Reviews with content warning for Violence - Jazz

toni morrison gets me every time, i wish i read this book straight through instead of pausing in the middle. it’s so interesting & gives you reason to think about love and humanity in a new but old way. it’s a hard read, but only because i didn’t feel quite ready for it. i would love to reread this. the consistent shift in perspectives & search for connection between characters makes the read so so enjoyable and active. my favorite portions were the observations about men, masculinity, and male personality.

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taynun's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Like all of Morrison, her writing is beautiful in Jazz -- which is what saves this book from being a run-of-the-mill, boring novel. Jazz often feels like it's kind of going nowhere, which I suppose is a bit of the point. The characters are wonderful, fleshed-out images of real people, and the prose haunts you. But the plot doesn't quite hit like her other novels. Great on its own. A little lackluster for Morrison. 4 stars because I'm a sucker for Toni.

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michaelion's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

well. they can't all be hits.

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sofipitch's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Morrison's prose is enchanting as always, the story is difficult to sum up but it makes sense in that way, shifting in time the way music itself does

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mysimas's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Couldn’t finish the book on my first try; I just wasn’t in the mood for something as depressing.

It’s a beauty, though, and I’m glad to have come back. I’m not quite sure what to make of her yet — it unsettles me that she almost makes me forgive characters the unforgiveable. But maybe that’s the point, maybe people do bad things because they’re pushed to them by their circumstances and it takes a lot of work and willpower on their part not to give in — and sometimes they slip, and other times they don’t, and you can feel for them or disapprove of their shortcomings but once you try on their shoes, even if just for a moment, you can’t really go back.

I was so sure it would happen. That the past was an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself at the crack and no power on earth could lift the arm that held the needle. I was so sure, and they danced and walked all over me. Busy, they were, busy being original, complicated, changeable—human, I guess you’d say, while I was the predictable one, confused in my solitude into arrogance, thinking my space, my view was the only one that was or that mattered.

I still don’t know who, or what, the narrator is. I think Morrison tells us right at the end, but I’m still not sure.

The only thing I do know for certain is that there’s a lot of good going on among the grim. It’s no coincidence the story, chronologically, starts in the autumn and ends in the spring. It’s terrible in many parts but also, strangely, cleansing, like cleaning a wound of pus. And screwed up as the relationships in this book are, there are also heartfelt scenes that would’ve shone in a good romance book.

Recommended.

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