I know I read this
book years ago but I didn’t remember much of it. I
don’t think I had the emotional maturity to read it then. Even now there are parts of the book
that I know I pulled away from emotionally. It is a
devastating book. She managed to write a scene of
rape and incest in such a way that I felt
overwhelming compassion for the father and the
daughter.
The edition of the book that I’m reading has an
afterward by Ms Morrison in which she talks about
why she wrote it in the way she wrote it. She didn’t
think the book was entirely successful. She says
that, “Holding the despising glance while sabotaging
it was difficult.” And that, for me, is the experience of
the book. Having to hold the complexity of why
people are who they are and how they sometimes
pass misery from generation to generation. But, most
specifically, how the institution of racism shapes self
image.
And the book is about the poisonous qualities our
ideas of beauty hold. The ways in which they drive
us to madness. This is a book I can imagine needing
to read again.