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A review by kierscrivener
Sula by Toni Morrison
3.0
So rereading a book three years later can offer a lot of insight. I understand why I disliked it so strongly on my first pass through and I also see why I was wrong. This is a gritty, realistic story of The Bottom and the women who live there, it tells of Eva, Hannah and more prominently on Nel and Sula. Morrison's prose are beautiful and unsettling in their visercialness. Yes the first time I found it hard to stomach Sula's behaviour and disregard for others, but more so I think it was the language that triggered my own healing heart. It unconsciously made me uncomfortable and afraid. It still left me unsettled this time, but with more healing and greater perspective I saw behind and through the unsettling to the nuance, complexity and brilliance.
Toni Morrison offers no judgement and no right way instead she tells true raw stories. She captures the realities of racism, poverty, sexuality, love and abandonment. That though Nel and Sula take diverging paths they are both limited and liberated by their choices.
There was a vibrancy and visercialness in her prose that I look forward to exploring in her greater body of works. She brought the characters to life, their grief, their joy, their moods, their fears.
Quotes/Notes:
When they put him in a straight jacket he was thankful that his hands were hidden and still. WWI. PTSD. Shadrack
"It was not death or dying he was afraid of but the uncertainty of both"
"They knew Shadrack was crazy but that didn't mean he didn't have any sense. Or that he didn't have any power"
"Hannah was fastidious about who she slept with. She'd f practically anything but sleeping with someone implied for her a measure of trust and evident commitment. So she ended up a daylight lover."
"She'd sleep with the husband and wash the wife's dishes in the same afternoon"
Toni Morrison offers no judgement and no right way instead she tells true raw stories. She captures the realities of racism, poverty, sexuality, love and abandonment. That though Nel and Sula take diverging paths they are both limited and liberated by their choices.
There was a vibrancy and visercialness in her prose that I look forward to exploring in her greater body of works. She brought the characters to life, their grief, their joy, their moods, their fears.
Quotes/Notes:
When they put him in a straight jacket he was thankful that his hands were hidden and still. WWI. PTSD. Shadrack
"It was not death or dying he was afraid of but the uncertainty of both"
"They knew Shadrack was crazy but that didn't mean he didn't have any sense. Or that he didn't have any power"
"Hannah was fastidious about who she slept with. She'd f practically anything but sleeping with someone implied for her a measure of trust and evident commitment. So she ended up a daylight lover."
"She'd sleep with the husband and wash the wife's dishes in the same afternoon"