Toni Morrison
I Rate it: A
Under the colors of our skins
We are each one
The same intolerance… and love
It is, apparently, the thing these days to be faintly embarrassed by Toni Morrison. She takes her writing too seriously, has no trace of humor in her writing, and doesn’t really care if the reader gets her or not. Her writing is very, very dense, and by that I don’t mean it is retarded, but that it packs more thoughts per sentence than many other books do per page. Difficult to read, difficult to keep up with, and nearly impossible to catch up with after a gap. Add to that the fact that she WILL insist on writing about uncomfortable things like oppression, power games, and child murder, and you begin to see why people tend to dismiss her as an Oprah hype.
Apart from being an Oprah fad, all of those allegations are true. Toni Morrison is goddamn difficult to read. But like most difficult things, her stories are worth the effort you put into them. Cunningly woven, each thread merging beautifully with another, so tightly knit that you couldn’t get a safety pin through, Morrison unfurls a tapestry of haunting beauty. Continue reading













