Beloved

The true power of this novel is created in the skilful way it is constructed by Morrison. Never fully in the past, never fully in the present and never looking through just a single pair of eyes. The reader is shifted constantly through time and perspective in a way that makes you feel you are really experiencing the chaos and painfully disordered lives of the characters. You may feel at first what a lovely thing it is that this baby has returned to her mother to create a second chance for them all, but she turns out to be a troubled presence though not an entirely sinister one. The community that rises together to expel her do not have bad intentions, but their intentions are not pure. This is the deep complexity of the novel because the characters are trapped in these paradoxes of aspects to their past and identity that are not all good and not all bad, but work against each other to make existence a painful thing to live with. Somehow, through this, the characters are expected to construct a life for themselves that doesn't let itself be clogged by the onslaught of a difficult past. This is the message for the present day readers who find it so easy to forget and need to find a way to live with a painful awareness of what really happened in our history.


A complicated, horrifying yet brilliant book.   April 14, 2001
1 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am studying Beloved for AS level English Lang and Lit. I found that the book had a confusing plot and often it was hard to understand. It portrayed the slave trade as horrific and made a big impact about the way in which we judge people by their colour. It made me realise that we cannot judge by colour if we should be judged at all.A powerful and spectacular novel.


One of my top three books of all time   August 23, 2000
Mrs. K. A. Wheatley (Leicester, UK)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I had to read this book for a university course and was totally blown away by it. It is powerful and passionate. It is tremendously complex and works on many levels. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a narrative, but was more and more impressed the deeper I looked into it. It deals with history and the role of story telling, religion and fate. The more I read it, the more I find. If I could ever even begin to write a book like this I would be a happy woman.


Far more than just a course text!   June 21, 2000
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

I had to read Beloved for an English course I was taking at university, which can sometimes have the effect of putting me off a text or an author, at least for a while until I deal with the exam and essay stresses! However, in this case, the novel was actually really interesting and of such high quality that I found I really enjoyed both reading it and going into more depth when studying it. I also read The Bluest Eye (completely voluntarily! :)) and plan to read as many other of Toni Morrison's books as I can this summer. For an English major like me to actually enjoy a piece of work she's had to study, and not just incessantly criticise it, you know there must be something really good here :)