feel and act the way they do. this book's discussion of beauty standards and anger and racism were so relevant and well-articulated. it hit right in the sweet spot of not being too subtle but also not being preachy; i adored the unfolding of this book's message. the multiple POVs and the way this book's narrative was almost told as a satellite around pecola made for a very well-rounded story that went into far deeper discussion than i was anticipating about family and the way toxicity and self-loathing are inherited and then expounded by society. i highly, highly, highly recommend this!

The Bluest Eye is so much more than what I thought it would be. It is a deeply affecting story that I will not forget. It's not just a book to be read; it's one to be savoured, studied, and thought about. Each sentence has a purpose and meaning, and I analyzed it all. I questioned it, challenged my thoughts, and searched the internet for answers. It's a fascinating and rewarding study of socially constructed ideas of how we see the beauty and ugliness of the world and the people in it. How racism has shaped those ideas and how that can harm one's self-worth.

To escape from the ugliness of her world, Pecola, whose only sin is being ugly and dirty(black and poor), prays for blue eyes to see the world differently. She thinks by having blue eyes, people will treat her differently and see her as beautiful.

How does a young girl learn to hate herself and carry such a burden before she is old enough to find out who she is and where she fits in?

The story is not about a young black girl raped by her father, that is the story's climax. The story is about why and how "But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how." ~Claudia. It was difficult to handle, but I did take refuge in the how by the novel's end.

Toni Morrison "hits the raw nerve of racial self-contempt and exposes it" She hits on that nerve by showing us how a black community's learned self-hatred for being black contributes to the undoing of a young black girl. She makes a statement about that damage by focusing on "how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child: the most vulnerable member: a female." ~Morrison. Pecola's tragedy comes from a crippled and crippling family and community who can not be dehumanized or smashed because their self-hatred is embedded in their history of being treated as lesser and unworthy.

Even though the story centers around Pecola, we are told the story by the POV of young Claudia and adult Claudia as she reflects back on the how. We also see into characters who represent black women who have learned to hate their blackness and try to hide it, from Claudia's mother, Pauline, who sees herself in Pecola and has learned to love beauty and cleanness (whiteness and wealth) and hate blackness, and from her father, Cholly who lost his tenderness by being treated like trash.
"Abandoned in a junk heap by his mother, rejected for a crap game by his father, there was nothing more to lose." ~Cholly

Claudia is the opposite of Pecola. She is from a caring black family, innocent, and has not yet learned the self-hatred that plagues Pecola and the community in the story. We also see into learned hate through characters representing race, class, and beauty.

Pecola is not a character to fall into the comfort of pitying, feeling bad for her, or shedding tears for. She is so much more as she represents learned self-hatred that plagues the people around her and symbolizes the black community's crippling self-hatred and belief in their ugliness. Those tears are for all real-life young girls affected by the ugliness of that standard of whiteness. In a society where we ignore the truths while rearranging our lies and calling them truths, humanity still contributes to the undoing of the real-life Pecolas.

The Bluest Eye has changed me and shaped a more understanding look at the beauty and ugliness of both whiteness and blackness. It is a rewarding and beyond satisfying reading experience that only comes along once in awhile. It will be one I will not forget.

Why you should read it

The Bluest Eye is a good one to study it and see the world as it was, as it is, how it has changed and how it could be. We can't have change if we don't see the ugly.

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

China, Poland and Miss Marie (also known as The Maginot Line) are surely three of the finest whores in literature. Sure, why not start with that. But they are only three of the gorgeous characters that populate this gorgeous book. This was my first Toni Morrison--it was Toni Morrison's first Toni Morrison--and since she continued writing I will continue reading what she wrote. I initially struggled with this book because I had Pecola in my mind as the protagonist (I officially I hate back cover book summaries) and the narrative seemed to stray quite a bit, encompassing an entire family, an entire community in Lorain, Ohio, and beyond.

n  ⊹ ࣪ ˖ love is never any better than the lover. wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe.n  
n  
n  ⊹ ࣪ ˖ so when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die.n

this will live with me forever <3