I often feel a déjà vu sense of familiarity while I'm reading Beloved. I can never pin point why some of the moments Morrison creates feel like I have also lived them. She is a magician.
I especially felt this feeling on pages 87 and 88 where Denver and Beloved are in the room with the orange slices on the blanket and Denver is telling Beloved her mother's story. Morrison plays with innocent feelings of temperature and taste-"warm satisfaction", "pleasure of sugar", "light and icy", "light as a snowflake"-to create a warm familiar feeling of childhood and friendship (a crush?).
I found it incredibly interesting to transition from this fuzzy, innocent, sheltered moment to a story of raw wounds, probable death and assault. The vivid telling of the story almost makes you forget who's telling it and Morrison is masterful with her seamless point of view changes.
In the end of the chapter, after Denver is born, Morrison gifts us the image of the "twenty inch of[umbilical] cord" hanging "from [her] belly and trembling in the cooling evening air."(99) I loved this line and could somehow perfectly picture how that trembling would look. This was an awesome image, especially in contrast to how the chapter began.
I felt the same way about pages 87 and 88. It was a great image.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree I talk about similar things in my post. All the vivid details make the book feel so realistic and familiar. Super powerful to have a piece of writing that is both engages you with the book and with life outside the book.
ReplyDeleteYeah I totally agree, it creates a super interesting image in my head, and it is a COMPLETE change from the beginning of the chapter! The diction kind of puts the book to life, and makes the imagery jump out of the book.
ReplyDeleteI was very curious to see what such an interesting blog title could lead to. I am in complete agreement with you about Morrison's writing techniques that make the reader feel connected and evoke reminiscent feelings. At first I thought you were being sarcastic when you said that she gifted us with the line about the umbilical chord, because from my point of view that was a tad bit gross.
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