Customer Reviews

Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers)

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Missy Kubitschek's book does the impossible: she presents a thoughtful, educated, and appreciative reading of Morrison that makes these wonderful novels even more accessible than even good readers could imagine. For teachers who want to provide their students with a superb critical model, here it is. Look at the literate biographical first chapter. The "contexts" chapter moves smoothly and clearly through the critical whitewater of postmodernism, orality, and black identity. The chapters focusing on individual Morrison novels (even the daunting _Paradise_) illuminate Morrison's careful plot and characterization strategies. Best of all, each chapter showcases a particular critical strategy (formalist, historicist, archetypal, "Afro-modernist," etc.) as a lens through which to read the text. This is not only a brilliant teaching strategy, it's delightfully readable. I was surprised and moved all over again at the author's deft discussion of marigolds in _Bluest Eye_ and its subtle evocation of the Demeter/Persephone theme. It's the best discussion I've read of _Paradise_ and the chapter on _Sula_ brought that novel's power home to me years after my first reading of it. This is criticism at its very best.