Rereading Favorite Books
I've been slowly rereading my favorite books. My friend AJ has joined me for most of them.
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is one of favorite rereads so far. Here is a lightly revised review from when I first read the book in 2020.
This book had me hooked. I read Beloved and liked it, but it was a tough read. This book is easier to read and follow, but one can also dive deeper and be jealous and amazed at how skilled Toni Morrison was. I'm going to binge her work for a while (and I did).
The dialogue is excellent. I don't always pay close attention to dialogue. It's easy to notice when it's bad. But I can't recall a book or movie with better dialogue. The characters' voices are unique and funny, and their conversations are fresh.
The plot and drama builds and reveals. I was content the whole read. And then every other chapter or so there were surprises I never expected. Everything connects and comes back. The craft is perfect.
Rereading Song of Solomon
As much as I liked it last time, it was even better this time. Knowing the story and characters had me especially attentive to all the details Morrison puts into her craft, seeing more clearly how characters are formed and evolved throughout the story.
The plot is full of action and suspense.
It's a male centered point of view, but the female characters stand tall. The main character Milkman is finding his way through two opposing extremes of his day. Milkman is born into a rich northern black family. He journeys to the rural south for something and if you want to find out if he finds it, you'll have to read the novel.
Here is a taste of the dialogue:
“Like a riverboat pilot?” Macon asks.
“No not like no riverboat pilot. Like a Christ-killer Pilate. You can’t get much worse than that for a name. And a baby girl at that.”
“That’s where my finger went down at.”
“Well your brain ain’t got to follow it. You don’t want to give this motherless child the name of the man that killed Jesus, do you?”
“I asked Jesus to save me my wife.”
“Careful, Macon.”
“I asked him all night long.”
“He give you your baby.”
“Yes. He did. Baby name Pilate.”
“Jesus, have mercy.”
“Where you going with that piece of paper?”
“It’s going back where it came from. Right in the Devil’s flames.”
“Give it here. It comes from the Bible. It stays in the Bible.”
And it did stay there, until the baby girl turned twelve years old and took it out, folded it up into a tiny knot and put in a little brass box, and strung the entire contraption through her left earlobe (19).
Here are a couple other quotes that stood out to AJ and I:
A glimpse at the theme of love:
“Gimme hate, Lord,” he whimpered. “I’ll take hate any day. But don’t give me love. I can’t take no more love, Lord. I can’t carry it...It’s too heavy. Jesus, you know, you know all about it. Ain’t it heavy? Jesus? Ain’t love heavy?"
Milkman's feelings toward Hagar:
She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?
Guitar trying to comfort Hagar:
“You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o'clock. Two days before the event was to take place he tacked a note on the door of his little yellow house:
At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me. I loved you all.
(signed) Robert Smith,
Ins. agent
“How come it [peacocks] can't fly no better than a chicken?"
"Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
I could keep going. The book is full of great writing.
Teaching Tools
If I ever find myself teaching again and I'm lucky enough to teach this book, I want to save these resources. I briefly skimmed them and might read some later.
https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ebos-landing/
https://commons.hostos.cuny.edu/columbiacommoncoreathostos/song-of-solomon/
https://scalar.lehigh.edu/toni-morrison/song-of-solomon-1977-overview-and-links
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