Reader Response

After reading this book, I took a look on multiple different sites to read the reviews that other people have given the book “Beloved.” I myself found the book fairly interesting, intense at times and I also found myself confused, using the internet to look up the deeper meaning behind some aspects of the book. The three sites I looked at were, Goodreads.com, Barnes and Noble and lastly, Amazon.

            The first one I looked at was goodreads.com. Like any other site will have, there were a lot of people that had different responses to the book. It seemed like either they loved it, or they hated it. Some people however, hated it for silly reasons I think. They didn’t like her writing style, they didn’t want to read “another” book on slavery, etc. I found one quote that was particularly interesting to me, “Unfortunately, I just could not get into this book. I tried reading it as a class assignment and again on my own, but alas. It wasn't the writing style, which was...a cute attempt for creativeness but resulted in harming the progress of the story (much like Faulkner's Sound and the Fury actually). Don't misunderstand me, I love being exposed to different styles such as stream-of-consciousness, magical realism or what have you - but I feel that this book fails, miserably. I am also not a fan of Morrison, I don't particularly care for her personal opinions and I am confused why this title is so revered. I wasn't entertained by it, I felt no remorse or sympathy for any characters and I was just glad to be done with it. I rarely throw books into a recycling bin, but this was one of those that deserved to be tossed aside, in my opinion.”

I found this to be a little harsh, especially when they said they felt no remorse for anyone in the book. How can you hear what Sethe went through in the barn and not feel bad? How can you not be sad when reading what happened to Beloved and Sethe and her other children that day? How does someone read about slavery and not feel bad for the thousands of people that were forced into slavery? I think this person, along with all the other people who didn’t like the book because it was written on slavery, doesn’t have a heart!

            The second website that I was looking at was Barnes and Noble’s. Again, I found a range of people who felt differently about the book. I found a quote from someone that I really liked and thought it was a great response to all the haters, especially the person who I found on goodreads.com. “To all the people complaining that this novel is difficult, boring, weird, senseless, etc and calling Morrison a bad writer or overrated, I can't have any other reaction but to smile and feel bad that those people do not have the mental capacity to understand such incredible writing. If Toni Morrison was not an extraordinary writer, she would not have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, or the Pulitzer. Yes, this is a difficult book to read. Yes, it will take very close reading and sometimes rereading but please do not diminish the value of this absolutely beautiful and haunting literary work. Morrison is an absolute genius and if you cannot understand her or think she's “ overrated”, just accept that you will never be able to grasp this work of ART or the level of language/literature it's written in. Do yourself a favor and enrich your library and soul with this novel.

I found this very funny and satisfying. I also thought that, while reading some of the reviews, that the people bad mouthing the book clearly didn’t understand it. They must not have the ability to dig deeper into the book. I’m not saying that it was a walk in the park to read, but reading and rereading as well as using other resources to help me at times, I was able to better understand the book.

Lastly, I looked on the Amazon website in hopes that I could find some better reviews. I found one that rated the book with five stars rather than the one stars that the previous reviews did. This person says “If you can allow yourself to put yourself in the place of a slave, as is described in this book, you can feel the humiliation, grief, indignity, disgrace, fear, degradation and submissiveness that was a slave. Through Toni Morrison's words, I felt these feelings. I don't know how they survived. This is a hard book to read, but I'm glad I did. I believe we all need to understand what was done.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I could definitely feel the pain, humiliation, the dehumanization, the fear and the shame that took place in the novel. I felt like I was experiencing everything along with Sethe and Denver and Beloved. This book truly was a good book and Morrison did a great job writing it. The style of her writing and the way she didn’t do it chronologically left me using my head to piece everything together, in return making me feel like apart of the story.

Sources:

Morrison, Toni. "Beloved." Barnes & Noble. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/beloved-toni

morrison/1001875673?ean=9781400033416>.

Morrison, Toni. "Beloved." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved?from_search=tr

e#other_reviews>.

"Customer Reviews." Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

<https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Toni

Morrison/dp/1400033411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493002453&sr=8

1&keywords=beloved>.