I'll admit the first thing I thought when I read the first page was, "What?" That confusion lasted until class and we had a chance to talk about what happened and clarified who the characters were. While the readings have started making more and more sense to me as we go on there are still some things that trip me up or have tripped me up. So I thought I'd write about what I found to be most confusing about Beloved.
The part that was the most confusing was definitely the beginning. I think the main reason that it was so confusing is that the book expects the reader to instantly understand the rules of the world within the book. That would be okay if the rules were the same as the real world. But they're not. So you're entered into a world where it is accepted that ghosts are a real thing. Reading a ghost story that you don't know is a ghost story is confusing because you look for a logical explanation for things even if there isn't one. Combine that sense of not knowing what's going on with the confusing names Toni Morrison uses and that makes for a really confusing first chapter.
After learning that ghosts were real within the context of the novel everything started to make more sense. However, there are still some things that confuse me while I'm reading. The two things that still get me every now and then are whose perspective the book is being told from and what time is the story taking place. The way Morrison writes it, the transition between both the points of view and between the past and the present is hard to notice. This has caused me to have to reread on multiple occasions because I wasn't sure who was talking or when what was going on was going on. A perfect example of this is when Sethe is heading to the place where Baby Suggs used to preach and it keeps switching back and forth between the past and the present.
Yeah I agree, I've had to reread a lot of passages because just a moment of ignorance completely throws you off. I guess that does engage you as a reader though, and also highlights the messy, nonlinear nature of the human experience.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed this book because it makes you want to remember everything. You'll read something and then you'll understand something that confused you earlier in the book. It's a great way to engage the reader in the book. The book also keeps the reader on their toes when reading because you never know when a fact might be important in the future.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I totally agree with you, reading the first chapters was pretty disorienting, especially with all the weird names – Baby Suggs but also “the baby”, also Halle (which in my brain was a female name), and Schoolteacher. This book would probably be an interesting re-read, since getting the plot won’t be the focus, and you could more clearly see all the intricate foreshadowing and hinting Morrison does.
ReplyDeleteYeah I was just completely baffled by the first, I'd say even couple of, chapters. The way she personifies 124 definitely confused me for a solid amount of time, but once we talked about in class and reread some of the passages everything made so much more sense. But I actually really like Morrison's style of writing, almost like the book is a puzzle that we need to figure out. Like Solomia said, rereading this will be super interesting.
ReplyDeleteI actually did a reading on that first day and I was completely lost. I might have still been reeling from Their Eyes Were Watching God, but I had almost no clue who the characters were. I 100% thought that Baby Suggs and the ghost baby were one and the same, and that Denver was only 10 years old or something. I was really lost, but after we got to class like you said, everything began to fit cleanly into place and added depth and layers to this story.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the book is confusing and I can't help that think Morrison did that on purpose. Once my mom heard we were reading this book in class she kept telling me how it was one of her favorites and that don't worry, it's confusing at the beginning, but at the end everything makes sense. Hopefully that's true.
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