Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Last night I finished reading it. It’s not the first book I’ve read by Morrison; I’ve also read Beloved, though it has been some years. I do not recall being overly enamored with it, and in fact, I rated it at one star. I’m not proud of it, especially since I never provided an explanation, but there it is. As I refresh my memory, scrolling through other reviews of the book on Goodreads, I see fives and ones…people really love it, or they really hate it, with one reader calling it ‘brilliant’ and another just a few reviews lower calling it their “least favorite book,” and another saying “I hated it.”

It kind of reminds me of that scene in The Pirates of the Caribbean when Johnny Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow is accused of being “quite possibly the worst pirate I have ever heard of.”

“Ah,” says Sparrow. “But you have heard of me.”

Indeed.

And did I just compare Toni Morrison to a movie derived from a Disney amusement park ride? Oy…

My point is, it’s not hard to see why readers are myopic about her books. Toni Morrison writes with deceptive beauty that yanks at the emotions of anyone with a heart. The imagery of her language is a bright rainbow, a feast for the reader that will allure and entice. It’s absolutely beautiful. Like a beautiful meal, the reader can’t help but desire to feel and take in the emotions of the story.

And what stories.

Perhaps this is also why it evokes such negative reactions. The stories are mired in scenes I often cringed to read, depicting abuse, prostitution, rape, incest, voyeurism, and bestiality. Violence is regular, and references and descriptions of sex are frequent. That they are integrated into such heartbreaking stories, full of pathos and raw emotion only makes me feel conflicted and torn about the value of the novel.

Reading The Bluest Eye (and Beloved), it’s hard not to believe–and I do believe–that the stories reflect a dark and sordid past of a people in their time oppressed and abused by the laws and majorities of this country, and in turn, they abused and hurt each other. One abuse begets another, and the cycle of pain continues and is passed on. That Morrison dreamed up these stories and crammed them all together into her novels…well. It’s a dark imagination, or maybe it’s a cautionary note about the past that some might want to forget.

To be clear, because perhaps I’m waxing a little contemplative, or maybe I’m overthinking it, or maybe I’m way outside of my bailiwick (after all, I did read a solid four epic fantasy’s in the last quarter of 2020 were the worst thing any of the protagonists had to face was a BBEG trying to take over the world, so nothing quite so nuanced or emotional as interpersonal relationships of a historically oppressed people), I do not think this belongs in the junior high library, and maybe not even the high school library. And yes, I recognize I’m a socially conservative personality, and I may be more cautious about what my kids read than many.

But don’t read this as a suggestion that it shouldn’t be read. Maybe there is a place for it in a curriculum when guided by an attentive and careful teacher. A student, especially an older one, might—should—gain some appreciation for its value. Without that guide, I suspect the story is alternately horrifying, confusing, grotesque, and disturbing. And don’t tell me that it “shows the real world,” because this is not the real world as it is for most people today, nor do I think that children—whether young, pre-teen, or adolescents—necessarily are edified or educated by steeping them in scenes that are so dark and depressing.

If I had a philosophy of what I think children should read, I think it is not dissimilar to C.S. Lewis’s comment here: “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” Young readers should be brought along and prepared to face those dragons, prepared to defeat them, then later be brought along to see just how terrible those dragons really are. Whether racism, familial and sexual abuse, misogynism, or even just the degrading nature of poverty, there are dragons in this world, and children will one day become adults who face these monsters, or at least they should become such. But the age at which they grapple with these through the writing of Toni Morrison is not lightly and casually approached. They shouldn’t be beaten down with those dragons before they have the strength to face them, and then, when they have that strength, they will understand what and why those dragons must and should be slain.