Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

by Harold Bloom

The mythic patterns Toni Morrison explores in her third novel inform the transformation of Milkman Dead. This title traces Milkman's journey from spiritual death to understanding and acceptance of personal responsibility, his liberation symbolized by his discovery of the ability to fly.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think of all of Morrison's books, Song of Solomon was only one I read a second time immediately, because I just didn't get it the first time (or for that matter, the second time). I had written it off as being uninteresting, but after this book, I have to concede that I really just didn't pick up on the themes she was interested in. (In my defense, I've never been big on "coming of age" stories).

The individual essays are for the most part great (except a few excursions into obscure feminist theory), and so they meld into one in my mind. So I'm just going to treat them as one joint text.

I've always thought of as thinking of yourself as an individual and community-centric thinking as at odds with each other, but I now see that for Morrison this is more complicated. As in the case of Ruth, if you never become an individual somewhat emancipated from influences (for her, her father), then you're not a part of the community but a stooge of someone in power. But as Macon shows, thinking only about yourself is just as much a perversion of the human spirit. Morrison plays with this using the contradictory aphorisms:

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

"You just can't fly off and leave a body."

To be a mature adult is to pay homage to both these impulses - to that of flight and to recognize that flying away means abandoning those on the ground. And these are resolved in Pilate, when Milkman realizes after she dies that: “Now he knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly”

But of course, this isn't simply a didactic lesson about coming of age, but also of remembering the past, coming to terms with it. Because people do fly away, and those they leave behind can do nothing but look on in ambivalent awe and horror: "The fathers may soar, they may triumph, they may leave, but the children know who they are: they remember, half in glory and half in accusation." And just as Milkman comes to his mature consciousness, he is attacked by Guitar, and Hagar dies of heartbreak. We don't get to stand outside time and learn, our learning is in the world itself.

It's a complicated lesson, but even Morrison isn't able to go into what such a mature consciousness would look like, as much as point at it using the journey into it and the guides along this journey. The book itself concludes at the moment of Milkman's burst into maturity. And as one of the critics points out about the ambiguous ending, where Milkman realizes the lesson from above:

"But perhaps another reason why the novel’s denouement is so ambiguous is that Morrison could not easily imagine Milkman after the moment of his sense of authentic identity as completed project. Could Milkman find permanent happiness in Shalimar? Should he take the spirit of Shalimar back to Michigan? Would he repudiate the economic advantage represented by his father’s property? Clearly the funk has erupted in Milkman but the question remains: Can the funk rise economically? Despite his sense of triumph at having found the site of authenticity in rural black poverty, it is hardly a triumph in which Morrison could fully participate or with which she could identify, especially in the aftermath of publishing her best-selling third novel"

Things are complicated. Morrison does see a solution in women and poverty, and even though she isn't naive about them, it is unclear whether they are sufficient as solutions. The role of women in the book is complex, because it is Morrison's only book which is male-centric. While Pilate is arguably the moral centre, her granddaughter Hagar clearly is driven away from her spirituality into the kind of materialism she believes Milkman would prefer. So Morrison herself seems to recognize that this solution might not be stable.

But ultimately, the book is about a way of genuinely living in the world, and exploring the various fictions we drape around ourselves, keeping us from others. We can see a seedling of Pilate's dying words “I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ’em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more” in Milkman's epiphany:

“It sounded old. Deserve. Old and tired and beaten to death. Deserve. Now it seemed to him that he was always saying or thinking that he didn't deserve some bad luck, or some bad treatment from others. He'd told Guitar that he didn't "deserve" his family's dependence, hatred, or whatever. That he didn't even "deserve" to hear all the misery and mutual accusations his parents unloaded on him. Nor did he "deserve" Hagar's vengeance. But why shouldn't his parents tell him their personal problems? If not him, then who? And if a stranger could try to kill him, surely Hagar, who knew him and whom he'd thrown away like a wad of chewing gum after the flavor was gone––she had a right to try to kill him too.

Apparently he though he deserved only to be loved--from a distance, though--and given what he wanted. And in return he would be...what? Pleasant? Generous? Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness.”

This alludes to the circular time Morrison seems to favour and the passing on of what's important within it, from one morally mature person to another. It's a grand philosophical project, and I think I need to read the original again.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because I read Song of Solomon and wanted to better understand it. Bloom's collection of critical essays definitely helped. I feel that I understand the novel more and the old questions I had have been replaced with new and hopefully more insightful questions. Not an easy read, but I'd recommend it to anyone writing about or just interested in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon.

[Eileen Humphreys · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful enigma of a story.

[Donut Cat (Leah) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well-written novel that tackles many important social issues. Trigger warning--many sexually explicit issues such as abuse and incest.

[Boumy Sandberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Toni... that is literature for me.

[Classiechickof09]

ITz KIND OF A WEIRD BOOK!

[Nkili]

my favourite book :)

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish I enjoyed the act of reading this kind of thing more than I do, but it helped me see Song of Solomon better. That's worth something.