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4 cassettes, 5.5 hours, narrated by Lynne Thigpen, Griot Audio. ... Read more

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"A writer′s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity"

Customer Reviews (3)

Witnessing The World Around Us With Body, Mind, and Soul
When I first picked up this book of a little more than a 100 pp I thought, I can read through this in an afternoon.It took a bit longer and at the end of the first reading I thought, I have no idea what I've just read.

So, I started again a few weeks later - that reading has taken about a week but this time I think I know what my problem was in the first reading (I have a good idea now what the 11 writers are doing).Reading these essays is like reading 11 different books with very different styles and points of view - the kind of book that I don't `get' until I've read about 100 pages and gotten to know that writer's style.Then it suddenly snaps into focus.

The focus and depth of each essay is powerful once one has gotten the point the author is trying to make.The last essay, "Witness: The Inward Testimony", pretty much clinches the point, of which the other ten are prime examples - we are living in highly engaging times when we each become participants - witnesses - witnesses of extreme joys and tragedies happening simultaneously any place in the world experienced via the media, the internet and word of mouth, if not by being physically present to the event.Each of us must process the impact of these experiences on our bodies, our minds, our souls.This processing of the life unfolding around and within us is one in which writers aid us - each in a different, unique and personal way.

Insightful Yet A Little Deep For The Average Reader
"Burn This Book" is a short collection of essays relating to censorship, human rights, and writing in general provided by a variety of writers. This is the first book of it's kind that I've read - I had picked it up as I found the cover intriguing - and given the small size of the book it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new without a large investment in time.

My impression of this book is mixed. On one hand I feel as if I now have a greater appreciation of the dangers writers face worldwide for expressing their views, how censorship continues to plaque even the most open societies, and why some writers are deemed controversial. On the other hand the style of some of the essays seemed very deep and over my head - the meanings of which were likely lost on me.

Overall I found this to be an average read and recommend it those who are writers (or are interested in writing), concerned with censorship, or would just like the insight of various writers.

An Important Book For Those Against Literary Censorship
"A writer's life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity." -Toni Morrison

I was especially interested in this book due to its topic - censorship of literature. Writers everywhere are suffering due to their desire to write. To tell a story. Whether it's banning, imprisonment or death, many dedicated writers are paying for their talent. (The most notable here in the States would be the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, where a fatwa was issued, telling all Muslims to murder Rushdie for his written blasphemy against their religion). On May 12th, HarperStudio, in conjunction with PEN American Center, the major voice for literature and free expression, is releasing Burn This Book (as well as a nationwide petition) as a way to bring awareness to how much these writers endure.

Burn This Book features 11 essays written by incredibly prominent writers from all over the world. It starts with the speech Morrison gave at the PEN International Festival dinner, entitled "Peril." She sets the mood of the book, voicing her opinion that writers should never be silenced, instead they should be listened to, for they bring art and awareness to the world. As the book unfolds, essay after essay dictates the same idea, only in many different ways.

Both John Updike and Nadine Gordimer have strong, verbose essays ("Why Write" and "Witness: The Inward Testimony" respectively) that bookend the anthology. Showing how authors can have a political awareness and voice in the world, the authors successfully dictate the importance of literature. These are the essays that literature students will study in college and dissect carefully, thoughtfully. Although those two are arguably the the most notorious writers in the collection, their essays were far from my favorites. I really enjoyed Pico Iyer's "The Man, The Men at the Station," the story of his stay in Mandalay when he met a trishaw driver by the name of Maung-Maung who wrote a book, but could never publish it because it was frowned upon to be thought smart there. "Freedom to Write" by Orhan Pamuk was an incredibly interesting look at Pamuk's meeting with Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter, two renowned authors, in the 80's. As the latter two fought for the rights of writers in Turkey, Pamuk discovered the political persona in himself, one that he always kept out of his books, perhaps in fear of being imprisoned like the others. I especially loved "The Sudden Sharp Memory" by Ed Park which was written just like the famously banned novel "I Am The Cheese" by Robert Cormier. The essay, written like an interview, discusses why Cormier's book was banned and how it changed him, as an author and a person. I loved how he put himself into the story and wrote it similarly to the book it's praising.

Rushdie himself had an essay in there entitled "Notes on Writing and the Nation," which addresses just what it states. Using a poem by R.S. Thomas as the backbone, he discusses the practicality of writing. Although his essay was incredibly interested, part of me hoped he would have approaches his very real previous situation. Paul Auster's "Talking to Strangers" is an essay every writer should read. It addresses the question "why write?" and beautifully answers it by bluntly stating "it's the only job I ever wanted."

All in all, Morrison created an excellent collection that showed how writing is more than just words on a page. That it could make a difference. That it could speak to people, reveal answers to a country. A writer's words should never be silenced - they should be the soundtrack to our time.

Burn This Book should be given to any professional writer. As a former teacher, I feel very strongly against book banning and this book let me see that it's more than just that. It opened my eyes to the struggles we face. It made me realize that there has to be an end to it. But, most of all, it made me want to write. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Stunningly Picturesque slice of American life
An utterly stunningly picturesque slice of life in a cold and cold-blooded, capitalist, racist, male dominated society. Told at the periphery of our collective consciousness, as if were a daydream -- as a collection of vignettes about a family of women, a "stand-in" for any black family; indeed as a "stand-in" for any poor family (of women) in America.

It is a story so carefully and stealthily told -- at the speed of everyday life -- tucked away in the subtext beneath the techniques of a skilled writer -- that the very act itself is the definition of pure genius.

As American art goes, this is the work of an intellectual magician, a literary and societal --indeed a psychological sorcerer. It is work reserved only for the elite of even the elite of literary geniuses; and told only as a genius could tell it: without lashing out and without the palpable and expected rancor; without even a semblance of conscious intent: There is no need for a hidden agenda, as the pure truth (even when it is imagined) can tell no lies.

(Now I understand why we need fiction. The truth hides between the lines, in the crevices of everyday life. Occasionally we need to coax it out into the light of day.)

There is no need to scream in the face of American society -- even when it is a powerful scream that is needed. There is no need for "calling American society down" for what it is and for what it has done to our collective humanity; the everyday details of Frieda, Claudia and Pecola's lives speak so eloquently for themselves (and for us all). There is no need to single out the complexities of politics, for life on the ground "vectors" directly into the politics above.

The writer of fiction gives us the litarary evidence at the level of everyday consciousness of the interconnectedness of the brutality and inhumanity of our cultural system as that brutality and inhumanity is written in the background of the script of society's drama, and as it gets played out daily in the lives of everyday people. What a work of art! Ten stars

Beauty in the Irredeemable, the Fulfillment of the Impossible Through a False Sacrament of the Eucharist
As solemn as it is touching, The Bluest Eye distinguishes itself from other literary works for its extraordinary prose, structure, and exploration of an exceptionally weighty subject matter through an introspective look into the lives of African Americans in a time of exceptional turmoil and crossfire in mainstream culture. The novel delves into the ethics of humanity and the corrupt façades manifested by unrealistic desires and distorted ambition, ultimately revealing the destructive and unpredictable nature of human beings. Take Pecola, a child born into an abusive family, who desperately, horrifically, wants to have the blue eyes which would make her beautiful and acceptable to herself. The work targets her fears, dreams, and desires through others. As Pecola is a weak-minded and inexpressive main character, information about her is received intravenously through those around her: a drunk of a father, a mother blinded by abstract notions of good and false ideals of beauty, and three whores who feed her stories and lies. The main notion of the novel, Toni Morrison had argued upon its publication, is to create such a medium through which individuals, characters, could stand for themselves. Morrison ardently enforces this abject realism through selective characterization and through her exploration of the ambiguous in the sense of moral reprehensibility. The novel lacks the squeaky clean figures of prior fiction dealing with similar subject matter. Some individuals in The Bluest Eye are shamelessly without dignity while others, rather than being cleansed by conventional and stereotypical principles of ideal moral behavior, are corrupted and tainted by them.

Stark contrasts between values, and attitudes, and ethics distinguish each character introduced in the novel. Yet interestingly, there is an omniscient intermingling of what is considered ethical versus what is considered immoral.We are constantly reminded of the randomness of existence, the inescapability of both acts of good and evil in life, and the corruptibility of the most pious of people. Love, like so many emotions, is explored in the many heart wrenching scenes which comprise of this book. Indeed, as Morrison wrote in The Bluest Eye, "Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly" (p. 206). However strange, different, poor, or stupid we are, we are all capable of love, of causing pleasure and pain. Yes, Pecola does receive the gift she so desperately yearns for, yet the cost of this treasured boon is her and her family's destitution. We are finally given her perspective as she careens into penury and insolvency. She can only find peace by withdrawing deep into herself. In this state, she loses her sanity, everything with which she can possibly utilize to comprehend and interact with a reality she so desperately wanted to reject. The Bluest Eye shows us the destructiveness of human passion and desire. That which makes us ambitious, reverent, and triumphant can also corrupt and devastate us. An excellent read whose implications linger long after the last page; The Bluest Eye is indeed an incredibly indisputable work of excellent literary fiction.

Satisfied
Product arrived as described. I requested expedited shipping but found that this item arrived only one day ahead of another book that I ordered on the same day with normal shipping. My son needed this ASAP to write a college paper. Overall- very statisfied.

By jennifer alvarez
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison has been a different kind of experience. It explains detail by detail what happens in a daily life or just by experience.I haven't read none of Toni Morrisons book before but i am happy my teacher recommended this one. I don't exactly have this book because i have the hard cover one, but i know and checked that this one and the hard cover one are exactly a like. But yeah, I ll explain what happens in the book to you, but I am more likely convince, it would be a better experience to read it and find out. Good luck and i hope helped.

Time honored classis
This is a classic written in Morrison's wonderful style which brings the reader into the heart of the characters. This particular edition is the paperback version that you will see most teenagers carrying around. ... Read more

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This edition of Bloom's Major Novelists examines the work of the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison. Included is an analysis of what some critics view as her strongest novel, Song of Solomon. Other works studied in this text include The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved.

This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School; preeminent literary critic of our time. Titles include detailed plot summaries of the novel, extracts from scholarly critical essays on the novels, a complete bibliography of the writer's novels, and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

After Reading Toni Morrison's Jazz Read Tally's Story!
This is the most inclusive and interesting scholarly account of Jazz I have read so far. Unlike many scholars who have adopted Bakhtin's theory of dialogue wholesale in their discussion of ethnic women's writing, Tally supports all her arguments with unique clarity and consistency. Her book also gives a detailed overview of earlier critical responses to Morrison's Jazz.
The most intriguing is Part Two, where in her chapter-by-chapter analysis Tally demonstrates the manifestation of Morrison's dialogic imagination in Jazz. In disagreement with so-called "jazz critics", she examines jazz "not as the structure, strategy or aesthetic behind the creation of the novel, but as a perfect metaphor" underlying the novel: stories and the language used to tell them (61).The interpretation of generic intertextuality in the novel is most interesting, Tally notes that "the voice of the narrator is an imitation of hard-boiled fiction" (32)whose representative is Raymond Chandler.
In the book Tally explores the subtle ways in which Morrison is preoccupied with story-telling making at the same time room for the narrator's and other characters' voices "via the inflection of the words and phrases that call to intertextual references, or via the techniques of hybridizing which include other types of discourse within the surface narration"(138). Tally also highlights Morrison's narrative strategies which require active readerly participation such as the delaying of critical information, the extensive use of repetition, the narrator's intrusiveness, free association and circularity.
On account of its merits, I wish to recommend this book as a significant introduction to understanding Morrison's most complex novel for both scholars and "common" readers.

Morrison Enacts Bakhtin
First of all: Tally's book is listed in the wrong category - it has nothing to do with music but is a study of Toni Morrison's novel 'Jazz'.
The Story of 'Jazz': Toni Morrison's Dialogic Imagination, is a worthy sequel to Justine Tally's previous monograph on Toni Morrison's 'Paradise'. With refreshing clarity Tally discusses structure, theme, and the intricate subtleties of Morrison's literary discourse in this novel, without ever losing sight of her main hypothesis, i. e. that 'Jazz', though set in the Harlem of the 1920s, is not primarily a book about African American music or the Harlem Renaissance, but rather one about story-telling itself, about how our knowledge of events is created, changed, received, and (mis)understood. Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas about the 'dialogic imagination' in literature serve as congenial theoretical tools for this analysis. In fact, Tally's use of Bakhtin's theories is one of the most convincing and illuminating applications of Bakhtinian thought one can find in the fields of literary criticism. On the side, Tally also makes readers aware of the affinities of 'Jazz' to the 'hard-boiled' detective novels of Raymond Chandler, whose laconic style and implicit social criticism Morrison employs but also subverts in the second novel of her trilogy. At the end, the narrator has no definite story but rather acknowledges the importance of the dialogic nature of language and its consequent shaping of our perception; this includes the recognition that the "self" can only be formed and perceived through the "other." The story of 'Jazz' is ultimately the story of the relationship of language to the conceptualization of the self.For Morrison as for Bakhtin, "[a]n independent, responsible and active discourse is the fundamental indicator of an ethical, legal and political human being."
A very rewarding read, highly recommended for everyone who is interested in literature and stimulating scholarly criticism. ... Read more

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How does this novel explore themes of race and identity? What is the "color line"? How does Toni Morrison continue traditions of African-American storytelling? Discover how African-American culture has become a powerful voice in modern society.

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This is part of a new series of guides to contemporarynovels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible andinformative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimedand most influential novels of recent years – from ‘The Remainsof the Day’ to ‘White Teeth’. A team of contemporary fictionscholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to providea thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. ... Read more

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Mobley's carefully argued study simultaneously offers important new insights into the works of these two significant women writers and points out ways in which narrative may be used as a catalyst for cultural and social change. "A richly suggestive study."--American Literature. ... Read more

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With excerpts from interviews and reviews, an exploration of the historical documents and slave narrative traditions on which Morrison drew, and an insightful juxtaposition of psychoanalytic and postcolonial approaches to the novel, this guide places in the contexts of Morrison´s oeuvre and other works of African American literature. Chapters focus on the supernatural elements of the work, as well as the author´s treatment of the physical self. ... Read more

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One man's search for his identity.

The title, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics.This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Toni Morrison, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

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In this innovative and wide-ranging book, Byatt and the psychoanalyst Ignes Sodre bring their different sensibilities to bear on six novels they have read and loved: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Bronte's Villette, George Elliot's Daniel Deronda, Willa Cather's The Professor's House, Iris Murdoch's An Unofficial Rose, and Toni Morrison's Beloved. The results are nothing less than an education in the ways literature grips its readers and, at times, transforms their lives. Imagining Characters is indispensable, a work of criticism that returns us to the books it discusses with renewed respect and wonder. ... Read more

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Eavesdropping on Great Conversations
The happiest moments of a liberal arts education usually take place late in the evening in a dormitory lounge or in a local bistro over several cups of coffee.They're conversations, often between two similarly minded people, that explore a favorite subject.Browsing through Imagining Characters is like lingering in a seat at the next table.

The works selected are an English major's hit list of mainly nineteenth century women's novels.Byatt and Sodre bring their experience as a fiction writer and a clinical psychologist, respectively, to their understandings and develop complementary insights rather than rigorous debates.

This isn't everyone's cup of java.The reader who enjoys this volume probably relishes at least half of the novels discussed, smiles at being called a feminist, and prefers discussion to formal criticism. ... Read more

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As a chronicler of the African American experience in fiction and as an incisive cultural commentator in her essays and lectures, Toni Morrison (b. 1931) is regarded as one of the nation's most distinguished novelists and intellectuals. Her novels are richly layered narratives that explore the meanings of tragedy and myth in individual lives. Morrison's perspectives on American life and culture, rendered with a deep understanding of the consequences of history and the power of art, are always compelling.

Toni Morrison: Conversations includes interviews with the Nobel Laureate that bring into the foreground Morrison's comments on American literature and society, the academy, and her own work. She discusses growing up in Lorain, Ohio, her role as editor at Random House, the continuing evolution of her style, her teaching philosophy, and her most recent novels Jazz, Paradise, and Love. This volume includes interviews and profiles from the 1970s and 1980s that were not collected in Conversations with Toni Morrison (1993) and a rich collection of new interviews published together for the first time, including conversations with Paula Giddings, Salman Rushdie, Charlie Rose, and Elissa Schappell. ... Read more