This novel will make you question on what true beauty actually is. The character Pecola or Pauline or Cholly, everyone is in their own melancholy. The simplicity, in the most disturbing cause, will make you question whether it, actually is that simple and that common for everyone, to feel and be the way in situations that were so challenging.
In totality, this will make you wonder on many things that you wouldn't believe. Toni Morrison, thank you for breaking my heart and making me cry. Highly recommended.

Here is the little black girl. She has dreams and a fertile imagination. She is a potential conduit for excellence in the world. But she is the inheritor of pathological trauma that is centuries old. She is born to parents who are too busy licking their wounds and tending to their own pain to extend anything resembling love in her direction. So she believes she is unlovable, and is subsequently rendered invisible and therefore a perfect target to absorb the abuses of a society of self-hating, oppressed people who need to pour their sorrows into the vessel with the most cracks: the innocent (in their eyes, contemptible) black girl. Never realizing that people who don't love themselves can never love anybody else. So her cracks multiply and she breaks apart and spills over and she gets blamed for not being pristine by the very people who broke her.

"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."

When I opened The Bluest Eye and saw words from Dick and Jane books there, it grabbed me at once. I hadn't thought of those school readers in years. Immediately, I was dragged back to those stiff wooden chairs and being called on to read. "Run Spot. Run. Run. Run." The dog runs. So does Dick. Jane just seems to be there. Her mother, too, at home. And her father goes out to work. Well, I wasn't a boy and didn't have a dog. My mother went to work and my father was dead. I wasn't blond but dark haired and dark eyed. And here is this writer saying what I knew back then in first grade. Those books weren't about me. But I was here all the same. Not invisible. Morrison speaks for more than one little girl here. With rage? Yes. Yet, also with a power to connect us to one another. In that, there is hope.

When I read a history of American literature recently I made a note of the great authors I still hadn’t read yet and here are the ones I listed

Richard Wright
Ralph Ellison
Toni Morrison
Maya Angelou
Alice Walker

Wait a moment, these writers are all African American! What’s going on here? Is this a case of #mybookshelvestoowhite? Even the solitary James Baldwin novel I read was Giovanni’s Room- it happens to be all about European white people.

Well, I think what happened is that I think I thought I already had been exposed to so many fictional representations of black America, from movies and tv - the great films of the late John Singleton, the Hughes Brothers and Spike Lee, plus brilliant tv series Homicide and The Wire and documentaries like 13th and Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, which neatly brings me to music – no one needs to be told how the popular music of the last 100 years has been propelled forward by the engine of black creativity. So I guess I thought I didn’t need to read these books too. So I thought that might be a little bit lazy, a little bit complacent, and decided to start fixing that with Toni Morrison.

It was a good start. This is a tough minded short novel. It contains several scenes of nasty sex including rape. It’s all about black self-loathing, internalized racism, so that’s why right at the beginning there is a grisly excerpt from a book for little white kids all about the lovely things they might encounter :

See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane?

And so on. So, you know, The Bluest Eye is not a happy story. Some will say -another tale of African American woe. And it is, it is. But there was one line which cracked me up. A spiritualist healer type named Soaphead Church gets a visit from a little black girl who asks him to change her eyes from brown to blue. Because blue is beautiful and brown is ugly. He gets mad and sits down to write a formal letter to God. This is how he starts :

Dear God

The purpose of this letter is to familiarize you with facts which either have escaped your notice, or which you have chosen to ignore.

How often I have mentally composed such a letter myself! But never found an appropriate postbox.

SOME THINGS DON’T CHANGE MUCH

This healer guy Soaphead Church has his own printed cards. They say :

If you are overcome with trouble and conditions that are not natural, I can remove them; overcome Spells, Bad Luck, and Evil Influences. Remember, I am a true Spiritualist and a Psychic Reader, born with power, and I will help you. Satisfaction in one visit. … Has the one you love changed? I can tell you why. I will tell you who your enemies and friends are, and if the one you love is true or false. If you are sick, I can show you the way to health. I locate lost and stolen articles. Satisfaction guaranteed.

So that is what they were doing in 1929 in a small town in Ohio. Fast forward to 2018 and hop across the Atlantic – here is a card that was put through my letterbox here in Nottingham, England a year ago :


SH Abdul Rehman

THE MOST RIGHTEOUS TRUTHFUL AFRICAN

I can help solve all your problems in your life. I can bring happiness in your life. I can remove black magic, Bad Luck from your life. . Sh Abdul Rehman can also advice you in all your problems which prove to be difficult, Business Difficulties, Love, Marriage or Relations Problems, or your Loved One has left you or Separated from you without giving any reason. I can help you to bring back happiness in your life. RESULT IS 100% GUARANTEED

Really, the only difference is that Sh Abdul has a mobile phone number.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is the Author's Debut Novel!

In Lorain, Ohio, Pecola Breedlove is an eleven-year-old Black girl who is told often, both directly and indirectly, that she is ugly. Her mother says she was born that way.

Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue. With blue eyes she'll be beautiful. With blue eyes she'll be seen and everything in her world will be different...

The Bluest Eye is an authentic snapshot of a young Black girl who is accepting of the harshest of opinions by others, including her family. Told that she is ugly, weak, and without value to the degree that she may become, in her own mind, the person they tell her she is.

This powerful debut novel is impossible to walk away from without recognizing the brilliance of this author. Toni Morrison's writing is pure beauty, word after word, but this story will rip you to shreds!

The Bluest Eye was first published on June 1, 1970 and favorably reviewed by The New York Times for the author's writing style. The book was slow to take off until City University of New York, along with various other colleges, placed The Bluest Eye on its new Black Studies reading list resulting in a positive lift in sales.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who can read, in whatever format suits your fancy! 5 beautifully written stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

¿Cómo se aprende el desprecio a sí mismo, el odio al propio ser? La respuesta está en esa imbricada mezcla entre lo social y lo psíquico. En el efecto que produce sobre sí la televisión, las canciones, las burlas de otros niños, las muñecas de ojos azules, las palabras de la madre, las palabras del padre, repitiendo lo que generaciones han dicho y que resonará en la cabeza de otras generaciones. Lo que automáticamente el individuo repetirá, se dirá así mismo y volverá cierto. Se dice con palabras, con miradas y con la suma de actos cotidianos que van creando una verdad psíquica de una fuerza arrasadora.

Así aprende una persona afro a odiar su propia negritud, que es también como una persona homosexual aprende a rechazar su propio deseo o un indígena su procedencia. Lo que está tan claro en la teoría, Toni Morrison lo vuelve relato ¡y qué relato! Nos va contando cómo Pecola aprende que es fea y cómo las personas de su entorno van introyectando que por negros no son dignos de merecer. Ese entorno es clave, porque lo que le sucede a la madre, producto de la desigualdad social, lo que le sucede al padre producto del implacable patriarcado y las opresiones padecidas por todos, van tejiendo la pegajosa telearaña en la que Pecola queda prisionera y que hará inevitable su destino, su fatal destino. Morrison no se limita a dibujar una víctima, humaniza a los personajes que degradan a Pecola y nos interpela sobre nuestra responsabilidad en este tipo de realidades.

Pecola asume que los ojos son los culpables de sus penurias, que tenerlos azules lo cambiaría todo. Pide ojos azules, los anhela y busca, porque efectivamente unos ojos azules le habrían garantizado otro destino, porque los ojos azules simbolizan en la novela lo blanco, lo pulcro, lo hermoso, lo deseable; todo aquello que Pecola no puede ser, que no está demonizado.

Pero no todos los negros son iguales, porque hay gente de color y negros. Este tipo de distinciones que también encontramos en otras formas de discriminación, la pone Morrison en boca de uno de sus personajes, de una mujer negra que vive en el norte. De nuevo clase y raza mezclándose; así como género, clase y raza se mezclan en toda la historia develando una realidad más compleja y llena de matices. Cada suceso pasa también por el lente etario y la edad de cada personaje se palpará en la manera de interpretar las experiencias, que es un aspecto muy logrado en el libro, la elaboración de personajes bien perfilados.

A todos los aciertos de Morrison se le suma el estilo, esa forma de comunicar lacónica y exacta, sin adornos innecesarios ni palabras que sobren. Siempre he visto en ello un enorme mérito, porque consiste en elegir con precisión casi matemática las palabras pertinentes y que además armonicen embelleciendo. También le concede atención a detalles cotidianos cuya descripción evoca sensaciones y recuerdos, entonces, te identificar con lo pequeño, con lo simple del relato y también con lo más elaborado y complejo.

Es una obra inteligente y hermosa que me emocionó de principio a fin. Siento que esta autora ha sido un estupendo descubrimiento, así que me dispongo a empezar otro de sus libros y obtener una nueva dosis de placer literario.

Pécola es una niña negra que ha nacido sin suerte y pasa los días de su triste vida tratando de resultar invisible para los demás, hacia su despótico y agresivo padre, hacia su ausente madre, e incluso, hacia su hermano mayor, el cual no tardará en huir del temible entorno familiar. Pero Pécola también pasa desapercibida fuera de su casa y las pocas personas que reparan en ella lo hacen con frialdad o repulsa, y en los mejores casos lo hacen con compasión ante la fealdad de la muchacha. Sin embargo, Pécola sabe como conseguir cambiar su vida, y cree que si lo desea mucho esta se lo concederá. Pécola quiere tener los ojos azules porque "nada malo puede pasarte si tienes los ojos azules" ¿no?

Lo primero que choca es la dispersa narración de los hechos, inicialmente no estamos muy seguros si empezamos por el principio o por el final, pero rápidamente la autora nos sumerge en todos los temas que va a tratar. A través de las voces inocentes de dos niñas amigas de Pécola, va a describirnos el horrible mundo de los adultos, la violencia que estos ejerces hacía otros y el punto de normalización que las personas adultas llegan a fomentar, bien por ignorancia bien por sobrevivir, ante toda esta violencia injustificada.

"Ojos azules" nos narra una historia sobre la gran trampa del racismo y como somete a este a los propios afectados. Como dos tonos más claros de piel podían ponerte en una situación de ventaja con respecto al que tenías debajo y como esto se aprovechaba sin pudor o a veces sin comprensión. Esa metáfora de los ojos azules como protectores contra las desagracias vuelan durante toda la novela, dejando claro hasta que punto los negros no tenían ninguna oportunidad contra los blancos y que pese a que la esclavitud estuviera abolida hacía mucho, la resaca de tremenda barbarie seguía (y sigue) fresca mucho tiempo después.

Me gusta mucho como Toni entrelaza en sus historias el racismo y el machismo, porque son las mujeres las que viven esta doble violencia con más intensidad. Sus personajes femeninos son poderosos o no lo son, pero siempre viven una deseventaja doble por el hecho de ser mujeres y negras. En "Ojos azules"aparecen muchas mujeres negras con vidas diversas, pero ninguna de ella se salva del maltrato de un marido, de una jefa blanca, de un compañero de clase, o de cualquier hombre blanco que pase por el lugar. El relato constamente te hace sentir incómodo e impotente.

Creo que es un acierto monumental que las voces que cuenten la historia sean infantiles, ya que llega a existir cierto cinísimo y falta de importancia en ellas, hacia hechos horribles que sufre la protagonista. Todo el sentido de la novela reside en las conversaciones que estos adultos tienen delante de las niñas, conversaciones donde siempre se criminaliza a la mujer por las acciones violentas que los hombres ejercen hacia ellas. Los niños, y principalmente, las niñas aprenden creyendo que es culpa de ellas, que en las acciones de los hombres, la culpabilidad debe recaer siempre en una mujer. Y así crece y triunfa el machismo durante los siglos y los siglos, de madres y padres a hijas e hijos. Un ciclo sin fin.

En definitiva, leed a Toni Morrison, porque aunque no es una autora fácil ni en los temas que toca, ni en la forma en la que decide mostrarlos, es una autora imprescindible y no hay otra igual. Tanto en "Beloved" como en "Ojos azules" consigue mostrar temas bastante complejos de digerir que de alguna manera te hacen replantearte "y tú ¿qué harías?". Segunda novela que leo de la autora y segunda novela que me toca profundamente. Creo que la siguiente será "Sula".

3.5/5 stars

I found The Bluest Eye to be structurally disjointed but fluidly written. Each sentence bled into the next, urging the reader to press on amidst a heartbreaking, convicting story of rejection, self-loathing, and ultimately, complete violation. It's not easy, or particularly enjoyable, to read. But Morrison cracks open this sort of taboo topic, choosing to highlight a character whose story often goes untold: that of an ugly, black girl.

But Pecola, our main character, doesn't even get to tell her own story. The novel breaks down into seasons, starting with Autumn, and is narrated by a neighbor girl and her sister. As the story progresses, we get backstories on major characters: Pecola's mother, father, and various people in their hometown of Lorain, Ohio.

While I loved the prose--there's no denying Morrison's skill with words, especially as this is her first novel--I found myself having trouble fully engaging in the story. As Pecola's story unfolds, we realize that she is helpless to deal with the pain she is going through, and she internalizes it. She isn't even helped by the people in her life who should be able to help her, because they have their own pain to deal with.

This isolation Pecola feels kept me at a distance from her, combined with the fact that we don't get to hear from Pecola herself at all. And by the end I was a bit let down. During the afterword of the novel, written by Morrison herself, she says regarding the structure, "My solution--break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader--semed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now. Besides, it didn't work: many readers remained touched but not moved."

I think, therein, lies my exact problem with this book. That isn't to say that this book isn't worth reading, or that it doesn't achieve anything that it sets out to achieve. Instead, I felt so detached and confused by the structuring of the story, that I missed out on the emotion that was being expressed.

It's an excellent novel, nonetheless, but it's also a first one; I anticipate in reading more of Morrison, I will grow to understand her writing, as I often do in reading more from the works of an author. And I would argue, as many people recommended to me, it's a good place to start with Morrison.

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The Bluest Eye is an unflinching and deeply harrowing examination of race, colorism, gender, and trauma. Throughout the course of her narrative Toni Morrison captures with painful lucidity the damage inflicted on a black child by a society that equates whiteness with beauty and goodness, and blackness with ugliness and evil.
In her introduction to her novel Morrison explains her inspiration of the novel. Like Morrison’s own friend, the central character in The Bluest Eye, Pecola, is a black girl who yearns for ‘blue eyes’. Similarly to Sula in the eponymous novel, Pecola becomes her community’s scapegoat, but, whereas Sula embraces who she is, Pecola’s self-hatred is compounded by her community’s demonisation of her. The more people speak of her with contempt, the stronger her desire for blue eyes becomes.

Rather than making us experience Pecola’s anguish first-hand, Morrison makes readers into complicit onlookers. We hear the venomous gossip that is exchanged between the various members of Pecola’s community, we witness the horrifying sexual abuse Pecola’s father inflicts on her—from his point of view, not hers—and the good-hearted, if ultimately inadequate, attempts that two other young girls, Claudia and Frieda, make to try and help Pecola.
The adults in this novel are color-struck and condemn Pecola for her parents’ actions, suggesting that she herself is to blame for the violence committed against her. The story is partly narrated by Claudia, whose childhood naïveté limits her comprehension of Pecola's experiences. We are also given extensive flashbacks in which we learn more about Pecola's parents (their youth, their eventual romance, and their extremely fraught marriage). There are also scenes focused on characters that belong to Pecola’s community and who either use or abuse her
.
Throughout the course of the narrative, regardless whose point of view we are following, it is clear that Pecola is suffering, and that her home-life and environment are fuelling her self-loathing.
This is by no means an easy read. There is a nauseatingly graphic rape scene, incest, and domestic violence. Pecola is bullied, maltreated, and abused. The few moments of reprieve are offered by Claudia and Frieda, who unlike Pecola can still cling to their childhood innocence.
Pecola’s story is jarring and sobering, and at times reading The Bluest Eye was ‘too much’. Nevertheless, I was hypnotised by Morrison’s cogent style. She effortlessly switches from voice to voice, vividly rendering the intensity or urgency of her characters’ inner monologues. In her portrayal of Pecola’s descent into madness Morrison is challenging racist ideals of beauty, binary thinking, and the labelling of races and individuals as being either good or evil. Pecola’s family, her community, even the reader, all stand by as Pecola becomes increasingly detached from her reality. This a tragic story, one that is bound to upset readers. Still, the issues Morrison addresses in this novel are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago.

"It was the fault with the earth."

Toni Morrison is an icon and will be remembered as one of the greats of American literature. The Bluest Eye was her first novel and some critics weren't sold on the formatting--Ruby Dee said it wasn't exactly a story but a "series of painfully accurate impressions." Years later in the afterward, Morrison herself said the brokenness of the narrative doesn't quite please her. I think there's probably some fairness in that, but it still works as an impressionist novel.

The imagery is so powerful, so harrowing, that even if it's sometimes difficult to place the story in a sense of chronology, the emotion pierces through without any trouble. Particularly the ending, which is heart-wrenching.

I don't know if it's my favorite Morrison novel, but it's still a masterpiece and possibly her most memorable. The self-loathing and internalized racism which permeates these characters is so painfully well-drawn who can possibly forget it?

(Book 365 from 1001 books) - The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison in 1970. Morrison, a single mother of two sons, wrote the novel while she taught at Howard University. The novel is set in 1941 and centers around the life of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grows up during the years following the Great Depression in Lorain, Ohio. Due to Pecola's harsh characteristics and dark skin, she is consistently regarded as "ugly".

As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness". The point of view of the novel switches between the perspective of Claudia MacTeer, the daughter of Pecola's foster parents, and a third-person narrator with inset narratives in the first person. Due to controversial topics in the book including racism, incest, and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it from schools and libraries.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه سپتامبر سال2008میلادی

عنوان: آبی ترين چشم؛ نویسنده: تونی موریسون؛ مترجم: نیلوفر شیدمهر؛ علی آذرنگ (جباری)؛ تهران، دریچه، سال1385؛ در264ص؛ شابک9648072043؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م

عنوان: آبی ترين چشم؛ نویسنده: تونی موریسون؛ مترجم: کیومرث پارسای؛ تهران، نشر علم، سال1385؛ در310ص؛ شابک96484056205؛

هشدار برای آنها که کتاب را هنوز نخوانده اند، اگر میخواهید کتاب را بخوانید لطفا سطرهای پایانی این نوشتار را نخوانید ...؛

راوی داستان، دخترکی با صداقت، و صمیمیت کودکان نابالغ است؛ زندگی خانواده‌ ی «بریدلاو»؛ شخصیت محوری اصلی اثر: «پکولا بریدلاو»، از همین خانواده ‌ی محروم و آواره سر درمیآورد؛ «پکولا بریدلاو»، دختری است که به تازگی دوران بلوغ را تجربه کرده، او در خانواده ‌ای با نگرش‌ها، رفتارها، و کردارهای پر از تضاد، چشم به جهان گشوده، که اعضای آن تنها در هم‌نژاد بودن و هم‌خانواده بودن اشتراک دارند؛ اعضای خانواده، ستمی دوگانه ـ از سوی نژاد برتر و پدر خانواده ـ را بر دوش خود همواره احساس می‌کنند؛ و این ستم را بیش از همه پیکر نحیف و بی‌گناه «پکولا»، دختر نوجوان بی‌دفاع، تحمل میکند؛

پدر، یک‌بار خانه را آتش میزند، و افراد خانواده را آواره و بیخانمان میکند؛ یک‌بار نیز، دنیایی از درد و رنج را بر سر دختر بیچاره ی خویش، آوار میکند؛ دختر با آرزویی بزرگ در دل؛ اینکه چشمانی آبی، هم‌چون دخترکان سفیدپوست داشته باشد، زنده میماند؛ او آبیترین چشمان دنیا را میخواهد؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 10/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/10/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی