The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Amy  

historical fiction

The Bluest Eye tells the story of two African American families in Lorain, OH in the late 1930s/early 1940s centering on Pecola’s family, her friend Claudia’s family, and their challenging home lives. The novel begins with a Dick and Jane-based children’s story which describes a happy family. But it quickly becomes evident that Claudia and Pecola aren’t enjoying simple happy lives like Jane. Rather, they are dealing with painful, dark issues--some of which they aren’t able to fully understand due to their young ages, limited experiences, and little education. Pecola feels that if she had blue eyes, she would be prettier, and life would be easier for her.

The story is sometimes told via first person perspective and sometimes in third person. This transition wasn’t smooth within Pecola’s mother’s section where both perspectives were used. Seemingly, the perspective changed from paragraph to paragraph. I’m not sure why that choice was made but I assume there was a reason. This resulted in an impression that Polly was being interviewed, with her own words occasionally peppering the wider narrative, but this didn’t make sense to me. I wonder if this changing perspective would have made more sense if I was reading the book instead of listening to the audiobook.

Aside from my confusion about the perspective changes and a couple other structural criticisms which aren’t worth mentioning, Toni Morrison’s writing was truly astonishing. Even when she was describing awful situations, her beautiful wordsmithing and imagery were stellar. Despite the darkness within the pages, Morrison wrote a work of art. I can absolutely see why she is so widely acclaimed as a writer. She has such skill at relaying messages, both obvious and covert. Her word choices were impeccable.

The Bluest Eye described the raw, brutal truths of life for these families, especially for Pecola. These situations included the lack of medical care, cramped housing, alcoholism, physical abuse, prostitution, incest, and pedophilia.

I read this book because I like to read the books that are at the top of the Most Frequently Banned Books. I can see why this book appears on the list of most frequently banned books for schools--there are a lot of intimate sexual scenes including inner thoughts as well as difficult topics that are not sugar-coated.  I can certainly understand why some parents would be concerned about this one. I will concede that this would not necessarily be a suitable choice for required school reading for anyone younger than high school. But I still vehemently disagree with banning the book altogether. I found it to be enlightening, extremely well-written, and sadly realistic. Parents should be helping their children decide whether it’s appropriate for them to read and discussing the issues with them.

The audiobook was narrated by the author herself. Morrison had a bit of a vocal repertoire and was a good voice actor. I love when authors do the narration because I feel I’m getting the real feelings imparted to me. I’m hearing it the way they intended for the message to be received. I’ll give her an A-.