BELOVED by Toni Morrison

This sounds like warning but is meant simply to prepare you: the book has some graphic scenes – not, I think, gratuitously, but disturbing nevertheless. There are also some incredibly beautiful passages – and some that weave the violence with beautiful prose. It is also a work that (purposefully, I think) disorients the reader in the beginning. This is one of the ways in which the Salon is useful; we usually start with a lot of questions about what is going on . . . and why Morrison seems to make the read so difficult for the reader. Your persistence is needed but, I promise you, you will be rewarded. If this is your first reading of the text, please know that you will read the first chapter and probably feel quite disoriented (just for starters, notice the chapters aren’t numbered – why would Morrison choose not to number the chapters? What effect does this have on your reading?) I have a few suggestions to help you get your bearings: you might want to keep a list of characters (who they are, what you know about them, how they are connected to each other). I also encourage you to write down dates – the novel opens in the year 1873 (third line, first paragraph) – see if you notice when the time changes and make a note of it.

I am an advocate of active reading – your engagement with the text will be strengthened with a close interaction. One of the ways to do this is to write notes directly in the book – question marks in the margin where you don’t understand, exclamation points where you do, highlighting or underlining a passage that strikes you – making note of a passage that is opaque but intriguing, finding connections both within the text and to your own experience. We will talk more about this, mostly to find what works for you to help illuminate the text.

Reflections from a previous study participant:

“Beloved is one of the most beautiful and impactful books I’ve ever read. The impact I got in my first reading (I had recently become a parent), but the lyrical beauty I didn’t fully appreciate until I studied it with you. It was really interesting to re-read such a complex book at a different time in my life (I’m such a slow reader that I tend not to spend time re-reading). My first reading of Beloved left me thinking that forgiveness (or redemption) was perhaps not possible, the crime against humanity was too great. My second reading left me with a feeling of the possible and I felt some hope for humanity shine through that I hadn’t quite picked up on before. Thank you for guiding me through that experience. I have students of many different nationalities and ethnicities. I think Toni Morrison has helped me to start unpicking some of my own biases and preconceptions, for which I am grateful.”

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.