The Next Best Book Club discussion

I've just started reading Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' which is the choice for my Reading Circle this month. I'm finding it hard going, which is quite unusual for me. I read anything and everything. I'm not saying I like everything I read, but this one is feeling like a mountain to climb.

Toni Morrison's work is new to me - never read this author before. Anybody else read this book? What did you think of it? Anybody read anything else by Toni Morrison? Are they all written the same way? Feels like a book full of half told/suggested bits of the story and implications that only become clearer as you move through the book. Must admit I'm finding it all rather irritating. Is it just me? I've decided to just get it read as fast as possible so I can comment and move on....

I started reading Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, a couple of days ago and and have sitting on my desk a copy of Beloved, which I just received and also intend to read. I agree Morrison's not an easy read and her themes are dark and heart-wrenching, and how easy it would be for many of us--like some of the characters in Morrison's books--to ignore or trample the human dignity of the Pecola's and Sethe's of the world.

Morrison's protagonists are so real to me that they represent not just the plight of poor black women, but of all human beings who just don't measure up to the world's expectations of what is beautiful or worthy of respect.

I think your observation about "half told/suggested bits of the story and implications that only become clearer as you move through the book" is spot-on, and you could cite Faulkner's heavy influence on Morrison's writing in that regard. We're talking two giants of American Literature, both Nobel Prize winners, and both extremely difficult to read and unsettling at times.

I also understand getting irritated with this kind of writing. I had to smile reading that because I experienced the same thing reading Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Drove me nuts. Both authors make it tough on the reader, and their fiction isn't for everybody, but I give you credit for hanging in there.

Reading Morrison is kind of like reading poetry, or hearing songs. I know I'm missing things, but I'll take what I can get from one of our national literary treasures. You are not alone!