Powerful and brutally real. Toni Morrison tells the truth about slavery and new emancipation in a heart wrenching story that we all should read. The language and dialogue helps the story but her amazing prose lifts this story into another realm of sweetness, light, sorrow, bravery and a healthy dose of mystism. ( )

Morrison leans into the magical realism that felt out of place in Song of Solomon, and put it front and center in the setting and characters of this book. While this book is strong when it comes to exploring the mental and spiritual struggles of the characters, it often moves slowly and feels less readable than some of Morrison's other works. ( )

Es una historia de esclavos, de las generaciones de negros que vieron desaparecer la esclavitud legal y huyeron, y de cómo las reformas legales significaron muchas veces ninguna diferencia práctica pero sí una oportunidad. También es una historia de madres e hijas, de mujeres (pero no es literatura feminista) que tienen que tomar decisiones extremas y difíciles. Es también una historia de fantasmas, curiosos fantasmas que crecen y son indistinguibles de la realidad. Pero yo creo que la gran protagonista de esta novela es una casa, el 124 de Blustone Road, en Cincinatti, el lugar que unos blancos antiesclavistas ceden a la abuela que no huyó de Georgia porque no sabía que ya era legalmente libre, pero cuyo hijo compró su libertad con su trabajo, y donde su nuera y su nieta se refugiaron tras conseguir, ellas sí, huir, y donde la nuera mató a su segunda hija para evitar que volviese a ser esclava, y donde esta hija muerta volvió a los dieciocho años para vivir allí con su hermana y su madre.

Toda esta gran historia está contada combinando de manera muy efectiva distintas técnicas, Hay narración directa y diálogos al estilo habitual, pero también hay momentos oníricos e incluso experimentales. No demasiados, no se asuste el lector. Además, la autora maneja con enorme eficacia el arte de fragmentar el argumento para ofrecérnoslo en pedacitos, cambiando de lugar y de tiempo, para que nosotros vayamos construyendo como un puzzle todo lo que tenemos que saber. Muy bien, realmente muy bien. ( )

A novel about things that come back, and that never go away. Troubles you can't avoid, bad memories that resurface. Beloved is a ghost story, but first it is a story about black slavery and the lives it stole, the alternative could-have-beens and should-have-beens that would never be for those who struggled under it, who survived with what little life they could make or else did not. By extension it is a story about how much one person can tolerate before they reach a breaking point, and the forms that breaking can take. Paul D endures more and longer than anyone, has seen all of his fellow slaves' fates play out before him. He is left with only the unanswerable repeated question, "Why?"

Some brilliant passages toward the end reminded me of the last chapter from James Joyce's Ulysses, in which everything is made clear and not clear simultaneously - the tumult of thoughts stitched through with emotion. It's followed by an oddly conventional denouement and I think Ella should have been introduced sooner, but it works to demonstrate a community's power to heal wounds which individuals cannot. ( )

Remarkable, non linear and filled with insights

I'd known about this book and it's author for quite some time but had no idea what I was in for. Like a finely tuned instrument, Toni uses words and metaphor unlike most. Filled with the racial elements of slavery, its non-linear, multi-character POV with each chapter made it hard to follow. Frustrated by the challenge, I was tempted to quit, but the plot and engagement with characters kept it alive. Toni is an extremely talented storyteller whose ability to 'speak' from a black slave's perspective is genius. "Twelve Years a Slave" is another book that manages to accomplish this with a similar skill, though Ms. Morrison's word smithing is far superior. Having read other Pulitzer winners, this isn't my favorite though I can understand how it won. ( )