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Fiction. African American Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML: In prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem, Toni Morrison challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present. �They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.� So begins Toni Morrison�s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage. �A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.� �Los Angeles Times.… (more)
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Toni Morrison's recent death prompted me to pick up this book, which had been lingering too long on my shelves. I'm a little (more than a little) in awe of Morrison's talent and this book was no exception.
Paradise revolves around a small town of Ruby, Oklahoma, that
The conflict comes with an enormous home 17 miles outside of their town that used to be a Convent. The remaining Mother and her "daughter" Connie end up taking in several misfit women who all have had traumatic roads to finding them. The men of Ruby are tempted by these women and of course end up blaming them for their problems, including the most recent generation of Ruby not valuing the same insular society. When they start to lose control of their dearly held beliefs, the blame falls to the women at the Convent and tragedy happens.
There's so much more to this book that can't be described in a brief description. It's complex and beautiful writing but it also draws you in. I read it quickly and was completely wrapped up in it. I love that Morrison can write with such complexity but still in a way that is so readable. I would rank this novel right up with my other favorites, [Song of Solomon] and [Beloved].
some of the most beautiful poetic language ever used in fiction, and always intrinsic to the development of the novel, particularly in the creation of atmosphere.
well-plotted out and interspersed with the legends and history of a people.
a wealth of genuine and varied
a lovely and perfectly rendered open ending.
The book opens with a group of men from Ruby staging a violent raid on the Convent. What would lead them to such an horrific act? Morrison takes her time shedding light on this question. Each chapter focuses on the life of a different woman, usually one who came to stay at the Convent. But the narrative also provides a history of Ruby and its people, albeit in a non-linear way. It can be difficult to keep track of all the characters and their relationships to one another. It’s not until the final chapters that the reader begins to understand why and how the raid happened. This later, more detailed description of the raid was gripping and tragic.
The raid is just one example of violence against women in this novel. All of the women who arrive at the Convent have experienced tragic circumstances, often at the hands of men. There’s a lot of imagery and symbolism, which I cannot claim to have fully unpacked. And I think there’s something supernatural going on as well, in ways reminiscent of Morrison’s Beloved. This was a challenging novel to read and understand, but rather than being confused or turned off by that, I loved it.
The novel starts with a powerful opening sentence “they shoot the white girl first’ and goes downhill from there. A group of nine men from a nearby town have come out to a makeshift refuge for women armed to the teeth and intent on running them off the land or worse. They have come from the all black town of Ruby the title of the first chapter and Morrison fills in a little of the history of the town, while leaving the reader in suspense concerning the attack on the refuge. Subsequent chapters are titled from the names of the women who have lived in the refuge and their stories are told together with their connection to Ruby. The women’s stories are interlaced with the folklore of the town and their names are thinly disguised to keep the reader guessing as to who they are and where their story fits into the larger picture. The time shifts and fragmentary nature of some of the story telling makes it difficult to get a clear idea of events and this would have been interesting if the novel had not at the end of the day been so intent on ramming the themes of the book down the readers throat, backed up with some religious hokum and a desperate attempt to keep the mystery going after we learn of the events of the raid.
Pride, race, religion, misogyny and the dangers of a closed community are lumped in with mysticism, folklore and a revenge tale that struggles to make itself believable and ends up seemingly like some sort of parody. This reader felt little connection with the characters, so many of whom are little more than stock characters. Everything seems to be thrown into the mix and basically we have seen it all before and some fine passages of writing cannot save this unlikely fable. 2 stars.
Ruby is a small town, founded by black families who persevered through the
Meanwhile, far on the outskirts of this small town is the Convent, once the home of nuns aiming to plant a seed of culture in young native girls, is now a last refuge for lost women, who have been shattered by their lives. Each reach the Convent, one way or another, by accident, and intending to stay only a few days, end up staying years.
The novel interweaves the history of Ruby and its founding families and the lives of these women, and true to Morrison's style, nothing is simple, not people, or towns, or history, or stories.
One of the things I remember from when I first read it in class was the question of who the "white girl" was. Race is an important question in the book, or I should say, it's an important question and focus for the townsfolk of Ruby, who pride themselves on being dark-skinned blacks, as opposed to the light skinned blacks who rejected them, not to mention the whites they were trying to escape and avoid. However, among the women who live at the Convent, the story is different. Race is less of an issue, and Morisson never makes it clear who the "white girl" is, and though we spent a lot of time in class trying to debating it, in the end, I think perhaps it doesn't matter, because these women (after a long false start), began to create a kind of paradise for themselves that was not at all built on race, but on something else entirely.
Paradise is a rich, complex book with rich, complex write that you could pick up 50 times and come away with something new each time. It requires a certain amount of focus, of paying attention to get through, but it is absolutely worth the effort, and is a beautiful read.
In spite of some great writing, if I have one main complaint it's that too
There are scores of characters throughout Paradise. They all possess a dark secret or either they are shrouded in some type of sorrow. The twins, Deek and Steward, govern Ruby with an iron fist while Connie welcomes women into the Convent with no questions asked. The twins will do whatever it takes to protect the way of life in Ruby. Ruby is somewhat of a African-American utopia with strict age, family, class, and religious divides. At the Convent women of various backgrounds, ages, and lifestyles come and go but most can't seem to stay away. The Convent and its occupants are shunned by most of the residents of Ruby outside of them purchasing vegtables but there are a few who visit for other reasons.
The town of Ruby has a rich history and so does the Convent. There are layers of family and personal history that Morrison weaves intricately throughout each chapter. The stories that surround the Convent and the women that found refuge there were the most captivating for me. Ruby and its residents could have been totally removed from the story and I would not have missed them. The characters that made up the town of Ruby were flat with one except the midwife, Lone DuPres. The Convent women had rich stories full of life and depth.
Paradise is dark and sorrowful. There is a feminist feel about it. For me there was a lot of disconnect and places where I simply got lost in what I would describe as rambling. After a while, I found re-reading passages proved useless. I never truly found the "core" of the story. The reader can never really pin point who the "white girl" is. The race of most of the Convent women is ambiguous. I reached a bright spot in the narrative close to the end when a totally unexpected love story was brought to the light. I once thought if I read and understood Morrison's novel, Love, I could make it through any of her books. I was wrong. Paradise was torture for me.
And some beautiful and harsh words too..
"Because I've done the married man stuff before: the serious married man stuff with the calls at odd hours and the lunch-break fucks and him making you meet his wife socially (so that you'll know her, so that you can feel bad, too - except that you don't, because you're not married, that's his problem) and the not going out much in daylight and the wanting to have more of him, the hunger that almost wrecks you when you finally do touch - the whole, huge, locked-in crucifying, paranoid fantasy.!
I borrowed this book, and I will try to hang on to it for a while longer, to reread soon.
The story isn't always linear and there were times when I thought something was purposefully meant to be so confusing that you just couldn't follow it. Some of the poetic writing is just a little too cryptic to understand without some pause to think about the situation a little. Books should be that way at times, when the balance is right, and this book has almost perfect balance. In a way there is a great mystery to this book, because even though the story starts with what is obviously the end of the story, you find yourself wondering how it all came about. You find yourself reading for the writing style just as much as the mystery though. It is simply that good.
Reviewed in 2011
Great discussion. Sorry I wasn't able to start the book sooner, and add my two cents as the thread went on. I finished about an hour ago, and I'm relieved that others found it confusing, not just me!
I found the writing quite powerful, the
As for the reality of the women at the Convent, I never doubted it. How their bodies disappeared is certainly a mystery, as is (to me) that door or window that Richard and Anna sense in the garden. I think Mavis might be alive at the end - when her daughter embraces her she winces - but maybe not. I think Pallas is certainly dead, as is her baby, because she doesn't answer or look at her mother later when she comes back for her shoes, carrying the baby. I don't know if Lone was able to employ her power to restore any of them, but it's a possibility.
The story of exclusive communities is very old, of course, and we still carry that in some parts of our society today. It's meant as a bulwark against change and contamination, but without change thoughts and habits ossify. The nine families recoil from the hurt of exclusion (no room at the inn for them) into themselves. I was a little surprised that the young men of the latter generation went off to war - so little mention was made of the government I thought the town was itself invisible. But of course, once the boys see the realities of the outside world, it's harder to keep new ideas out. And then the very personal damage that can be caused by exclusion becomes overt.
Much more to be said, if I can think of it. This book certainly bears careful rereading, but I don't expect that to explain things.
I'll go check other's posts on their own threads now. I've been passing them by until I'd finished my own read.
On the surface it’s the story of a group of nine former slave families, freed at the end of the Civil War, searched for a place to settle. When they attempted to join one community of former slaves, they were told they were too black
They settled near a bootlegger/racketeer’s pleasure palace. Eventually, the pleasure palace was taken over by an order of Catholic nuns as a school for Indian girls. But the Indian school fades out, as does the order of nuns. It becomes home to a few wayward girls who have found their way there by accident, or perhaps as if they were drawn there.
It’s a story of racism, classism, colorism, and religion – of men and women in conflict; of supernatural haunting of the old Convent as well as an elderly Brazilian woman who can enter people’s souls and prolong life. It’s a story of old conflicts and hurts bubbling forth and a community founded on the freedom of a newly freed people becoming a very unfree community.
Even after reading several online commentaries on this novel, I was often at a loss. One professor who has taught it several times, said he always starts out by making a crib sheet of names and relationships. When I read it again, I will do so.
Because,having finished reading I feel that I need to read it again -probably multiple times. But for now, I will set it aside and let it soak.
The story takes place in Ruby, and all-Black town in Oklahoma where the prominent men of town take up arms against the women in an abandoned convent on the outskirts of town. The men treat the convent as if it were a brothel or a coven corrupting the morals in town. In fact, it is a safe place for women who are escaping abuse, exclusion, and personal tragedies, mainly brought on by the patriarchy of the town and discrimination against light-skin Black people The narrative interweaves the personal stories of women who lived and died at the convent with the history of the town.
As I've noted, I found this to be a complex book. It is also violent and disturbing which makes it hard for me to read. It's nonetheless a poetic work with Morrison's typical honesty and compassion toward her characters. But it is not going to be a favorite of mine among her novels.