Title: The Bluest Eye
Author: Toni Morrison
Pages: 216
Publisher: Plume
Published: June 1, 1970
Dates Read: August 31, 2018 – September 3, 2018
Rating: 5 stars
Summary & Image via Goodreads: The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison’s first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author’s girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves’ garden do not bloom. Pecola’s life does change- in painful, devastating ways.
What its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child’s yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Tony Morrison’s most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.
Review: “Love is never any better than the lover. . . . there is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”
I’ll be the first to admit I find Toni Morrison’s writing difficult to get through. But not because it’s bad, rather because it’s so metaphorical. The images she conveys in her stories are so vivid (as long as the reader understands it) that it’s worth reading slower than I usually do.
This story is about a girl, Pecola, whose “racial self-loathing” (Toni Morrison’s description in the afterword) leads to her breaking down and believing what would make her loved in the world is blue eyes, one of the physical traits society considers beautiful. The internalization of beauty standards and the various ways that the characters had come to be who they were in relation to their race and their standing in society was perfectly wound into this heartbreaking tale. Morrison’s language may be difficult for some to get through, but the story is poignant and it’s truly no surprise why it’s considered a classic.
Montana's Musings 