Writer: Toni Morrison

 I find that knowing something of the writer's background is helpful for me in understanding their work. I should have been a historian, I tend towards categorizing writers not by personality but historical epoch. One thing wholly lacking in prison is information. The federal Bureau of Prisons is quite terrified of the internet, so no Google. This lack of information aids in infantilizing prisoners. This is part of a series of writers that I did look up when I got internet access. Some will be about the writer, and others may feature the writer. I went to YouTube for my main source, but others will also include some other material relating to the book or author discussed. One thing I did not have when younger was access to information about how writers wrote. I think that kept me from understanding the actual work, which, in turn, led me away from writing.

 I came to Toni Morrison late in life. That is a regret - some of what I can blame on my education and part on my need to make a living.

In these days, when we hear about the rise of (White) Christian Nationalism and other variants of white supremacy, I point to Morrison. If these creeps cannot write as well as she did, then they should go back under the rocks from whence they came.

For those who think woman cannot write novels, read Morrison. She has brought to light a swath of American life unknown to white readers and writers like me. She widened the picture of America.

Her Nobel Literature Prize speech:

Since I find the clarity of the recording a challenge, a written version is here.

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language – all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

Think about it.

Conscious Writing has an appreciation that goes into places my ignorance keeps me from,

The woman speaks:

The author talks about her Song of Solomon:

I read A Mercy with a bit of confusion - it is set in colonial America, even more of a historical novel than Beloved - for it being a far from Morrison's usual turf. Listening to the following, she describes her idea for the novel and all became clear to me. It was not just a very good novel, it was a bit of a subversive novel.

For a contrarian view, A Mercy, Toni Morrison, but not exactly damning:

It took me almost 3 weeks to read less than 200 pages because of how diffuse and incomplete they seemed. Brilliant compared to everybody else, but this is Morrison’s worst.

Beloved was the first Morrison novel I read, and for this I am particularly attached to the novel. It is a horror novel that will stay with you for a very, very long time.
What else I have written about Toni Morrison.

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