Sula (Vintage International)

This is a beautifully written and very intriguing book with a mix of fact and poetic license which makes it very enjoyable.

Well, I might as well be up front – if this book has a point, it sailed straight over my head. Two girls grow up, lots of people kill other people and themselves, everyone has sex all the time with anyone who happens to be passing. And in the rare moment when they stop to catch their breath, they think about sex. I’ll leave it to Morrison scholars to analyse it. I loved Beloved and A Mercy, because I felt I understood what she was trying to say. Song of Solomon and this defeat me. In them, she writes about her characters in a way that, if it were written by a white author, would be rightly trashed as the peak of racism. I’ve tried both times to assume she’s saying that white oppression has made black Americans behave this way, but I’m not convinced – neither that I’m right about her intention nor that it’s a realistic portrayal of black American culture. I hope it isn’t, anyway. Morrison does make a couple of points about the subjugation of black people, legally free in the ‘20s and ‘30s, when the book is mainly set, but still excluded from all the benefits of freedom, including well-paid jobs and the possibility of a career, leading to a kind of crisis of masculinity in the men. She also makes reference to the black men whom white America called upon to fight their wars for them, and then abandoned on their return to deal with the after-effects without help (though I expect that was true of a lot of white men too, especially after WW1. It certainly was in the UK). These were the strongest parts of the book for me, but they were merely side issues. The writing is as wonderful as her writing always is, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. The characters are entirely vile, especially Sula, who starts out bad and gets progressively worse as she ages. Her friend Nel is more ambiguous but, while I started out quite liking her, it wore off, and I felt they were a pretty good match for each other – a real illustration of the old phrase, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Many things are left unexplained, but it’s entertaining and at points even amusing, with a couple of well-done shock moments. But I felt nothing for any of them, because I didn’t believe in them as real people. Entertaining, then, and maybe you’ll do better at finding a meaning in it than I did. Or maybe there isn’t one, and the entertainment is the point. In which case, job well done!

While I enjoyed the book and thought the writing was beautiful it left me feeling of wanting more. I wished it had delved more into the characters and their experiences.

Would recommend this book! Loved her style of writing and my first Toni Morrison read! Will be reading more of her books!!! Ending could have been better though!

Written in 1973, Toni Morrison's second novel explores themes of life, love, sex, and death, contrasting Sula Peace and Nel Wright, best friends from childhood who grow up to lead totally different adult lives. Living in the Bottom, an ironically named, poverty-stricken black community in the hills of Medallion, Ohio, Sula and Nel, opposites in personality, share their thoughts, feelings, and secrets, some of them of life-and-death importance. Part of a family with a long history of violence, Sula believes she owes nothing to anyone except herself, while Nel's strict mother imposes limits and insists on her adherence to social values. Though Sula eventually escapes the Bottom to attend college and travel from Georgia to California, Michigan to Louisiana, she always does what is expedient, having no real values or ambitions, other than her own pleasure. When Sula returns to the Bottom in 1937, the stable Nel is a wife and mother trying to keep her family fed and clothed, a woman who no longer has anything in common with Sula, though she becomes Sula's innocent victim. Morrison develops Sula's character through her dysfunctional relationships and selfish actions, showing her connections to her family's past but never blaming it for her later, abhorrent behavior. The novel is a series of cycles and follows a circular structure, opening in 1965, as whites decide they want the Bottom land for golf courses and hilltop views and the blacks who have always lived there move to the valley with its more fertile land. The cyclical nature of life is also borne out in the lives of the characters, especially that of Sula, who escapes Bottom but returns inevitably to the community of her mother and grandmother. Racial segregation, accepted as a given, underlies all facets of the novel, but Morrison focuses on character here, avoiding polemics and creating a novel which manages to be tough but often darkly humorous, emotionally sensitive but often brutal, compassionate but realistic about human nature. Rich with imagery and symbolism, the novel is also accessible and involving. Morrison creates characters with whom the reader identifies, even in Sula, who is a less than sympathetic protagonist; Shadrack, the shell-shocked war veteran who opens and closes the novel, wrings the heart even as he lives a life of absurdity. Filled with irony, intricate in structure, and well-developed in its themes, Sula is less complex than some of Morrison's later novels, but satisfying in its vividly drawn view of a struggling black community unified in its poverty. n Mary Whipple

Toni Morrison is one of the best writers we had. Sula is a story of friendship and a small town going wrong. It is a beguiling tale expertly told.

Poignant, powerful and beautifully written

I'm starting to get a little bored as her books are following much the same theme.

Tiene una malísima impresión. La portada y contraportada está borrosa y de muy mala calidad. El libro es muy caro para ser una edición de bolsillo de mala calidad

My second book by Toni Morrison. Glad I bought it. Thanks to the Seller, the quality is “like new”.

Beautiful tale of growth/friendship/life. A journey through the pages of a time not unlike our time now. Highly recommend this this

１９９３年にノーベル賞を受賞した彼女の作品が評価されたのは、１９世紀の奴隷制を舞台とした『ビラウド』や『ジャズ』があげられ、この作品は大した評価を得られていない部分がままある。現代アメリカ文学ではアフリカ系アメリカ人の葛藤やパッシングする黒人たちの苦難を描く作品が議論の的になり、女性を中心とした作品はあまり注目を浴びなかった。 しかし『スーラ』では、ネルとスーラの関係を祖母のイヴァや母のハナという個性的なキャラクターを通して、どのようなフレームワークで女たちの生を貫くかを探求させてくれるものといえる

Wonderful book .