851. Jazz

Jazz
Toni Morrison
1992
Around 230 pages

We've finally arrived at our last Toni Morrison novel! She's one of those authors who I always need to space out, because her works hurt my heart so much that I need breaks to recover. Always poetic, and always tugging on my heartstrings and causing me severe chest pains. So without further ado, here is my official Morrison ranking:

1. Beloved

2. The Bluest Eye

3. Jazz

4. Sula

5. Song of Solomon

This one might not be leading the pack, but that's just because those first two were so good. It's winter in 1920s Harlem. Joe Trace a fifty-year-old salesman shoots his lover to death, the eighteen-year-old Dorcas. At the funeral, his wife Violet tries to disfigure the corpse with a knife. We learn about the characters' odd behaviors that led up to these moments.

I'm still conflicted about the ending. Like most of Morrison's characters, this group had been dealt a very hard hand, but I still had trouble sympathizing with Joe and his mommy issues. I enjoyed the setting and incorporation of jazz music into the story. I would have preferred a much more cosmically just conclusion to Joe's story, but I understand where Morrison was going with the themes of redemption and letting the past go. And Dorcas never having a voice fits pretty well as she represents the sexualized and silenced women of the time.

I'll miss you Toni, even though I'll probably experience less heartache without you.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Won the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize.

UP NEXT: Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker

784. Beloved

Beloved
Toni Morrison
1987
Around 325 pages

124 was spiteful.

That has to be one of the best opening lines in literature. This is definitely my favorite Toni Morrison novel, and fulfills all the potential promised in her earlier works. We are on a great run of novels lately.

Beloved centers on Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, and her 18-year-old daughter, Denver, who live at 124 Bluestone Road. The site has been haunted for years by what the family believes is the ghost of Sethe's eldest daughter. Sethe's sons, Howard and Buglar, ran away from home by the age of 13, which she believes was due to the ghost. After Paul D, who was enslaved at the same plantation as Sethe, forces out the spirit, a young woman named Beloved shows up. 

I love that this is essentially a horror novel, seamlessly blending the hell that is American history with the supernatural. I loved experiencing Sethe and Beloved's increasingly twisted relationship, and Morrison, as always, came up with plenty of disturbing reveals that made for a riveting reading experience.

Just flawless, from start to finish.

RATING: *****

Interesting Facts:

Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Made in a 1998 film starring Oprah Winfrey.

UP NEXT: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

688. Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison
1977
Around 340 pages

I go back and forth with Toni Morrison. Often she is brilliant, but we do reach a threshold on misery at a certain point when it almost seems like satire. This novel is closer to the latter category, and once again makes breast milk disturbing.

Our main character, Macon Dead III, earns the nickname Milkman, because he is still breastfeeding into an uncomfortable age. His aunt Pilate is a big figure in his life, along with his cousin Hagar, who he forms a sexual relationship with. Pilate and Macon find bags of gold in a cave, but don't take them due to fear. Still, Macon is motivated by the desire to obtain the gold he missed out on.

Okay, that wasn't the best summary, but Morrison's novels are always so action-packed with weird events that it's hard to give a spoiler-free overview. This definitely falls in the middle for me, with Bluest Eye and Beloved standing out much more than this novel. Pilate is a highly memorable character, and this novel is packed with metaphors to write essays about in English class.  

So I don't think she tanked her third entry on the List, but I don't think she did anything particularly new here either.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

The novel has faced several challenges and bans in schools throughout the U.S. since 1993.

In 2010, the novel was challenged and later reinstated at Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana.

UP NEXT: Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

653. Sula

Sula
Toni Morrison
1973
Around 175 pages

This is Toni Morrison's second published novel, and her second entry on the List. If we end up reading all of her works, I wouldn't be too upset about it, although my soul will definitely feel heavier. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as The Bluest Eye, but it's still an impressive follow up on her debut novel.

I suppose our protagonist is Nel Wright, who is best friends with Sula. Even though neither girl has a father figure, they both have very different home lives. Nel's mother Helene is rigid and conventional, while Sula's mother Hannah is eccentric and sleeps around. Nel and Sula share traumatic life events together, but take separate paths as adults. 

I don't want to spoil any events in this novel, some of which are incredibly shocking. Personally, I enjoy the strange twists and turns of her stories. She always keeps the plot moving. Still, I didn't connect to these characters as I have with her other novels. I don't need characters to be angels to enjoy a novel, but when everybody is constantly making amoral decisions, it makes it hard to care about the outcomes of their stories. 

So this book might end up on the bottom of my Morrison ranking when the time comes, but it's still worthy of a read.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

In 2022, it was reported that HBO will adapt the novel into a television limited series.

UP NEXT: The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

637. The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
1970
Around 225 pages

Our first Toni Morrison! She is going to make me feel way too many things. I guess we are starting with inferiority, because this debut novel is incredible and she had no problem finding her voice on the page.

Our story is narrated by nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer, who lives with her sister, parents, a tenant, and Pecola Breedlove, whose house was recently burned down by her abusive father. Pecola wishes for blue eyes, which she sees as a way of achieving the ideal whiteness propagated by her community. I'm not usually the biggest fan of child narrators, but I enjoyed following Pecola's story from a slight distance. And Morrison is realistic in her depictions of children, while still being respectful of their intellect.

Morrison's novels are hard on the soul, so I have to space out my reads. I found this more depressing than I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, which definitely ends on a more hopeful note. But Morrison did an excellent job representing internalized racism in Pecola, who struggles to reconcile her religious beliefs in an omnipotent god with the reality of living as a minority. 

So welcome to the List Toni! I look forward to you kicking me in the feels again and again.

 RATING: *****

Interesting Facts:

34th-most banned book in the United States 1990–1999, the 15th-most banned book 2000–2009, and the 10th-most banned book 2010-2019.

UP NEXT: The Ogre by Michel Tournier