Book 11: Favorite Passages.

*I am a little backlogged on posts, so excuse the numerous posts being made today! I was enjoying my holiday yesterday.*

Wow. Toni Morrison is an amazing writer. Why have I never taken the opportunity to read her work before? I think that sometimes I intimidate myself with the thought of what “could be” in a book that I never give it a chance. I found that same to be true for Dostoevsky. I was so intimidated and nervous about the name that I psyched myself out about reading it.

But I suppose that’s part of the reason why I am doing this entire challenge to myself. I should be reading things that intimidate me. I am learning from the authors I am reading and improving in many ways.

Anyway, back to Morrison. I am in awe of her writing ability. She crafts her words so carefully that they make such a powerful impact on the reader. She seems to be a very “in your face” kind of writer. I love it.

I want to share some more of my favorite passages from The Bluest Eye. I hope you like them as much as I do.

“The first twigs are thin, green, and supple. They bend into a complete circle, but will not break. Their delicate, showy hopefulness shooting from forsythia and lilac bushes meant only a change in whipping style. They beat us differently in the spring. Instead of the dull pain of the winter strap, there were these new green switches that lost their sting long after the whipping was over. There was a nervous meanness in these long twigs that made us long for the steady stroke of a strap or the firm but honest slap of a hairbrush,” (97).

“There in the dark her memory was refreshed, and she succumbed to her earlier dreams. Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another—physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion,” (122).

“He thought it was at once the most fantastic and the most logical petition he had ever received. Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but it was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of all the wishes people had brought him—money, love, revenge—this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment,” (174).

“We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used—to silence our own nightmares,” (205).