My Review of Sula by Toni Morrison

Before last year, I had not planned to read this book. I felt I had the novels by Toni Morrison that I was going to read, but seeing this on sale in the used goods store for $1 changed my plans. I used a book club selection of this book on Goodreads this past February (which was a very disappointing affair) as my excuse to read this book and managed to make a reasonable read of it. I'd read The Source of Self-Regard the previous year and had wait until enough time after Morrison's death to pick-up another book by her. I am always a little doubtful of my analysis of this book because of how short it is, but I had Morrison's own words from THoSR to go by and I think I did as best a look of it from my view as I could.

Sula by Toni Morrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I began to write my second book, which was called Sula, because of my preoccupation with a picture of a woman and the way in which I heard her name pronounced. Her name was Hannah, and I think she was a friend of my mother's. I don't remember seeing her very much, but what I do remember is the color around her--a kind of violet, a suffusion of something violet--and her eyes, which appeared to be half closed. But what I remember most is how the women said her name: how they said 'Hannah Peace' and smiled to themselves, and there was some secret about her that they knew, which they didn't talk about, at least not in my hearing, but it seemed loaded in the way in which they said her name. And I suspected that she was a little bit of an outlaw but that they approved in some way." - from The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

This is year 6 of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent

In The Sweet By and By by the Peerless Quartet - This song is sung in the book by a mysterious character: a near silent drunk who either was really light-skinned or just white depending on which character you asked. But the book says he sung with a very "hill mountain" voice.

What a book, I had not planned on reading this book, but here we are. I have to say that though I knew a little bit about the action that takes place in the pages reading it was an experience that one comes to expect from a Toni Morrison novel. Morrison wrote this book as her examination of how black women related one another and it is also her second novel. The fact that this book was written during the height of the second-wave feminist movement is notable, but this book seems to wooking in parallel to that instead of out of it. She wanted to come-up with a very black-female language or sensibility (though that might be a dangerous word) for the book.

Save A Little Dram for Me by Bert Williams. This song is mentioned directly in the book.

I'm not going to spoil the entire story but here is the set-up. We are, as usual, in a fictional mid-western valley town that is in Ohio close to the Great Lakes. The story is told as one big flashback as we go back to a time when the town was racially segregated with white people living in the valleys and black people cramped up on the hills (like the favelas of Brazil). We get to the proper story with the introduction of a PTSD WWI veteran who ends-up by crazy hap-in-stance in Medallion at the place called "The Bottom" which was actually in the hills because racism (for those who've read Song of Solomon think of "No Mercy" Street). All you need to know about Shaderack is that he is the first character we are properly introduced to and he starts a holiday in The Bottom called National Suicide Day that is celebrated on January 3rd. After this we are slowly introduced to the inhabitants of the town and the two main families we will be reading about the Wright's and then the Peace families.

Wild Women Don't Have the Blues by Ida Cox

The two main characters in this book are Nel Wright the main protagonist of-sorts and her friend and the title character Sula Peace. These two are the yin/yang, blue oni/red oni, sane friend, crazy friend trope in-play....but of course this wouldn't be a Toni Morrison novel if it was all that easy to figure them out. Nel is from a family that were creole prostitutes in New Orleans, but had become reformed conservative Christians in The Bottom. The Peace family meanwhile...well they were the opposite. Sula is the granddaughter of Eva Peace (this book's resident Pilate Dead or Baby Suggs) and daughter of Hannah Peace a friendly, aloof woman...who was a nymphomaniac. This last detail caused problems with the married women of the town.

Your Enemy Cannot Harm You by Rev. E.W. Clayborn

Sula is the kind of character I have not read a lot of recently: an Übermensch. As she comes to define herself in-part 2 of the book, she simply refuses all of the rules and norms of the world she lives in and we spend half the novel seeing the crazy, devastating consequences of this. Because I have read a good share of existential philosophy and remembering Camus' The Stranger I knew how things were going and my feelings about the books second-half is similar to how I felt reading about the cold, otherworldly Meursalt was how I felt reading about Sula. Of course the difference is that The Stranger is a realist work and this is a magical-realist work so the rules are a bit different. In any case, we spend part 1 of the novel world-building, and part 2 watching that world be un-built. The fact is that this book is not about The Bottom or people's reaction to Sula, but how the very not-Übermensch Nel reacts to having a best friend that does not believe in any certainties or truths and how black women learn to forgive each other for stuff. Here is how Morrison describes Sula:

"I always thought of Sula as quintessentially black, metaphysically black, if you will, which is not melanin and certainly not unquestioning fidelity to the tribe. She is New World black and New World woman extracting choice from choicelessness, responding inventively to found things. Improvisational. Daring, disruptive, imaginative, modern, out-of-the-house, outlawed, unpolicing, uncontained, and uncontainable. And dangerously female...A modernity that overturns prewar definitions, ushers in the Jazz Age (an aged defined by Afro-American art and culture), and requires new kinds of intelligences to define oneself."

Man Stealer Blues by Lucille Bogan

In my opinion of the book, I don't know if the forgiveness aspect was as emphasized as Morrison claimed it was, but it was interesting how Sula and the town were affected by each other. As always there was some beautifully poetic words in this book and I always like seeing how magical-realism is manifested in a particular work of fiction and this book did not disappoint. I couldn't help but compare this novel to the one Morrison wrote after it, Song of Solomon. I still like it best of all of Morrison's novels that I have read so far, but Sula is an interesting spiritual predecessor or sibling. Milkman wanted wings, but Sula simply wanted to tread o'er the Earth.

Shall We Gather at the River by The Stillman College Tour Choir. This song was sung (view spoiler)[at Sula's funeral...ironically by the happy townspeople (hide spoiler)].

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My Review of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This book, like I said, is my favorite novel of the 21st century that I have read so far. The novels I read tend to be before 2000, so I can't say I am an expert. But for me this is the best that I have read. One of the most interesting, complex and controversial Byronic heroes in literature with Ifemelu. The reaction to her character by different people, especially by black readers and very especially by African women readers has fascinated me greatly. In any case, this has been one of the books that I have constantly thought of since I finished reading.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Way I Feel by ASA


This has been an amazing journey for me. This is the first fully African novel I have read and the third novel I've read that was published in the 21st century. The interesting thing is that as much as I have enjoyed reading this book, if not for happening to learn of a visit to my town of the author--I would not have read it any time soon. To think that I read a copy of this book that was quite literally given the author's seal of approval will always be awesome to me and made this experience that much greater. I should probably read more contemporary fiction despite my preference for classic literature. I'll certainly read them if they are written this well.

Yere Faga ft. Tony Allen by Oumou Sangaré - Between paragraphs I'm just going to list songs I was listening to while reading or that show-up in the novel.

General Thoughts: I was struck at this book being a very bold tribute to black bibliophiles. I don't think I've read a novel who's characters refer to and discuss novels so in-depth. Even Dostoevsky & James Joyce don't do it to such a high level. It was one of the things I really enjoyed about the book. The idea of learning about a character through their taste in books was something I never thought of in fiction. We see the growth and understanding of the main protagonist in her reading choices over the years. Also, the key narrative innovation of this book in 2014 was its use of blogging to tell the narrative though this is probably a more standard practice in modern novels.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone

Story: The plot is simply following two characters, Ifemelu & Obinze, through their messy romance that spans around 3 decades and 3 countries. I'll leave it there as I'm not gonna put any more detail that would spoil. Instead, I'll give my impression on one part of the story and of the main character specificaly.

Beasts of No Nation (Edit) by Fela Kuti

Part 3 of this novel takes place in the United Kingdom and deals with the attempt by Obinze (probably my favorite/most likeable character in this novel) to establish himself outside of Nigeria. Beside the fact of it being a fascinating look at how Black British communities relate (I'll speak more on that at the end of the review), it was amazing at how much the foreshadowing of Brexit was on the page. You were in fear for Obinze with the turn of every page and I had to keep checking that the book was published in 2014. It was a short, but very powerful part of the book and it really gave me some insight on the whole European immigration situation that I was not privy to.

Roucky (feat. Taj Mahal) (Remastered) by Ali Farka Touré

Ifemelu. Ifemelu is a character you don't forget easily. It is hard to compare her to contemporary characters because I don't read enough, but going off classic literature I would say she is a combination of Childe Harold, Meursalt, and Reba & Hagar Dead with Adichie's on biography as foundation. She is not a likeable character--in fact, she intentionally goes out her way to not be likeable. She does what she wants, she changes mood on a time and is as unpredictable and self-destructive as any character in the whole of literature. Ifemelu is our heroine for this book, and she don't care if we don't like it. This is an interestingly flawed character that the author gives us to see the world of the novel through. Even when we are with Obinze, the book really wants to get back to Ifemelu. Her journey through the worlds of Nigeria and America saw her awareness grow, but it is still an open-question if her own stubbornness won't still derail her, but we at least know she has the tools to help herself if she chooses to use them.

Yori Yori by Brackets

I think the main message--the thesis of this novel, is the difficulty of communication. The two main characters don't communicate well. Different ethnic groups and nationalities don't communicate well. The roughness in understanding between different parts of the African Diaspora is portrayed very thoroughly. The fact that even people of different African nationalities like Ifemelu and the Senegalese hairdressers in New Jersey are essentially "lost in translation" with each other is something we meditate on over and over. Ifemelu is the one character to try and reach-out across this divide and we are not sure she even succeeded. Adichie seems to be telling us that we need this pan-Africanist unity, but she's not sure if it can be achieved. I, for what it's worth, hope that it is possible. We just have to not be afraid to hit some ceilings.

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