On Toni Morrison

I was in college and had an unexpected lull between things I had, had, had to read. Though I’d always been a voracious reader, I did very little reading for pleasure in college. No time. But anyway, I’d acquired a few hours somehow. There was this novel—quite short—that I’d been interested in. I lay on my narrow dorm bed, picked it up and began: “Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty.” It went on in this Dick and Jane parody for a full paragraph. This paragraph was then repeated with no punctuation and then repeated without space breaks so that it became typographical gobbledegook: “Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisverypretty” “What the hell?” I thought. But I was hooked. And I stayed that way until I finished The Bluest Eye later that afternoon, having finished it in a fevered rush. When I was done, I gazed at the cover a while, rapt and sorrowful. As everyone knows, Toni Morrison has written many books since then, many of them more ambitious and complex. But for better or worse, none have ever blown me away quite like that one.