Finishing this book, and I am already eager for a re-read!

This is my very first Toni Morrison book, and I have completely fallen head over heels in love with her writing style. Sula is a relatively short read, yet it manages to pack an incredibly powerful punch. I was truly not anticipating this book to be so disturbing and perhaps even bordering on the realm of horror, but I found that aspect quite fascinating and appreciated it.

Morrison delves deep into a plethora of complex themes in Sula, including multigenerational trauma, identity, gender, race, and the very essence of human nature. Growing up side by side, Nel and Sula are the best of friends, almost as if they were sisters. Despite their differences and the influence of the women who raised them, they share an intense female friendship. It is a poignant story that vividly描绘s the experiences of Black girls and women who are constantly surrounded by injustice and racism as they grow up and embark on the journey of self-discovery.

I can't believe I waited this long to read my first Morrison, but I am overjoyed that I finally did. I am still constantly thinking about Sula, and I fully expect to be for a long, long time. I am really looking forward to reading more of her remarkable books this year, particularly Beloved and The Bluest Eye. If you happened to enjoy My Brilliant Friend, I firmly believe that you will also thoroughly enjoy this one. Sula, and Toni Morrison's books in general, are truly not to be overlooked or taken for granted! This is indeed required reading.

The usual caveats apply with regards to my review and rating of this book (see my profile). Overall, I didn't enjoy Sula as it made me profoundly uncomfortable.

I distinctly remember feeling depressed and disheartened by the novel's premise that for a woman to be truly free, she had to behave like Sula. Her behavior seemed quirky at best and reprehensible at worst to me.

Moreover, even with all her freedom, Sula didn't seem truly happy. There were still too many external constraints. It seemed the best that could be said was that she was as free as possible. I guess in some ways that's a truth about life, but having it presented so nakedly made me feel angry and despairing.

Regarding the "reprehensible" behavior, I firmly believe there are certain things one just doesn't do to the women one loves. Sleeping with their husbands tops that list. I don't care that Sula's best friend's husband was a lousy husband; sleeping with him wasn't the right way to get her friend's attention. While it was hard to forgive Sula for that act, it was even harder to forgive her best friend, who ultimately realized she pined for Sula and forgave her thoughtless indiscretion.

I'm much older now than when I read "Sula," and I better understand that life and relationships are more complicated than I thought as a teenager. I can't claim I've never done anything in love or sex that I shouldn't have or regret. But it was her best friend's husband, and that makes a big difference to me.

All that said, I'll admit Morrison's writing style is lyrical, elegant, and haunting. But in this case, I can't overcome the distressing content to fully appreciate the beauty and richness of her language. However, the final song Sula sings to herself, "I have sung all the songs there are to sing," still stays with me.

How many times have we heard those annoying, disrespectful exclamations about a certain person being a loner and doing this or that, in short, you can't just stay there doing nothing or doing things that "aren't done." Eh!!

In short, that subtle, insidious irony towards those who see the world, society, without that nauseating and infected patina of convention. Now, in 2023, it could be someone, for example, who has reached a certain age, 30 or 40 years old, and still hasn't "had" a child. Come on, it's about time you got moving, right!!

But in "Sula", the book I just finished reading, a novel set mostly a hundred years ago and especially in a place, Medallion, a kind of black ghetto, exactly, a place where people of color were relegated in the United States in the early 1900s, there is more.

In this place, confined from the white world, we will see the lives of various people pass by, each with their own identity and weaknesses, struggling for survival, which was very difficult for people of color at that time and especially for women. But then we will meet Sula, a girl who will...

First encounter with the bibliography of Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. I intended to read some of her works because I was curious, but I didn't know where to start. For the occasion, a literary challenge, a collective reading, came my way and I seized it immediately. It struck me a lot from the start, but I didn't think it would be so devastating and imperative. The author's writing is powerful: I can't assign any other more appropriate adjective to it. Because it is precisely the visionary power, combined with a sociological attention of great importance, that has literally trapped me in her narrative.

Absolutely must-read!

This unerring writer has been the sole one to receive all 5 star reviews from me thus far (for "Beloved," "The Bluest Eye," and this one). All of her books possess that same remarkable quality. What can be stated about our most cherished writer that hasn't already been said? It is truly arduous to single out a favorite novel. Is it "Beloved" for its touches of Goth? Or "The Bluest Eye" for its continuous exploration of tenderness and cruelty? Or perhaps this one, for its inspiring blend of grief from the ultraheavy psychological effects of "The Bluest Eye" and the magnificent deus ex machina at the end, similar to that of "Beloved"? Morrison is better than Faulkner. The scenes presented here vary in tone. Morrison's narrator has certain privileges but also decides what not to show us. "Sula" involves the intense relationship between two women, how it can potentially transcend the love for family and the love for love. It is something completely foreign to me, yet so delicious and as bizarre as, for example, Cindi Lauper's anthem "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

What is it that men miss out on?

After reading "Sula," I am now suddenly and completely aware that there are certain circles (circular, perhaps a fitting description for the way the writer presents her never-normal narrative) that I am prohibited from entering. The feeling of only catching glimpses of something I will never understand is that mystical and magical force that keeps my nose constantly in novels.

This is the most cumbersome text that I have read by Morrison so far.

Although the style is as accessible as ever, the typical earthy impressionism with a strong symbolic content. This is linguistically as brilliant as ever. Structurally, however, the text erects some hurdles. Similar to "The Bluest Eye", secondary characters take up a lot of space, and the construction is rather episodic. While in Morrison's debut this still seems seamless because all the narrative threads converge on the same center, it takes a bit more effort here to see through the complex construction of the novel. This refers less to the course of the external action, which is told largely chronologically, than to the character portrayal, the inner action, which often does not reveal itself immediately. The main characters, the two opposing friends Nel and Sula, appear relatively late and only gradually gain contour. At first glance, Nel appears as the good, adjusted one, from a well-ordered parental home, socially accepted with the initially given life path, Sula as the outsider of dubious origin, especially in a sexual sense unrestrained and therefore immoral in the eyes of the community. The inhabitants of the small town "Bottom" condemn her as the pure evil, the outsider becomes the community-forming negative foil: As long as the evil is among us, we can convince ourselves that we are good, we can set ourselves against "the other". After Sula's death, this community breaks down because "the other" was always a community-forming moment.

Also for the reader, Sula's actions initially seem largely incomprehensible and immoral, at the latest when she sleeps with Nel's husband, who then leaves his family. But a look into Sula's inner life shows that, contrary to the general assumption, it is not malice that drives her, but the lack of a moral compass that was never given to the daughter of an equally promiscuous mother. And Nel too has to face the realization that she is not the completely good one, for in the attraction that Sula exercises on her lies a fascination for the other, for the "bad".

After a strong first half, the novel frustrated me a bit in the middle part due to the difficult accessibility of its characters and their motivations, but in the end it still convinced me because a lot was revealed without having to be explained verbosely. Overall, a demanding but fascinating text that one has to work on and that one does not finish so quickly.

I chose to read this novel after the recent passing of the author as I don't think I had ever read it before.

It's a short novel, with less than 200 pages, but that doesn't imply it's a quick read. The text is incredibly rich and nuanced. Rushing through this book would be unforgivable.

It chronicles the growth of the community of Bottom, the neighborhood of Medallion, Ohio, which is home to an African American community. It tells the story of two girls, Nel and Sula, who are close friends until they grow up and their friendship fades. It poses questions about friendships between women and how relationships with men might interfere with those friendships.

Medallion is a community where most jobs are inaccessible to African Americans. Morrison describes the hiring of white "boys" from Virginia with skinny arms (whom she also refers to as hillbillies) and migrants. In other words, laborers are brought in from other places because Medallion won't employ the African American men in their town.

This slim novel is substantial enough to make it evident why Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first African American woman to achieve this honor.

Hmmm. Sula is a book that left me in a state of confusion, frustration, and underwhelm. However, I do think it has some merit and offers great food for thought. So, I have to settle with a non-committed 3 stars.

When Morrison set out to write Sula in the 1970s, she had specific themes in mind to explore. She wanted to know: "What is friendship between women when unmediated by men? What choices are available to Black women outside their own society's approval? What are the risks of individualism in a determinedly individualistic, yet racially uniform and socially static, community?" These were questions that hadn't been fully explored in fiction yet, at least not in the mainstream. And so, like most of Morrison's books, Sula is a very female-driven story. It delves into the (limits of) female freedom and how it ties in with sexual and economic freedom.

We meet many different Black women in the book, across multiple generations, each with varying attitudes toward freedom. Hannah has many suitors and takes full pleasure in sex. Eva sacrifices her body for economic freedom by selling off her leg to provide for her family. Nel tries to find protection in marriage, while Sula resists both sacrifice and accommodation.

And so, Sula can be described as a story of motherhood, friendship, and sacrifice. It follows Nel and Sula, two girls who grow up in a mostly Black village in Ohio, from childhood to adulthood. It shows how their deep bond is tested by societal norms and shaped by the constrictions of a segregated, patriarchal South.

The novel starts with an announcement of the looming destruction of the Bottom, the Black neighborhood of Medallion. Morrison then takes us back in time to introduce us to the various people who lived there before. We see Nel and her mother Helene as they travel to New Orleans to visit a dying relative. We witness the difficulties they face as Black people traveling in the segregated South. Nel is influenced by this visit and decides she never wants to be like her mother's mother, who worked as a prostitute. She wants to be "wonderful" and begins this journey by befriending Sula against her mother's wishes.

We then get to know Sula and her family. The matriarch of the Peace family, Eva, came to Medallion with her husband BoyBoy and their three children. But BoyBoy abandons the family, and Eva is left to raise the children on her own. Exhausted and impoverished, she leaves the children with a neighbor for eighteen months and returns with a mysterious new prosperity and a missing leg. Eva uses her money to build a large home on Carpenter's Road, where she accepts boarders and takes in children.

Despite their differences, Sula and Nel become fiercely attached to each other and do almost everything together. However, their friendship is tested when they participate in the accidental death of a young boy named Chicken Little. And this is not the only death in the story. Around the same time, Plum returns from war with a drug addiction. Eva, in an act of "ensuring" her son would die like a man, sets him on fire. Hannah also dies, burning alive after accidentally setting herself aflame while doing laundry.

These deaths, for me, pulled me out of the story. They didn't feel organic but rather over-the-top and loaded with symbolism. I couldn't quite understand what Morrison was trying to convey by describing them in such a gruesome way. It just didn't click for me.

As Sula and Nel grow up, they remain close. But after Nel's wedding to Jude Greene, Sula leaves Medallion, and the girls don't see each other for another ten years. When Sula returns, she has Eva placed in a nursing home and has an affair with Nel's husband, leading to Jude leaving Nel. The townspeople regard Sula as the embodiment of evil for her blatant disregard of social conventions. And so, Sula spends the rest of her days hated and judged by the people of Medallion. Ironically, her presence in the community actually improves their lives, as it gives them the impetus to live more harmoniously with one another and treat each other better.

Personally, I really hated this aspect of the story. It felt like Morrison was making the statement that Sula's existence was a good thing because it reminded the women to be good daughters and wives to keep their fathers and husbands from leaving them. This is such a messed-up message that left a bitter taste in my mouth. It is not a woman's job to ensure her husband doesn't cheat on her or to be "nice" and "caring" to avoid being abandoned. Instead of dismantling the patriarchal structures of Medallion, Morrison chose to reinforce them, which I found disappointing.

After a while, Sula starts an affair with Ajax, but as soon as she gets attached, he leaves town. Saddened by his departure, Sula falls ill. Nel visits her on her sickbed, and the two women fight. Nel is frustrated by Sula's attitude toward conformity and tradition and her unwillingness to apologize for cheating with Jude. This conversation was the final straw for me. I hated Sula and her self-righteousness. She had never worked a day in her life, lived off her grandmother's business, and never had to take care of children, yet she was lecturing Nel on freedom and responsibility. It was truly embarrassing.

Overall, I feel like Sula was living in a lie. She had this idea that freedom was an individual thing, that being free meant shitting on others and only caring for oneself. But this is a deficient view of life. I understand that this is unfortunately the truth in our capitalist and individualistic societies, but I wished Morrison had explored what true freedom really means. That we cannot be free as long as our neighbors are not. Sula's freedom meant nothing because the women around her were not free. It would have been so much more powerful if Morrison had really thought about what it would mean for this community of women to create a space for themselves where they could be free, despite the structural racism and sexism in the US.

I know this is a big ask and would have taken the novel in a whole new direction, but the way Sula was written left me confused and disappointed about Morrison's notion of freedom and what it means for Black women. If freedom means living like Sula, only caring about oneself and nobody else, then I don't want any part of it.

After Nel leaves, Sula dies alone. And although the people of the village are pleased by her death, they start behaving differently afterwards, abandoning their righteous indignation and becoming slack in their roles as mothers and daughters again. I hated this because it reinforced the idea that women have to dutifully fulfill their roles as mothers and daughters and please the men in their lives. No, thank you.

The story ends in 1965, when Nel is fifty-five years old and her kids have grown up. She visits Eva in the hospital and is forced to reflect on her role in Chicken's death. Nel realizes she was complicit and that she enjoyed watching him fall. At the end of the novel, Nel also realizes that she has been harboring a deep pain and sorrow about losing Sula and that she had missed her all along, not her husband. This ending would have had a lot more impact if I had cared for Sula, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

From a Black feminist standpoint, I understand the need to write unlikeable Black female characters to show their complexity. So, don't get me wrong, Sula is a fine character for a book like this. But that doesn't mean I have to like her on a personal level. Also, for those interested, there is a queer reading of Sula that focuses on how Nel and Sula live their lives outside of heteronormative expectations for social interaction. For more on that, see Barbara Smith's and Roderick Ferguson's takes on Sula.

My first encounter with Toni Morrison's work has truly been an eye-opening experience.

The novel I read was not only impactful but also highly impressive. I was truly amazed that a story as short as this (under 200 pages) could have such a profound effect on me.

The way Morrison skillfully weaves together 50 years of friendships, heartaches, and personal development within the limited pages is nothing short of incredible.

Each character is vividly brought to life, and their emotions and experiences are so palpable that it feels as if I am right there with them.

The story unfolds at a perfect pace, keeping me engaged from start to finish.

I can't wait to explore more of Morrison's works and see what other literary masterpieces she has in store for us.

Overall, this first experience with Toni Morrison has left me with a deep appreciation for her writing and a newfound love for her stories.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a powerful and moving read.

Loved every sentence of this re-read.

I vividly remember the first time I delved into Sula. From the snippets of small talk I had heard about the book, I went in with the anticipation of an innocent and charming tale of friendship. However, nothing could have prepared me for the intricate complexity that lay within the relationship between Sula and Nel. And nothing could have prepared me for the sheer force that was Sula.

I recall my initial gamut of feelings towards Sula: at first, there was fascination, then shock, followed by almost-loathing, later evolving into understanding and loving, and finally, missing her when the story had come to an end.

The story commences with a concise description of the book's setting. The Bottom, a Black neighbourhood in Ohio, with the irony inherent in its name, its rich history, and its unique attractions. The introduction is narrated in a reflective and nostalgic tone, painting a picture of a place that is distant, disappearing, and being gentrified. Then, the story of the people of this place unfolds, with the spotlight firmly on Nel and Sula, two friends who have a deep and multifaceted love and need for each other.

Toni Morrison, in her foreword to this book, states: "Outlaw women are fascinating - not always for their behaviour, but because historically women are seen as disruptive and their status is an illegal one from birth if it is not under the rule of men. In much literature a woman's escape from male rule led to regret, misery, if not disaster. In Sula I wanted to explore the consequences of what that escape might be, on not only a conventional black society, but on female friendship. In 1969, in Queens, snatching liberty seemed compelling. Some of us thrived; some of us died. All of us had a taste."

Sula is indeed an outlaw. A woman who lives life to the fullest for herself, unapologetically until the very end. One of the most striking bits of dialogue from this book is the final conversation between Nel and Sula. Nel asks her what she has to show for the life she lived, to which Sula responds: "Show? To who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes in it. Which is to say, I got me." Nel remarks, "Lonely, ain't it?" Sula's brilliant retort is: "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."

Re-reading this book was like taking a plunge into the vast richness it offers all over again. The wonderful world that Morrison crafts with the Bottom and its people, and the sheer beauty of the language, are truly captivating.

I truly despised this book.

Right from the start, the blatant sexual content, along with the graphic descriptions and language, made it an arduous task for me to get through.

When I initially read the summary of the book, I had high hopes that it would pique my interest. However, as it turned out, I loathed it with a passion.

The characters all seemed to blend together in my mind, and I found them to be nothing short of abhorrent.

At times, the book left me completely bewildered, and I struggled to identify any overarching plot.

I felt that the writing was extremely haphazard and disjointed, constantly switching topics and viewpoints without any smooth transitions.

It was as if the author had no clear direction or purpose in mind while penning this piece of work.

Overall, this book was a major disappointment for me, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

Sula is an incredibly powerful and unforgettable compact novel. It metaphorically symbolizes a woman who represents our inclination to find a scapegoat in those who are different.

Sure, at first glance, it might seem like a clichéd theme that has been done countless times before. However, for me, it remains a revolutionary work that continuously sparks conversations about race, sexuality, and the actions of communities that are scapegoated and marginalized.

The story centers around Nel, the conformist, and her best friend, the eccentric Sula. Sula provides a reprieve from Nel's strict Christian upbringing, but they separate after high school ends.

Then, Sula returns, and she is seen as a jezebel, stealing Nel's man, Jude, along the way and becoming hated. One might wonder what becomes of their friendship.

The love-hate friendship between Sula and Nel is one of the many feuds in the literary canon. When reading this, I identified that they both suffer from two kinds of loneliness.

For Sula, loneliness represents a desire to flout convention and free herself from society's constraints. She says, "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" (Morrison 143). For her, it is a choice she makes to carve out her own path in the world.

Nel's loneliness, on the other hand, is self-induced. It stems from her desire to live a rigid and conventional life, as well as her anger that her husband Jude left her for Sula. She reflects, "she had looked at her children and knew in her heart that would be all, that they were all she would ever know of love. But it was a love that, like a pan of syrup kept too long on the stove, had cooked out, leaving only its odor and a hard sweet sludge, impossible to scrape off" (Morrison 165).

Both women also know that their loneliness has its roots in a childhood secret. They watched their friend Chicken Little drown after an innocent afternoon of playing.

This wrenching knowledge of witnessing a life end both brings the women together and drives them apart. Sula is full of self-awareness and emotion, while Nel is rigid and unforgiving, refusing to take responsibility for her part in Chicken Little's death.

Morrison's novel also contains two powerful subplots concerning two men that Sula knew.

Ajax is sexy and refuses to be tied down. He seems to believe that Sula is his match, but when she asks about his whereabouts, he breaks up with her. Sula's heartbreak is beautifully captured as she says, "I wanted to know his name so how could he help but leave me since he was making love to a woman who didn't even know his name" (Morrison 134).

Shadrack is a mentally unstable, PTSD-ridden World War I veteran. He grieves Sula's death because she is the only one who ever cared for him, and he is the only one who truly understood her. He reflects, "when he looked at her face, he had also seen the skull beneath...he tried to think of something to say to comfort Sula, something to stop the hurt from spilling out of her eyes, so he had said always, so she would not be afraid of the change" (Morrison 157).

As an outsider, Shadrack is accepted at the Bottom for his eccentricities. However, because he is a man, his actions are never questioned.

Morrison's language, structure, and the voices of women all reverberate like ghosts, longing for their stories to be read and passed on. It's not just the stories of Sula and Nel; but also of Sula's grandmother, Eva; her mother, Hannah; and even Nel's mother, Helene. They are all aching and yearning to be loved.

Through her luscious prose, Morrison captures a never-ending heartbreak that keeps repeating itself in different stages of life. Like Sula, we are always searching for ways to "define ourselves" (Morrison 95).

We hurt those we don't understand, often realizing that this is an innate desire to appear self-righteous.

Postscript: After reading Sula, make sure to explore Morrison's masterpiece of a short story called "Recitatif" and the novel "Love." All three works share interconnected themes that offer a deeper understanding of Morrison's literary genius.

Toni Morrison has long been a prominent figure in my literary education, with her name being constantly referenced in a rather vague manner. For years, I was aware of her brilliance and had heard countless praises about the beauty of her novels. However, it was not until now that I finally picked up one of her works.

Sula is truly a remarkable book. Morrison has an uncanny ability to understand the depths of people's hearts and perceive the essence of their souls, which she then portrays with astonishing accuracy. Her characters are complex and multi-faceted, neither entirely good nor bad, but rather充满激情、充满生命力且才华横溢的个体. I was captivated by the ambiguity of the story and how it made it abundantly clear that people are a mix of both good and bad qualities.

The novel is populated with a diverse cast of characters, especially a plethora of strong, independent, and fierce women. There are also those who are tired or hopeless, those who settle and those who refuse to. The women in Sula display a wide range of emotions, from spite and envy to kindness, generosity, and love.

One of the most captivating aspects of the book for me was the discussions on gender, race, community, and the intersection of these aspects of our identity. It is incredibly poignant and remains highly relevant in our current social climate.

I cannot neglect to mention Morrison's writing, which is simply breathtaking. At times, it is poetic and lyrical, while at others, it is sharp and humorous. Her prose is flawless, and I found myself rereading passages multiple times just to soak in their beauty.

I absolutely adored Sula. It is a perfect blend of the quirky and the lyrical, filled with beauty, tragedy, pain, and desperation. The characters are so well-written that they seem to leap off the page and come to life. I regret not reading one of Morrison's books sooner, but I am now determined to explore more of her works in the near future. This book has quickly become one of my all-time favorite classics.