Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be. 4 1/2 stars. I have known for some time that I haven't read enough Toni Morrison. Before Sula, I had only read Beloved, which is also a great book. Reading this, I can't understand what took me so long to pick up another.Toni Morrison's writing is frank and uncompromising. She creates characters who burn with

Imagine writing a Black feminist novel that precedes the release of seminal Black feminist texts like Black Macho & the Myth of the Superwoman (1978), Aint I a Woman (1981), & Women, Race & Class (1981), among others. Toni Morrison did just that in 1973 with the release of her stellar second novel, Sula.Although this novel is called Sula, I wouldn't have been surprised if this novel was called the Bottom, which is the neighborhood in the fictional city of Medallion, Ohio that the story takes pla...

She had no center, no speck around which to grow. I can't start to explain this book or the feeling I get each time a new chapter (numbered according to years) gives me the anxious expectation similar to unwrapping a piece of chocolate from the box of assortments - you never know what you'll get. I can't accurately explain why this fluidity of language, this mixture of elegant vernacular, this exhilarating and encompassing flow of words forms trails down my spine and envelops me into a warm c

Loved every sentence of this re-read. I remember the first time I read Sula, I went in expecting an innocent and charming story about friendship from the small talk I had heard of the book. Nothing had prepared me for the complexity in the relationship between Sula and Nel, nothing had prepared me for the force that was Sula. I remember how my feelings towards Sula were, at first fascination, then shock, then almost-loathing, later understanding and loving, and finally missing her when all was d...

Hell ain't things lasting forever. Hell is change.It is time for change; slowly, painfully, but inexorably the spirit of the age sheds old rags and dons a new garb. The mutes are beginning to discover a voice that had been trapped in their windpipes; eyes see things that they had hitherto only watched; and hearts ache with a new throb of hope mixed with fear of which no one can tell which is greater. From this sense of foreboding out comes Sula.The excluded community confined up in the hills out...

"Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossoming things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. And the boys. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. Even their footsteps left a smell of smoke behind."- Toni Morrison, S...

“When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.''I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”I found Toni Morrison to be one of the most consistent authors I ever read. And, with her being one of my favourite writers of all time, this means I found all her books I read to this day extremely interesting and deeply touching. Not only she was consistent with her style, but also with her themes, characters, and general tone of her stories. Toni spoke abo...

This is the first time I’ve ever struggled to review a book I’ve read. Perhaps this relentless English rain is getting to me and addling my brain? Not that Sula was in any way bad. Just that I find my response to it is as mysterious as the book itself. I could say it’s been a while since I read Toni Morrison and my first response was excitement at the reminder of how stunningly she can write a sentence – “Grass stood blade by blade, shocked into separateness by an ice that held for days”. I coul...

Short and tinged with sadness, Sula charts the rise and fall of a friendship between two Black women living in a conservative Midwestern town. The story follows extroverted Sula and quiet Nel as the pair of girls grow up in radically different households but nevertheless form an intense bond with one another that they sustain over the years, only for it to collapse dramatically when Sula betrays Nel’s trust on a whim, leading to disaster for all. Meanwhile, the writer vividly contrasts images an...

The cover flap of Sula describes it as a novel about a friendship between two women. The friendship between Sula and Nel, (starting when they are young girls) is the center of this intense novel, but there are so many other intertwined layers. Morrison has created a portrait of several strong women who survive, with no help from men, in a Black Ohio neighborhood from 1919 to 1965. The men are mostly weak, philandering, drunk or mentally ill. Each chapter is an eloquent masterpiece, encapsulating...

all these new editions of morrison’s books have the same author photo on the back. and it’s been causing problems. check it out:despite that weird author hand placement thing, i've been kinda seriously obsessing over all these pictures of morrison's huge lion's head, piercing eyes, and silver dreads... and as i plow through her body of work i stare at her face for some external indication of all the furious demented & psychotic shit she flings at us. by all appearances she's a lovely woman. & i

Sula is very nearly a horror novel. We're not talking serial killers or unstoppable monstrosities, but raw human horror, the kind of horror of which I wish there was more. Toni Morrison might cringe to think anyone would consider her work in the same breath as horror fiction, but there are quite a few disturbing scenes, ones that I will not spoil or even allude to in this review. I want you to experience them for yourselves. Needless to say, I was shocked by the brutality, and pleasantly surpris...

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.In the hills above the valley town of Medallion, Ohio is a small neighborhood known as the Bottom where black residents form a tight-knit community. They are united in their understanding of discrimination and their experience with racial oppression. The Bottom is home to Nel Wright and Sula Peace, two girls whose friendship is solidified by the burden of a horrendous secret. Once grown, they remain guardian...

looking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the month, and i hope they will find new readers!thanks for this book.Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be.this one gets 4 "please don't hit me again, sula!" stars.and honestly, for more than half of it, it was

Toni Morrison’s novels - allusive, poetic, with plots that are carefully, artfully constructed - take work. You can’t read them casually. But they also offer up rich rewards to those with patience. Sula, her second novel (published in 1973), tells the story of two girls who grow up in the 1920s in a Black hillside community called the Bottom in the small town of Medallion, Ohio.Nel Wright, as her name implies, does everything right, including get married to a nice Black man and raise children; S...

Hmmm. Sula is a book that left me somewhat confused, frustrated, and underwhelmed. Nonetheless, I think it definitely has some merit to it, and provided great food for thought. So I have to settle with a non-committed 3 stars. When Morrison set out to write Sula in the 1970s, she knew what she wanted to explore: "What is friendship between women when unmediated by men? What choices are available to Black women outside their own society’s approval? What are the risks of individualism in a determi...

(Book 349 from 100 books) - Sula, Toni MorrisonSula is a 1973 novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, her second to be published after The Bluest Eye. Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio.تاریخ نخستین خوانش: هشتم ماه سپتامبر سال2012میلادیعنوان: سولا؛ نویسنده: تونی موریسون؛ مترجم:...

This is a wholly black novel. There isn’t a single white character developed here, not even the mention of a white name. No white character so much as utters a word. After reading so many novels, this seems just and equitable, even commensurate. Morrison has a beautiful idiosyncratic American voice unlike anyone else’s. She’s inimitable.

I wish I would've read this book for class or with a group because I felt like I was reading a story with a lot of points on a map that didn't quite connect for me. I loved the storyline of the two characters this rotated around, but the book also focused on the town at large, and those bits got lost on me. I found I wasn't quite sure what this was trying to do, and I get really easily frustrated with myself when that happens and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn't smart enough

This unerring writer has been the only one to get all 5 star reviews from me so far (for "Beloved," "The Bluest Eye," & this); all of her books have that same wondrous quality. What can be said about our most cherished writer that hasn't already been said? It is really hard to come up with a favorite novel ("Beloved" for its twinges of Goth? "Eye" for its incessant play with tenderness and cruelty? Or this, for its inspiring mix of grief from [the ultraheavy psychological effects of] "Eye" & the...