Beloved, Toni Morrison – Review

Last month, the book was Beloved by Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. I had never heard of it before and I am so grateful I got the chance to discover this book because it completely floored me. I have never been so intimidated to write about a novel as I am this one – how could I possibly do it justice, or even begin to convey the almost tangible pain and emotion that throws itself from the pages of this book?

Set in the late 1800s, Beloved is the unflinching story of what life must have been like for those who did not own their own lives. Morrison does not protect her readers from the heartless, mindless brutality of slavery: the astounding hypocrisy of “good” slave owners, the inhumane and senselessly cruel behaviour of the worse ones, mothers refusing to form any bond with children who are likely to die, or will otherwise be sold off if they live long enough to become useful.

In the foreword, Morrison writes that she was inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who attempted to kill her children (she succeeded in killing one) rather than have them returned to their owners. It was her sanity, intellect, and lack of repentance that attracted the attention of the newspapers and made her a ‘cause célèbre’ for the Abolitionist movement. Morrison chose to draw on the historical Margaret Garner for her novel but to fictionalise her ‘in order to relate her history to contemporary issues about freedom, responsibility, and women’s “place”’.

Morrison created a heroine who ‘would represent the unapologetic acceptance of shame and terror; assume the consequences of choosing infanticide; claim her freedom’.

This is a novel that will reach into the core of your understanding of humanity and tear it to shreds. It will force you to confront inconceivable thoughts and realise that the fictional horrors of this book likely do not even compare to the reality that millions of people suffered during the era of slavery.

Perhaps the most surprising, and enduring achievement of this novel, however, is the tenderness and compassion with which this tale is told. Morrison writes with a chafing clarity then softly dabs the wounds with the love, emotion, and sheer humanity that her characters still strive for after everything they have endured.

I hate to use such a clichéd idea to describe such an original book, but Morrison’s writing left me feeling emotionally laid bare and raw, like nothing I have ever read.