Beloved - Toni Morrison

This was my first Toni Morrison and I’m afraid to say that I didn’t love it quite as much as I’d expected to! I find that’s often the case with books or authors who are so highly acclaimed - nonetheless, I still enjoyed the book.

The novel was written in 1987 and is set just after the American Civil War (1861-1865), and is inspired by the real life of Margaret Garner, a woman who escaped slavery by fleeing to a free state before killing her own child, in order to protect it from the clutches of pursuing slave masters. Morrison’s novel adapts this true story into her own protagonist, Sethe, who lives with her daughter Denver after her two sons have run away from home. She believes that they fled the house on Bluestone Road due to the haunting presence of a ghost which has resided in the house for many years, tormenting the family.

The ghost is believed to be the spirit of Sethe’s eldest child, whom she killed brutally in order to protect it from being dragged into a life of slavery. She had in fact attempted to kill all of her children once her hiding place was discovered by her master, but only succeeded in killing one, who was buried in a grave marked with the singular word ‘Beloved’. Back to the present day of the novel, Sethe and Denver return home one day to find a mysterious woman waiting outside their home, who introduces herself as Beloved...

This novel was certainly accomplished and the premise was darkly mesmerising. What I struggled with was the writing style - Morrison’s prose is somewhat jittery, scattered and disjointed, which I gather is intentionally supposed to reflect the disintegration of the family as well as Sethe’s sanity. The inclusion of passages in stream-of-consciousness were important to the plot and theme, but not enjoyable (we know I’m not a fan of stream-of-consciousness!), and the complexity and haphazardness of the language meant that you were constantly analysing what was happening, struggling to follow the plot at times and generally it felt like quite a long-winded exercise.

I will definitely read some more works of Morrison’s, as I would love to appreciate her storytelling more - but this wasn’t the book for me!