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Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 2000: Originally published in 1970, The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel. In an afterword written more than two decades later, the author expressed her dissatisfaction with the book's language and structure: "It required a sophistication unavailable to me." Perhaps we can chalk up this verdict to modesty, or to the Nobel laureate's impossibly high standards of quality control. In any case, her debut is nothing if not sophisticated, in terms of both narrative ingenuity and rhetorical sweep. It also shows the young author drawing a bead on the subjects that would dominate much of her career: racial hatred, historical memory, and the dazzling or degrading power of language itself.
Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, The Bluest Eye is something of an ensemble piece. The point of view is passed like a baton from one character to the next, with Morrison's own voice functioning as a kind of gold standard throughout. The focus, though, is on an 11-year-old black girl named Pecola Breedlove, whose entire family has been given a cosmetic cross to bear:
You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.... And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.There are far uglier things in the world than, well, ugliness, and poor Pecola is subjected to most of them. She's spat upon, ridiculed, and ultimately raped and impregnated by her own father. No wonder she yearns to be the very opposite of what she is--yearns, in other words, to be a white child, possessed of the blondest hair and the bluest eye.
This vein of self-hatred is exactly what keeps Morrison's novel from devolving into a cut-and-dried scenario of victimization. She may in fact pin too much of the blame on the beauty myth: "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." Yet the destructive power of these ideas is essentially colorblind, which gives The Bluest Eye the sort of universal reach that Morrison's imitators can only dream of. And that, combined with the novel's modulated pathos and musical, fine-grained language, makes for not merely a sophisticated debut but a permanent one. --James Marcus --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
No doubt spurred on by Morrison's winning of the 1993 Nobel prize for literature, Plume is releasing trade paperback editions of her novels, beginning with this title (LJ 11/1/70). These editions also include a new afterword by the author.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A patch of blue,
This review is from: The Bluest Eye (Mass Market Paperback)
This story is about a young African-American girl, Pecola Breedlove, who has a very hard childhood. She is an outcast in school, her parents don't care for her, and she is all alone. She befriends two sisters by the name of Freida and Claudia, who with no questions take her in. Even the girls' mother treats her like her own. Pecola's homelife is another story. Her mother is in church and her father is a drunk, who likes to touch and feel on her. One day he takes it to far and rapes Pecola. With no love from her mother, she had to experience all of this all alone. The excellent writing of BLUEST EYE reminded me of great poetry, while the story and pacing was reminiscent of McCrae in his CHLDREN'S CORNER. This book is very interesting and informing to people who are totally oblivious to these kind of situations. It was very educational and I would recommend this book to anyone!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic - a work of art!,
By ophelia (The Bay, Ontario, CAN) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Bluest Eye (Audio Cassette)
I originally picked up this book by fluke. I was searching for a fiction novel to use for an English essay and decided to venture outside the suggested reading list - comprised of mostly 19th-20th century British litracists. Wow. Never before have a read such a masterfully created book! And to think this was her first. So well written - it conveys a message to all people of what beauty will do to us and the realities of these despicable societal norms. Well done - and worth the read - I finished it in a few sittings!
5.0 out of 5 stars
sad but beautiful stroy,
By Bridgete Moody (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Bluest Eye (Mass Market Paperback)
i read the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison and was both enchanted and devestaded with every paragraph of this sad story. I enjoyed this book very much. It is written beautifully with every character and every thing described to a tee. All her life, young Pecola Breedlove had wanted to be noticed. She saw other kids getting everything they've ever wanted yet she is just left behind is the dust of her family's failures and ugliness. She pines for the one thing that she thinks will help her stand out to the people who ridicule her every day as not just an ugly girl, but a person with real feelings. When Pecola's first experience at being noticed comes, it is by the wrong person with the wrong ideas. This person's drunken decisions soon turn Pecola's life upside down and she must learn to live life and face her downfalls, even when they hurt her so badly on the inside.
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