Toni Morrison, the remarkable writer that you are. Truly, you are a gift from God.

Her words have the power to touch the deepest recesses of our souls.

As seen in the quoted passage, it beautifully captures the essence of a relationship and the pain of potential loss.

The woman in the text is left wondering if her loved one could really be gone when his tie is still there.

She reflects on all the shared memories, the days and years they spent together.

How he knew her ways, her hands, the details of her body.

She recalls their attempts to get Mickey to nurse, the landlord's words, and how her loved one's response made her cry.

They knew each other so intimately, sharing both laughter and tears.

And now, she struggles to understand how he could leave her when he knew her so well.

Toni Morrison's writing has the ability to make us feel these emotions as if they were our own.

It is a testament to her extraordinary talent as a writer.

Toni Morrison is truly one of a kind. She is not just an ordinary writer; she is a literary giant.

Her works are like precious gems that shine with unique brilliance.

Morrison's writing style is captivating, drawing readers into a world of vivid characters and powerful stories.

She has the ability to explore complex themes such as race, gender, and identity with such depth and sensitivity that it leaves a lasting impact on the reader's mind.

Her novels are not only entertaining but also thought-provoking, making us question our own beliefs and values.

Toni Morrison is indeed the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, the flea's eyebrows, the canary's tusks, the eel's ankle, the snake's hip, and the mutt's nuts. She is a master of her craft and a legend in the literary world.

Her contributions to literature will be remembered and cherished for generations to come.

Heavy as fuck. The ache is indescribable. It's the only word that can capture the essence of the ending. My body is wracked with sadness and a sense of loss between women. The backwards ideology of what it means to be a wife, a partner, a woman, a girl! Or is it really backwards?

You know, as demonic as they try to paint the loose woman Sula, that's exactly how demonic and poisonous our culture is towards women as a whole. It shows how much we've been taught to hate the natural part of ourselves that desires happiness and freedom from the burden of "love". Love and relationships - some people want them, while others don't. They all require a great deal of work, attention, intention, and emotional labor. Some of us simply don't have the capacity or the desire for them. And if we recognize that, don't we deserve to be happy with that knowledge? Is it a reason to be condemned if some women choose not to be indefinitely linked to a man (any man, most men) who won't bring the kind of happiness that truly resides in our hearts? Is it a crime for women to take what they want in sex and with passion and continue on their life's journey? I don't think so.

This book is sitting wild in my spirit and on my heart. I'm afraid this review might seem nonsensical, so I'll end it here. But before I go, I have to say that you should read this book. Your soul will tremble. You'll feel besieged, especially if you can identify with the spaces between Sula and Nel. Toni Morrison cuts right through to the freedom we all渴望 as people, but too many of us are afraid to pursue it, and too many of us shame each other for unapologetically seeking it.

Toni Morrison is truly an outstanding author. I have found her to be one of the most consistent writers I've ever read. As one of my all-time favorite writers, every book of hers that I've read to this day has been extremely interesting and deeply touching.

She is consistent not only in her style but also in her themes, characters, and the general tone of her stories. Toni Morrison speaks about women, power, life, and the absurdity and inevitability of human weakness. There are very few other authors who can make me feel such deep emotions and connect so authentically with characters leading completely different lives from my own. She always manages to make me shed a tear.

Her book "Sula" is no exception. It is short, raw, and unapologetic. The story of the community of "The Bottom" refuses to sugarcoat the roughness of black people's lives in the 1920s - 40s. It is filled with pain, guilt, regret, timeless women's wisdom, and the sheer horror of the human condition. In a world where happiness seems to be a forgotten concept, only for children and those who don't know better, women and men thrive. Against all odds, they love, laugh, cry, and survive.

There are moments in this book, especially the very ending, that strike me with the depth of their truth. I truly believe Toni Morrison had one of the deepest insights into the real meaning of life in history. It is not uncommon for me to read one of her books and have to stop and think about how she just provided an explanation for one of the greatest mysteries of reality.

For example, take this description of the loneliness of a single woman and a married, unhappy one: "Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely."

Or this desperate and incredibly touching declaration of love by an abandoned woman: "But Jude,' she would say, 'you knew me. All those days and years, Jude, you knew me. My ways and my hands and how my stomach folded and how we tried to get Mickey to nurse and how about that time when the landlord said...but you said...and I cried, Jude. You knew me and had listened to the things I said in the night, and heard me in the bathroom and laughed at my raggedy girdle and I laughed too because I knew you too, Jude. So how could you leave me when you knew me?”

And this description of the horror of routine: "The real hell of Hell is that it is forever.' Sula said that. She said doing anything forever and ever was hell.”

These words come from characters who might be described as "uneducated," but they share the timeless wisdom of humankind. That kind of knowledge seems to be inherited from mothers to daughters, fathers to sons, as if it's written in our genes. This is what makes good poetry. And this is why I love Toni Morrison: because there is no one in the whole world, regardless of gender, age, or race, who would not understand her words with their own heart.

R.I.P. Toni Morrison.

Two lonely girls, Sula and Nel, crossed paths and formed a deep friendship. They shared the joys and sorrows of life, experiencing tragedy together. However, fate had other plans for them, and they were separated.

A decade later, Sula returned, but their friendship was not the same. The years apart had changed them both, and they found themselves at odds with each other. Their once-strong bond was now broken, and they were left to deal with the consequences.

But perhaps the question of who is the villain and who is the victim is not so clear-cut. Maybe it is just our perspective of who is right and who is good that determines how we view their relationship. The story is beautifully written and thought-provoking, making us question our own beliefs and judgments.

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Toni Morrison's Sula is a complex and thought-provoking novel that centers around the controversial character of Sula Peace. Set in the fictional town of Medallion, specifically in the Black neighborhood called the Bottom, Morrison delves deep into themes of race, gender, and class.

The name of the Bottom is an oxymoron, as it is actually located in the hills above the valley town. This was the result of a white farmer tricking his former slave. The story also introduces Shadrack, a war veteran with PTSD who creates the 'National Suicide Day' and struggles to fit in with the community.

Nel Wright and Sula Peace, the novel's central characters, are introduced in the 1920s. Nel is raised to be obedient and polite, while Sula grows up in her grandmother's chaotic boarding house. The two become fast friends, but their relationship is tested when a stunt goes wrong and Nel gets married and Sula leaves for college.

Ten years later, Sula returns to the Bottom, accompanied by a strange phenomenon of robins. Her arrival is seen as inauspicious by the townspeople, and her physical appearance and behavior only add to their mistrust. Sula is demonized and becomes the scapegoat for the community's problems.

Despite the many hardships and tragedies in the story, Morrison never passes judgment on her characters. Instead, she forces readers to question their own assumptions about good and evil, nature and nurture. Sula is a powerful and disturbing read that will stay with you long after you've finished it.

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I received this book for free through a complimentary Quarterly Literary Box. It was such a pleasant surprise to have this opportunity.

After hearing so much about Toni Morrison, I have finally had the chance to read one of her books. And I must say, I really enjoyed it. The way Morrison writes is truly beautiful. She has an amazing gift with words, as if she can paint vivid pictures in the reader's mind with her prose.

The story itself was also very interesting. Sula and Nel's relationship was captivating. Their friendship was unique and unlike any other female friendship I've ever seen before. Sula had this ethereal quality about her that made her truly stand out. She was mysterious and alluring, and I couldn't help but be drawn to her character.

Overall, reading this book by Toni Morrison has been a wonderful experience. I look forward to reading more of her works in the future.

This novel is truly a literary haunting.

It has such a profound and powerful impact that it leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

As I reached the last paragraph, I couldn't help but whimper.

This was a noise that I don't recall ever having made before while reading.

The emotions it evoked were so intense and overwhelming.

I've never read anything quite like this before.

It stands out from all the other books I've read, with its unique storyline, vivid characters, and masterful writing.

It makes me think, feel, and experience things in a way that I've never done before.

This novel is a must-read for anyone who loves literature and wants to be taken on a journey of the heart and mind.

It will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.

Toni Morrison’s novels are truly remarkable. They are allusive, poetic, and their plots are carefully and artfully constructed. Reading them requires effort and cannot be done casually. However, for those with patience, they offer rich rewards.

Her second novel, Sula, published in 1973, tells the story of two girls, Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who grow up in the 1920s in a Black hillside community called the Bottom in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Nel does everything right, getting married to a nice Black man and raising children. Sula, on the other hand, grows up in a non-traditional household overseen by an eccentric, one-legged grandmother and is a rebel with a slightly demonic streak. Later, her attitude towards men causes the town to shun her.

As children, the two girls are involved in something secret and shameful, and the truth about that incident only emerges in the novel’s final pages. The language in Sula, like in Morrison’s other novels such as Beloved and Song Of Solomon, is dense and poetic. It should be read aloud and savored. In fact, I reread several passages just to admire them and experience how they felt in my mouth and sounded to my ears.

This might explain why Morrison’s novels don’t adapt well to the screen. They are beautifully written but don’t rely much on plot. Morrison, in her omniscient third person POV, gets into the heads of many characters, but this doesn’t always provide much momentum or drive.

Overall, I liked Sula. I really liked its structure, which oriented us at the beginning of each chapter with a year and took its time to introduce the characters and events. I just wish the girls’ friendship had been more fully illustrated at the beginning. While we are told that they had a great friendship, I wanted to see it develop naturally.

Despite this, the scenes Morrison does provide are stunning. For example, the sequence in which the girls are being assessed by the town’s men and the one in which they are accosted by white boys are both powerful and memorable. The theme of how women judge each other over sex and men is vividly communicated, and the uneasy social and geographical relationship between Blacks and whites is handled subtly.

As the novel progresses, it gains in power. Incidents accumulate, time passes, words are spoken, and people die before the full weight of the story is felt. Morrison delivers with admirable economy, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps. I look forward to reading The Bluest Eye and Tar Baby next, but I know I’ll need an extended, uninterrupted period of time to fully appreciate them.

A Haunting Masterpiece

Toni Morrison's work is truly a haunting masterpiece. With her unparalleled storytelling prowess, she weaves intricate relationships and explores profound themes that linger in the reader's mind long after the final page is turned.

The characters in her novels are brought to life with such vividness and authenticity that they become as real as the people we know in our own lives. Their joys, sorrows, and struggles are palpable, drawing us into their world and making us care deeply about their fates.

Morrison's writing is not only beautiful but also thought-provoking. She delves into issues such as race, gender, identity, and history, challenging our assumptions and making us see the world from different perspectives.

This is a must-read for anyone who appreciates great literature. It will transport you to another time and place, and leave you with a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Always,

I have been emphasizing reading history and philosophy recently as I believed I had read too many novels. I thought, and still largely do, that my nonfiction reading was providing me with a deeper understanding of the human condition than stories. However, Toni Morrison's novel "Sula" (1973) brought me back to the poignancy, beauty, and the depiction of life's difficult ambiguities that fiction at its best can achieve. "Sula" is a poetic, challenging, and heartrending short book. Its portrayal of African American women and the tension between sexuality and independence reminded me of Zora Neale Hurston's novel "Their Eyes were Watching God" (1937). A less obvious parallel to "Sula" is Tennessee Williams. His plays, with their portrayal of both sexual freedom and sexual repression, mirror the themes of Morrison's novel.

"Sula" is set in a segregated African American community on a hill in the town of Medallion, Ohio, overlooking the white part of the town in the more prosperous valley. The story is told chronologically in two parts. The first part covers 1919 - 1927. After a ten-year break, the second part covers 1937 - 1941, with a final chapter in 1965. The African American community, or "Bottoms," with its small four-block commercial strip called Carpenter's Row, complete with a pool hall, ice cream parlor, hairdresser ("Irene's Palace of Cosmetology"), and theater, is itself the major character of this novel. Besides the town, the book focuses on the lifelong friendship between two women with contrasting backgrounds and approaches to life. The title character, Sula, is raised by her grandmother, Eva, who lost a leg mysteriously, and her mother, Hannah. Eva's husband Boyboy abandoned her with three children after five years of marriage, and Hannah's husband died. Both Eva and Hannah enjoy the company of men, and the latter is promiscuous.

Sula's friend Nel is from a conservative, stable home with traditional values. Her mother, Helene, was the daughter of a Creole prostitute in New Orleans and was raised by her grandmother. Early in the book, Helene and Nel travel south for Helene's grandmother's funeral, a trip that has a lasting impact on Nel, even though she never leaves the Bottoms again for the rest of her long life. Nel marries a man named Jude, while Sula attends college away from Medallion and has a series of short affairs in many large cities. During their girlhood, their friendship is forged by guilt and repeated violence involving Eva, Hannah, and the two girls themselves.

The second part of the book begins after Sula returns to the Bottoms after ten years away. She has stormy, revealing scenes with both her mother Eva and Nel and is scorned by the town for sleeping indiscriminately with all the men. Much of the second part of the book is internalized as Morrison's characters explore their motivations, pasts, and relationships with each other.

A great deal of the story is told elliptically, symbolically, and through indirection. Many passages require several rereadings to be understood. For example, a key event in the story occurs after one of the incidents of violence involving Sula. In a state of shock and incomprehension, Sula visits a mad, isolated WWI veteran, Shadrack, who lives alone in an old shack along the river. Sula is frightened by what she has done and by Shadrack. During the visit, Shadrack says only one word, which is the title of this review. Morrison recounts the incident twice, first from Sula's perspective when it occurs and then, years later, from Shadrack's perspective. This enigmatic, haunting incident and the event it is based on are at the heart of the novel.

The book is short but makes use of foreshadowing as events and themes touched on at one point in the story become significant later. The tone of the book is meditative. Unlike some readers, I found the book mostly unideological. Morrison details the relationships between African Americans and whites in the first half of the 20th century and explores the tensions between sexuality, convention, love, and loneliness that are part of racial issues but also have meaning on their own. The book left me with a sense of sorrow and loss and a renewed appreciation for why I read novels.

Robin Friedman