karen's Reviews > Sula
Sula
by
by
looking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the month, and i hope they will find new readers!
thanks for this book.
Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be.
this one gets 4 "please don't hit me again, sula!" stars.
and honestly, for more than half of it, it was leaning towards 5 stars, and not just because of stockholm syndrome.
i have never read toni morrison before. her name was at the top of my "authors i have never read, much to my great personal shame" list along with tolstoy, balzac, alice munro, etc. and before this book, my impression of her was that she was a very rigidly literary american author who wrote important books about important themes that were technically masterful, but took themselves very seriously and were probably not much fun to read.
well.
that is not the case with this one, at least.
right from the get-go, i was smitten. it was all the things i loved - it was Winesburg, Ohio, it was grit lit, it was smalltown gossip and neighborly scrutiny, it was the ingenuity of the disenfranchised, it was the sun rising like a hot white bitch, and best of all, it was FUN! but, like, my kind of fun, where people get set on fire and playtime ends in a body count. this is v.c. andrews without the incest!
and now i understand why this book kept injuring me - Sula does NOT play nice. it is a rough book full of rough things too potent to be contained between the covers of the book itself. or maybe the book was just trying to get my attention because it knew i would like it so much. either way, it was worth the price of a few battle scars marking me like sula herself, whose birthmark gives her face a broken excitement.
to me, this book was absolute perfection when it was focused on the childhood friendship of sula and nel, but it lost something once they grew up. which is a shame, because the childhood parts were SO GOOD. she writes the intensity of nel and sula's intertwining perfectly:
They never quarreled, those two, the way some girlfriends did over boys, or competed against each other for them. In those days, a compliment to one was a compliment to the other, and cruelty to one was a challenge to the other.
and she captures that transition from girlhood to half-understood sexuality wonderfully:
It was in that summer, the summer of their twelfth year, the summer of the beautiful black boys, that they became skittish, frightened and bold - all at the same time.
although i do have to say, her overreliance on the word "beautiful" as a descriptor for men and boys is grating. eeeevery man is beautiful, which is statistically improbable, and it's also lazy wordsmithing in someone who has proven herself to be much better than that.
but back to the sexxy bits, because you know i'm not into romance or erotica unless it involves all the hilarious ways a human can copulate with a monster or a tater tot or something like that. but human-on-human gyrations tend to leave me cold. however, while it doesn't involve actual intercourse, her descriptions of sula and nel at twelve, wishbone thin and easy-assed, walking to the ice cream store through the gauntlet of men who are themselves passing the time sitting on stoops watching women walk by, through this valley of eyes chilled by the wind and heated by the embarrassment of appraising stares, knowing and not-knowing their effect, delighted and ashamed all at once, and despite the fact that it's totally gross to call a situation in which men in their twenties up through to elderly gentlemen are ogling twelve-year-old girls "hot," still, there's something here that worked on me the way no fifty shades of story of o has, and it comes from the perspective of the girls themselves, and the mysteries of what they have yet to experience:
so you see why i'm frustrated by her repetition of "beautiful" when she can pull off such superior writing. even her descriptions of nature become erotic, although this passage has more of that b-word gumming up the works:
Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. And the boys. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. Even their footsteps left a smell of smoke behind.
very saucy stuff, that.
so, yeah - i really loved this book. i loved the final third less than the beginning, because i didn't really understand what i was meant to be getting out of the story's turn, but it was still excellent writing, and it closed very nicely, so it's an easy four stars, and immunity granted for all injuries sustained.
***********************************************
okay, i finished the book. if it lets me live long enough, i will review it soon.
***********************************************
IMPORTANT UPDATE: A SECOND ASSAULT UPON MY PERSON BY THIS BOOK:
okay, so here's something weird. i started this book yesterday, and read several chapters just before bed. when i woke up, i had this gigantic bruise on my eyelid:
i have no memory of any trauma to my eye (and i am eye-attack-phobic, so i'd remember) and i wear my glasses all day, which protects me from such trauma. the only way this could have happened would have been when my glasses were off, while i was asleep. when my glasses were off, while i was asleep, WITH THIS BOOK NEXT TO ME IN BED.
seriously, sula - what's your beef with me?
although i gotta say, i like how it makes me look like i'm wearing fancy new wave eyeshadow.
***********************************************
the final book in my quarterly literary fiction box from pagehabit:
sula….
here's the story with me and sula. long ago, when i was working at barnes and noble and we hosted the new yorker festival every year, i was in the back room on the fourth floor, gathering books to restock the festival displays. while i was grabbing books from a shelf far above my head with my monkey-arms, a hardcover copy of sula slipped from the stack and its very solid lower spine-corner hit me right in the center of my skull with all the force of gravity and book-malice behind it. naturally, i yelled "FUCK YOU, SULA," and naturally i vowed never to read that book, ever. but then this box-thing happened, and now i have to read it, regardless of the abuse i have suffered at its hands. fortunately, this is a paperback, and it is not as tough as its momma. i remain vigilant - i could still get papercuts, after all…
come to my blog!
thanks for this book.
Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be.
this one gets 4 "please don't hit me again, sula!" stars.
and honestly, for more than half of it, it was leaning towards 5 stars, and not just because of stockholm syndrome.
i have never read toni morrison before. her name was at the top of my "authors i have never read, much to my great personal shame" list along with tolstoy, balzac, alice munro, etc. and before this book, my impression of her was that she was a very rigidly literary american author who wrote important books about important themes that were technically masterful, but took themselves very seriously and were probably not much fun to read.
well.
that is not the case with this one, at least.
right from the get-go, i was smitten. it was all the things i loved - it was Winesburg, Ohio, it was grit lit, it was smalltown gossip and neighborly scrutiny, it was the ingenuity of the disenfranchised, it was the sun rising like a hot white bitch, and best of all, it was FUN! but, like, my kind of fun, where people get set on fire and playtime ends in a body count. this is v.c. andrews without the incest!
and now i understand why this book kept injuring me - Sula does NOT play nice. it is a rough book full of rough things too potent to be contained between the covers of the book itself. or maybe the book was just trying to get my attention because it knew i would like it so much. either way, it was worth the price of a few battle scars marking me like sula herself, whose birthmark gives her face a broken excitement.
to me, this book was absolute perfection when it was focused on the childhood friendship of sula and nel, but it lost something once they grew up. which is a shame, because the childhood parts were SO GOOD. she writes the intensity of nel and sula's intertwining perfectly:
They never quarreled, those two, the way some girlfriends did over boys, or competed against each other for them. In those days, a compliment to one was a compliment to the other, and cruelty to one was a challenge to the other.
and she captures that transition from girlhood to half-understood sexuality wonderfully:
It was in that summer, the summer of their twelfth year, the summer of the beautiful black boys, that they became skittish, frightened and bold - all at the same time.
although i do have to say, her overreliance on the word "beautiful" as a descriptor for men and boys is grating. eeeevery man is beautiful, which is statistically improbable, and it's also lazy wordsmithing in someone who has proven herself to be much better than that.
but back to the sexxy bits, because you know i'm not into romance or erotica unless it involves all the hilarious ways a human can copulate with a monster or a tater tot or something like that. but human-on-human gyrations tend to leave me cold. however, while it doesn't involve actual intercourse, her descriptions of sula and nel at twelve, wishbone thin and easy-assed, walking to the ice cream store through the gauntlet of men who are themselves passing the time sitting on stoops watching women walk by, through this valley of eyes chilled by the wind and heated by the embarrassment of appraising stares, knowing and not-knowing their effect, delighted and ashamed all at once, and despite the fact that it's totally gross to call a situation in which men in their twenties up through to elderly gentlemen are ogling twelve-year-old girls "hot," still, there's something here that worked on me the way no fifty shades of story of o has, and it comes from the perspective of the girls themselves, and the mysteries of what they have yet to experience:
It was not really Edna Finch's ice cream that made them brave the stretch of those panther eyes. Years later their own eyes would glaze as they cupped their chins in remembrance of the inchworm smiles, the squatting haunches, the track-rail legs straddling broken chairs. The cream-colored trousers marking with a mere seam the place where the mystery curled. Those smooth vanilla crotches invited them; those lemon-yellow gabardines beckoned to them.
They moved toward the ice-cream parlor like tightrope walkers, as thrilled by the possibility of a slip as by the maintenance of tension and balance. The least sideways glance, the merest toe stub, could pitch them into those creamy haunches spread wide with welcome. Somewhere beneath all of that daintiness, chambered in all that neatness, lay the thing that clotted their dreams.
so you see why i'm frustrated by her repetition of "beautiful" when she can pull off such superior writing. even her descriptions of nature become erotic, although this passage has more of that b-word gumming up the works:
Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. And the boys. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. Even their footsteps left a smell of smoke behind.
very saucy stuff, that.
so, yeah - i really loved this book. i loved the final third less than the beginning, because i didn't really understand what i was meant to be getting out of the story's turn, but it was still excellent writing, and it closed very nicely, so it's an easy four stars, and immunity granted for all injuries sustained.
***********************************************
okay, i finished the book. if it lets me live long enough, i will review it soon.
***********************************************
IMPORTANT UPDATE: A SECOND ASSAULT UPON MY PERSON BY THIS BOOK:
okay, so here's something weird. i started this book yesterday, and read several chapters just before bed. when i woke up, i had this gigantic bruise on my eyelid:
i have no memory of any trauma to my eye (and i am eye-attack-phobic, so i'd remember) and i wear my glasses all day, which protects me from such trauma. the only way this could have happened would have been when my glasses were off, while i was asleep. when my glasses were off, while i was asleep, WITH THIS BOOK NEXT TO ME IN BED.
seriously, sula - what's your beef with me?
although i gotta say, i like how it makes me look like i'm wearing fancy new wave eyeshadow.
***********************************************
the final book in my quarterly literary fiction box from pagehabit:
sula….
here's the story with me and sula. long ago, when i was working at barnes and noble and we hosted the new yorker festival every year, i was in the back room on the fourth floor, gathering books to restock the festival displays. while i was grabbing books from a shelf far above my head with my monkey-arms, a hardcover copy of sula slipped from the stack and its very solid lower spine-corner hit me right in the center of my skull with all the force of gravity and book-malice behind it. naturally, i yelled "FUCK YOU, SULA," and naturally i vowed never to read that book, ever. but then this box-thing happened, and now i have to read it, regardless of the abuse i have suffered at its hands. fortunately, this is a paperback, and it is not as tough as its momma. i remain vigilant - i could still get papercuts, after all…
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Reading Progress
February 4, 2017
– Shelved
Started Reading
February 6, 2017
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Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-38 of 38 (38 new)
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by
Lena
(new)
Feb 04, 2017 01:34PM
Does it really have hand written notes by Toni Morrison?
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Oh My... This one brings back memories of Freshman English, first semester at the University, with Prof. David Freed. We had to read this one and do a class discussion. Day One, when he was trying to get things started we were all to deer-in-headlights to talk first (we were a bunch of freaked out Freshmen, remember). Prof freaked out, screeched that if we didn't care enough to read the book and talk about it, he didn't care enough to teach us. Then he threw (yes, threw) the book at us, not caring who he hit, and flounced out of the room. He didn't return. After 15 minutes, we all just figured he wasn't coming back and left ourselves. To his credit, he did apologize for his tantrum the following week, but DAMN! From that point on, we all fell over ourselves to contribute in class. We were too scared of the consequences if we didn't.
True story. You can't make stuff like that up.
True story. You can't make stuff like that up.
Lena wrote: "Does it really have hand written notes by Toni Morrison?"
oops, no. the only book with the annotations is The Mothers. the other two books were chosen by brit bennett as books that she likes and sees as fitting companions for her own book.
oops, no. the only book with the annotations is The Mothers. the other two books were chosen by brit bennett as books that she likes and sees as fitting companions for her own book.
Alissa wrote: "Oh My... This one brings back memories of Freshman English, first semester at the University, with Prof. David Freed. We had to read this one and do a class discussion. Day One, when he was trying to get things started we were all to deer-in-headlights to talk first (we were a bunch of freaked out Freshmen, remember). Prof freaked out, screeched that if we didn't care enough to read the book and talk about it, he didn't care enough to teach us. Then he threw (yes, threw) the book at us, not caring who he hit, and flounced out of the room. He didn't return. After 15 minutes, we all just figured he wasn't coming back and left ourselves. To his credit, he did apologize for his tantrum the following week, but DAMN! From that point on, we all fell over ourselves to contribute in class. We were too scared of the consequences if we didn't.
True story. You can't make stuff like that up.
science tells me that there is evidence enough to conclude that this book is always a weapon. bewaaaare.
True story. You can't make stuff like that up.
science tells me that there is evidence enough to conclude that this book is always a weapon. bewaaaare.
I do believe your conclusion is correct. Also, I remember absolutely nothing about this book (not characters, not plot, not anything) other than it was thrown with surprising force in the general direction of me and my fellow classmates. And your experience!! Not a good first impression, Sula. Not a good first impression at all.
you wouldn't think a book so small could be so ... wounding. kudos to your class for being so good at dodging.
I don't think Sula approved of your usual taste in eye shadow. It was only trying to be helpful!
Either that or it's trying to kill you. I'd say 50/50 either way.
Either that or it's trying to kill you. I'd say 50/50 either way.
i don't even wear eye shadow! i don't know how to do makeup good. maybe it was helping me with something more permanent. but lopsided. or murder.
That's a nasty bruise! I've hurt myself on books left in my bed but never that badly. Hope it doesn't hurt too much.
Stephanie wrote: "If you were reading Beloved, I'd be truly scared for you. :)"
That's what I was thinking. Or rather, wondering if Sula had similar content.
That's what I was thinking. Or rather, wondering if Sula had similar content.
Clearly the book is cursed....or haunted...
Possibly both? Haha either way I would keep a close watch on it
Possibly both? Haha either way I would keep a close watch on it
no, sula is definitely a badass apart from my own personal experiences. the bruise doesn't hurt at all - i didn't even know i had it until i was putting on my wobbly eyeliner the next morning. i stared at it for a full three minutes trying to make sense of it because i had no idea how it could have happened.
It's not a bruise, it is spiritual contamination caused by your fictional involvement in a novel possibly including satanic possession.
I.e. Paul owes you a drink.
I.e. Paul owes you a drink.
whoa! why is your pupil square?? why is no one else asking this question???
I've never read Toni Morrison either, and I feel really bad about that, but I still don't really feel like reading her. These excerpts just seem like too much work. I'm a lazy reader (to be embarrassingly honest, I didn't even read the entire excerpt. I'm THAT lazy.) I don't want to have to wade through extraneous descriptors.
I've never read Toni Morrison either, and I feel really bad about that, but I still don't really feel like reading her. These excerpts just seem like too much work. I'm a lazy reader (to be embarrassingly honest, I didn't even read the entire excerpt. I'm THAT lazy.) I don't want to have to wade through extraneous descriptors.
I had not heard that story before. Being hit on the head, yeah, that explains a lot. And that eye thing....why IS your pupil square???
why IS my pupil square? it isn't usually. maybe it was reflecting something? maybe my eyeball is a portal to narnia?? this requires investigating....
i am a fan of description, mostly. when it's done well. it's one of the things i love in hardy. but i'm not always in the mood for it, for sure.
i am a fan of description, mostly. when it's done well. it's one of the things i love in hardy. but i'm not always in the mood for it, for sure.
Karen, your review was fantastic. I recently joined Quarterly and asked that they send me this particular box because I missed it from last fall (I really want to read the other two books from that box and the idea of reading the main author's annotations is amazing). Now having read your review, I'm just as excited to read Sula. Your 2 experiences of being 'attacked' by this book were hilarious!
The book hit you so hard in the night that it turned your pupil square? And I agree with Nadine - why had no one else asked that question before she did? Even your dad was concerned.
But here's the thing about Morrison - she always hits. Always. If it wasn't Sula, it would have been one of the others giving your concussions and square pupils.
In fact, I started my review for Love with:
Dammit to hell, Toni Morrison.
Why do you do this?
I really need to read this author more than once every seven years because I always forget what a beating she doles out in her worn but lovely velvet gloves.
Abuse seems to be her thing, much like examining broken girlhood friendships and the general horror of or, at least, dissatisfaction for the adult world.
But here's the thing about Morrison - she always hits. Always. If it wasn't Sula, it would have been one of the others giving your concussions and square pupils.
In fact, I started my review for Love with:
Dammit to hell, Toni Morrison.
Why do you do this?
I really need to read this author more than once every seven years because I always forget what a beating she doles out in her worn but lovely velvet gloves.
Abuse seems to be her thing, much like examining broken girlhood friendships and the general horror of or, at least, dissatisfaction for the adult world.
i love that at least three of us have been scrambling to figure out why your pupil was square and why no one else had asked the question.
Great review and that's so weird about your eye!
Karen, I love all of your reviews and read each and every one of them and have found some great recommendations thanks to you! I too am ashamed of my absence of Toni Morrison from my reading library despite my favorite genre being those sorts of historical fiction/coming of age/women's lit stories so you've inspired me to make this my next read ASAP!
Great review, Karen. So sorry about the assault!!! If you think your body could handle more Toni Morrison, I recommend "The bluest eye". The same thick creamy delicious prose that is the TM trademark, short, powerful and I think you'll like it, if not love it. I think it would be great if people read more about life in other people's shoes, even and perhaps especially if they can relate little of the story to their personal lives. For many, reading black stories is difficult because of that lack of connection.... But women have no problem reading books from a male perspective (and perhaps to a lesser degree visa versa) without getting completely disinterested because of the disconnect.
You are not one of those people.
I wish more non black people would read black stories during the other 11 months, was you mention. I know it could do a world of good. One doesn't have to fully relate to characters to be engaged, entertained and educated about other kinds of people.
Like Sula, I am sure there's enough fun in it for you to give up on the notion that "the greats" only write heavy serious books. I know that people pay attention to your reviews and I'd love you to lead others to read these and other gems (ps Beloved is not fun.... Not for a second... It is heavy, serious and I don't love the book or the movie-trauma without a happy ending is hard to live. At least for me... The first TM book I ever read was beloved and it turned me off of TM's books for the longest. I've enjoyed giving her another chance, of only for a taste of her language. It's magnificent. Cheers!!!
You are not one of those people.
I wish more non black people would read black stories during the other 11 months, was you mention. I know it could do a world of good. One doesn't have to fully relate to characters to be engaged, entertained and educated about other kinds of people.
Like Sula, I am sure there's enough fun in it for you to give up on the notion that "the greats" only write heavy serious books. I know that people pay attention to your reviews and I'd love you to lead others to read these and other gems (ps Beloved is not fun.... Not for a second... It is heavy, serious and I don't love the book or the movie-trauma without a happy ending is hard to live. At least for me... The first TM book I ever read was beloved and it turned me off of TM's books for the longest. I've enjoyed giving her another chance, of only for a taste of her language. It's magnificent. Cheers!!!