The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (#11, Contemporary Fiction)

How can it be that I have never read Toni Morrison? Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, has been on my list for a while. And yes my friends, it is an Oprah Book Club pick. In fact, Morrison is the most recurring author on that list with which I have had an ongoing love/hate relationship with.

My book club voted this one as our April read, but as we all started to read it, we all decided we didn't like it. It is kind of an unpleasant book; there isn't anything in it to lift the spirits and inspire you. It is what Morrison intended; a hard, unflinching look at the wide reaching effects of slavery on into the 20th century. The slaves were emancipated from their physical chains, but what about the emotional ones? The characters in this novel struggle with the paralyzing white ideals of beauty. Pecola is the subject of the novel, the specimen we have to study and watch unravel as she eeks out an existence that can barely be considered such by our modern day standards. It's not a small wonder that none of us particularly like this book. There is incest, child molestation, and other similar horrors. And there is no happy ending here.

On a technical note, Morrison is a great writer and I enjoyed the slow unfolding of the story through multiple points of view. I further illuminated the villainous characters and you couldn't help but be both disgusted by and sympathetic to them.