A review by clara_mai
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

5.0

 What a brilliant, complex and powerful novel. While telling the coming-of-age story of the protagonist Milkman, how he grows up in Michigan and eventually moves from North to South in a hunt for gold and a discovery of his ancestry, Morrison also fans out the narrative and introduces about a dozen side characters. They and their stories, and relationships add layer after layer and the further you get into this story, the more connections are revealed to you, if you just read carefully enough. I definitly had to focus and work quite a bit to keep up the level of attention this book demands and it was quite a challenging read. The second half of the book was significantly easier for me and towards the end I coninued to be even more captivated than before. This is the first book by Toni Morrison that I read in the English original (I read an older German translation of Beloved last year and had a feeling that it did not do justice to the original, the newer ones might be better though) and it was such a pleasure to experience the beauty and power of her prose first hand. I won't even try to sum up all the themes and symbolism Morrison incorporated into this story and would instead suggest to everyone to pick up the book and embark on the absolutely wild and enriching journey that is Song of Solomon. 
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