"Beloved" by Toni Morrison

It is shortly after the end of the American Civil War and the ending of slavery in the USA. House number 124, isolated on the outskirts of Cincinnati, is  haunted by the ghost of a baby girl, Beloved. It has already driven away her elder brothers, and her grandmother has died; now only her mother, Sethe, an ex-slave and her younger sister, Denver, live there. Then Paul D, who had known Sethe when they were slaves together, arrives. He banishes the ghost and starts a relationship with Sethe. Then a girl calling herself Beloved arrives ...

The book deals with the horrors of slavery. Even though the characters are now free, the psychological  scars remain. Their experiences have shaped them; their experiences have made them the people who they are. The novel is a powerful condemnation of the slave-owners; even the white people who secretly worked to help slaves escape, and who helped them once they had, and still help them, are judged.

As is fitting with a book about haunting, the narrative flits backwards and forwards. It is written in the third-person past tense and sometimes, for example at the start, from an omniscient perspective, although it usually sees things through the eyes of one of the characters, usually a principal character. 

It is a well-written book and an interesting exploration of the principal characters. The back and forwards narrative leading to the slow discovery of what happened in the past means that there is a significant amount that the reader has to puzzle out at the start of the novel. I found this mystery challenging; it motivated me to keep reading.

This book won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Time magazine chose it as one of their 100 best books since Time began. Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. A list of other winners can be found here.

Selected quotes (page numbers refer to the 2007 Vintage paperback edition):

• "Suspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn't get interested in leaving life or living it." (p 4)
• "It made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world." (p 7)
• "Except for a heap more hair and some waiting in his eyes, he looked the way he had in Kentucky." (p 8)
• "That was the year winter came in a hurry at suppertime and stayed eight months." (p 34)
• "They had pretty manners, all of 'em. Talked soft and spit in handkerchiefs. Gentle in a lot of ways. You know, the kind who know Jesus by His first name, but out of politeness never use it even to His face." (p 44) They go on to commit rape.
• "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay." (p 51)
• "Sethe, if I'm here with you, with Denver, you can go anywhere you want. Jump, if you want to, 'cause I'll catch you, girl. I'll catch you 'fore you fall.Go as far inside as you need to, I'll hold your ankles. Make sure you get back out." (p 55)
• "The closer the roses got to death, the louder their scent." (p 57)
• "Women who drink champagne when there is nothing to celebrate can look like that: their straw hats with broken brims are often askew; they nod in public places; their shoes are undone." (p 60)
• "Rainwater held on to pine needles for dear life." (p 68)
• "'Today is always here', said Sethe. 'Tomorrow, never'." (p 72)
• "Hey! Hey! Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain't a goddamn axe. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down because they're inside." (p 81)
• "Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn't get back from." (p 86)
• "Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that free self was another." (p 112)
• "Loaves and fishes were His powers - they did not extend to an ex-slave." (p 161)
• "The woman junkheaped for the third time because she loved her children." (p 205)
• "Each seemed to be helping the other two stay upright. ... Making their way over hard snow, they stumbled and had to hold on tight, but nobody saw them fall." (p 205, p206)
• "She couldn't read clock time very well, but she knew when the hands were closed in prayer at the top of the face she was through for the day." (p 223)
• "She is the laugh; I am the laughter." (p 255)
• "She was a practical woman who believed there was a root either to chew or avoid for every ailment. Cogitation, as she called it, clouded things and prevented action. Nobody loved her and she wouldn't have liked it if they did, for she considered love a serious disability." (p 301)
• "She turned to him, her face looking like someone had turned up the gas jet." (p 315)
• "She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order." (p 321)
• "Sethe ... me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow." (p 322)

March 2023; 324 pages

Selected by Time magazine as one of the best 100 novels since Time began.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God