Hooked on Books discussion

Members Starting the BR: Willow and Alexw
Challenge:
Book: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Anyone is free to join in this Buddy Read! Happy Reading!

Welcome Willow-big smile
Let's see if we can make some sense out of Beloved now.

Hi Alex :) Found it! Yay! I can't wait to continue reading:)

Up to page 60 but still finding hard to understand. On page 52 Paul D describes his views on love. "love just a little bit-so when they broke its back or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one."
Very cynical about love on Paul D's views but if you were a slave and had your kids sold was tough way to be.

hey! I'm around the same area I believe! I agree, it's still difficult to put everything and everyone in order. I think that's because of the author jumping around so much timeline wise. I agree, he's very cynical. but when you look at his life it makes sense for sure

I'm up to the Carnival (a little past now). I feel like the writing is slightly easier to understand

In my edition which is up to page 60 we first meet Beloved and that confuses me more than ever-am eagerly looking forward to your views on meeting Beloved.

Hello friends, hi Willow , nice to meet you. Alex invited me to join the read .
I haven’t started yet but do have the book and will try to start today. Dealing with some cold weather but have power and food , so we’re happy .

Just started reading the foreword and decided to skip to chapter 1, did y’all read the foreword?

My copy is a paperback published in 1988 with no foreword- who wrote the foreword in yours & what was interesting in the foreword?

I’m reading from both my Kindle version- First vintage international edition June 2004 and listening on Spotify using my listening hours as needed to supplement.

The foreword is written by Toni Morrison about how she came up with the story. In 1983, She was working at a publishing house doing “correspondence-telephone-meetings that were part of the job, editing manuscripts at home”. She left the job to become her own author. Scared and unsure but feeling “free” , she was sitting and pondering about the idea of freedom and how it pertained to the freedoms of women in 1980’s. These thoughts of course led her to the history of slavery and how blacks how no rights. “Marriage was discouraged, impossible or illegal; in which birthing children was required, but “having” them, being responsible for them—- being their parent—- was out of the question as freedom.” This led her to a newspaper clipping she came across in her work about the story of Margaret Garner, a young mother who having escaped slavery was arrested for killing one of her children rather than let them be returned to the owner’s plantation …..
There’s a little more about how this historical story led to her story about Beloved.
I can copy and paste more if either of y’all are interested. I felt it clarified a few things, as I actually went back to read it after the Carnival scene and upon meeting Beloved.

I’m at the point in the story where Denver is caring for Beloved. I’m going to assumed this “Beloved” is Sethe’s daughter returning in physical form rather than her ghost form (which took me some time to realize in the book)
So my question is … how? No idea. Didn’t know there was a paranormal thread to this story, but I’m open minded, and looking forward to where this story is going.

The writing is poetic but that to me can me a bit confusing.
For example “I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house”. In tapping on the word haint on my Kindle I came across the wiki explanation :
“ In folklore, a ghost is a soul or spirit of a dead person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. “ So “haint” to be haunt.

The tree on her back being the rough skin after a whipping.
Very creative explanations, providing I can figure them out …. LOL.

Wow- great detective work on this novel which clears up(somewhat) about the book but still very skeptical that it deserved the Nobel Prize. The pages definitely do not flow together or for that matter even some paragraphs on the same page.
Would be helpful if at each chapter was labeled with the year so you could have a better flow of ideas. Then you could just read each chapter in yearly order to see if that clears up this dumbfounding story.

Yeah, a little more clarity on timeline would be helpful. At the time Beloved returns how old is Denver?

Trina -Hope your weather is better as ours is now tolerable with 4 inches of snow predicted for this Thursday.
Good question on age of Denver but could find no answer in this mystery of a book.

Alex -The weather is finally breaking with the ice melting and people will surface. Everyone is terrified of this weather. I’m planning on running this afternoon should be on the low 40°’s almost balmy 🤣



So I’m chugging along at 30ish % in this book. And still it’s jumping back and forth between Sethe and Denver as well as Beloved and now Amy. Takes a few lines before I can figure out the context. Lovely poetic writing but so much so that I think the author should have just wrote a book of poems.
Some examples -
the quality of Amy’s voice, her breath like burning wood.

Denver grew ice-cold as she rose from the bed. She knew she was twice Beloved’s size but she floated up, cold and light as a snowflake.

Sethe rubbed and rubbed, pressing the work cloth and the stony curves that made up his knee. She hoped it calmed him as it did her. Like kneading bread in the half-light of the restaurant kitchen. Before the cook arrived when she stood in a space no wider than a bench is long, back behind and to the left of the milk cans. Working dough. Working, working dough. Nothing better than that to start the day’s serious work of beating back the past.

New question to discuss- who is Beloved? Is she the baby come to life? Or someone/thing else?
The conversation between Denver and her (pg 88 of 324)
It starts “Why you call yourself Beloved?” Beloved closed her eyes. “In the dark my name is Beloved.”

I’m thinking she is the baby , come back from haunting? No mention of any more hauntings.

Opinions?

Did not know you were a runner-how far do you run? -I usually walk for an hour and a half in the morning.
Another frustrating (of the many) parts on this novel is that she does not number the chapters so in my book your page 88 is 75 and my total pages are 275. But I agree that beloved is the baby back from the dead. This is what is on my page 88---
"Yonder they flay it And O my people they do not love your hands. They only use bind, tie chop them off and leave empty."
Instead of WTF , will be new phrase I just invented- WTP for What The Pulitzer."

lol! Yes, I agree “WTP!?” I’m at 61% (thank you audiobooks) and not much is clearer. Except now add the voices of Paul D and Baby Suggs.

Yes, I’ve been running about 15 years. Did 2 Mara th ons and a few half marathons. We just usually run 3 miles weekly but am hoping to find a fun half marathon this fall. Summers are too hot 🥵

I gave out water to marathon runners but was exhausted after one hour of doing that so that is the extent of my marathoning-lol!
Have finished but still cannot make out much about this confusing book.
Since GR took away our direct messages, can communicate with you under friend's comments.

Alex you finished? The book? Still no clarity? Sometimes it takes the ending to make sense but …?

Still not clear-will wait for you to finish or if you find some clarity before finishing please send message

Will do, maybe tomorrow as I’m heading into work today. Had to cancel 1 1/2 days and now trying to squeeze patients in where there’s no space 😅 can’t believe GR’s got rid of the messages. I guess we got the last ones in. Maybe there’s another way to stay in touch… 🤔

on your profile page go down to bottom where says friends comments-will do now to show you another way to communicate

Still chugging along. My app keeps jumping around and I’m listening to chapters i already heard but obviously didn’t remember . So I’m back to where I last read. 😅 just finished the section where Beloved is narrating … something about a dead man on her face ?!? What on earth is that referring to ???

Yes, more WTP. This book is where you turn the page and you think-wow I must have some pages stick together because this makes no sense but then you see the page number is right after what you read and is just poor writing. I too am befuddled about the dead man on face reference. Wait until you get to my page 254 and the paragraph that starts out "Somebody had to be saved"-rest is ludicrous.
Did you see my message on your profile page in the friend's comments?
Hope your workload is better today.

Finished this morning , re-read your quoted passage. Yes, so brutal but honestly glad I read it. Have had this kindle book for years and wondered about all the hype. I gave it a solid 2 star rating 🤭
I got your message on my profile, doesn’t show in the app, and maybe doesn’t notify you of replies? Either way, I replied 😉
I’m up for Dearly departed ! I’ve had that book for years ! Let me know when to start 😁

Yes, I rated it 2 stars and reviewed. Need to clear my reading thoughts but will get back to you on Departed-Thanks for being my buddy reader pal.