The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Book Review

I saw this book being reviewed by Simon Savidge on his YouTube channel and it sounded intriguing so I got myself a copy to read at some point which turned out to be later that day as I couldn’t wait. Any book that opens with the line “Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow”  Has got to have something about it that’s dark and mysterious and just plain wrong. I had no concept of what the book was about other than what Simon said and that wasn’t too much to avoid giving away any spoilers but he did read that first opening page and it sounded totally captivating.

Click me to go to my Review

Synopsis

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, AUTHOR OF QUEENIE

Pecola Breedlove longs for blond hair and blue eyes, so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the marigolds in her garden will not bloom, and her wish will not come true. Pecola’s life is about to change in other painful and devastating ways.

A powerful interrogation of what it means to conform to an idea of beauty, The Bluest Eye asks vital questions about race, class and gender and remains one of Toni Morrison’s most unforgettable works.

About The Author

Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She is the author of several novels, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved (made into a major film), and Love. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She is the Robert F. Goheen Professor at Princeton University.

My Review

Toni Morrison’s debut novel, The Bluest Eye, is widely acclaimed for its lyrical language and thought-provoking themes. It introduces us to the sorrowful story of Pecola Breedlove: an 11-year-old African American girl living in Lorain Ohio who dreams that her eyes will turn blue so she can be as attractive and cherished as other fair-haired children around America. During autumn 1941, when American had just joined WWII – a season where even marigolds couldn’t manage to blossom – dreadful life events unfold leading ominously to heart-wrenching consequences. An emotional rollercoaster which captures both fear and isolation within a child’s desires alongside all their tragic fulfilment!

I have never read or heard of Toni Morrison before, but The Bluest Eye was one of the most powerful books I have ever read. The writing is superb and a unique style where the whole book is about Pecola and yet not much from her perspective but from those around her. It provides an interesting and devastating look at what this young girl wants and what people think she wants. She dreams of those blue eyes to fit in with the others, to be treated with love and respect and to be accepted, although she fails to realise that with her skin colour, they would look odd rather than beautiful.

This is harrowing in many parts and devastatingly sad but also an eye-opening look at life as a young black girl or family in the 1940s particularly when juxtaposed with the white families around them with their nice housing, clothes, looks and servants.

Toni Morrison does a brilliant job of demonstrating the ugliness the poor girl, Pecola, feels when she is so young that she blames mostly on her inherited colour and genes, knowing she doesn’t look the same as the white people with their good fortune by comparison. The world hasn’t changed that much, they are still the servants, hidden away rather than a main part of society. She also shows the vulnerability of children so well, the consequences of parents not explaining things to them well enough so that they are forced to come to their own conclusions, often incorrectly, for example when Pecola is sick, and her mother is angry at the sickness but she thinks she is angry at her.

While this is a difficult read in terms of the contents, which include child molestation, rape, racism and incest, it’s an important read and beautifully written.

Rated