Toni Morrison - The Bluest Eye: A Novel

Pros: Reading this in lieu of watching an X-rated film might provide meager mental stimulation.
Cons: Irreverent, cruel, violent, and graphic. Need I elaborate?

SEE LITERATURE COLLAPSE “Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She ...

Pros: Lovely prose, effective construction.
Cons: It's one of those "once a victim, always a victim" novels. Very depressing.

I’m embroiled in an ongoing quest to establish precisely how I feel about the Oprah Book Club. I read a few of her early picks and found myself dissatisfied. Then I picked up Drowning Ruth before it was Oprahfied, absolutely loved it, and...

Pros: At its best, the prose is poetic and powerful.
Cons: More often, the prose feels contrived, dishonest, and distant.

Seldom do I encounter a book that I dislike so intensely, that angers me, frustrates me, or torments me to such an extent that I obsess over it for days, then read it again just to see if I am judging too harshly, missing some important ingredient,...

Pros: Language, language, language
Cons: Plot is sometimes confusing and lost in the whirlwind of storytelling

My husband and I have great fun in art galleries, and only partly because our interests so rarely converge. I’ll yawn my way through the Impressionist section while he heaps scorn on the Eschers that so catch my fancy.

While there are those...

Pros: beautifully written, makes you think
Cons: sad, tragic, awful story; doesn't give a lot of info on everyone

The Bluest Eye was loaned to me by a good friend. I'd wanted to read it for some time - ever since Oprah had talked about it. The fact that my friend read it and told me how good it was, how it was something everyone could relate to, only...

Pros: Lyrical and mesmerizing
Cons: Disturbing at times

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.

That is the opening sentence of this haunting story....

Pros: Interesting character studies
Cons: Depressing, depressing, depressing. Did I mention depressing?

I wasn't going to read The Bluest Eye. Really I wasn't. I usually enjoy reading books that are Oprah Book Club picks, and I considered reading it when it was selected in April 2000. However, after reading a number of reviews of the book here on...

Pros: powerful story, deep message
Cons: I think Morrison missed something

I was a freshman in high school when my mother finally relented and we got cable television. I had already discovered Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, but that version of Eddie was nothing like his HBO concerts. With teenage glee (knowing that it...

Pros: Wow is this a moving tale.
Cons: Heart wrenching to the point of disgust. Cathartic?

Before reading this review it is important to have a small amount of background information on Sigmund Freud (the father of psychoanalysis), Karl Marx (communist manifesto), and Cleanth Brooks (the archetypal New Critic). Now you know.

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Pros: Excellent read
Cons: confusing

Edited 5/05/00 I recently emailed the oprah staff regarding my opinion on this book, low and behold I recieved a call 5/3 from one of their associate producers who wants me to go to an affiliate station here to do a screen test. Woohoo!!!!!! Wow! It...

Pros: Beautiful, aching prose. Challenging subject matter. Honest, three dimensional characters. And brave....extremely brave
Cons: Often confusing, but so is most of really good literature.

I was keen to read others' opinions on Toni Morrison's novel 'The Bluest Eye' before I reviewed myself, and I can't help being a little shocked....and disappointed. Admittedly, I haven't ploughed through all 56 existing reviews on this book, but the gist ...

Pros: Beautiful command of the language.
Cons: A little too intense with few mitigating circumstances.

It took me a long time to read this book. While I love to read, most of my reading is done when I retire. A book that is easy to read will keep me up all night. This one kept putting me to sleep every few pages. Finally I turned off the TV, put the...

Pros: Searingly honest and unflinching
Cons: Some difficulty with structure

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s marvelous first novel, was published in 1970. It was her attempt to show the actual process of African-Americans developing self-hatred: what Morrison calls “racial self-loathing.” She chose “a unique...

Pros: Beautiful Language
Cons: May seem a bit disjointed at times

Toni Morrison's premier novel opened the door to a new kind of discourse in the history of American Literature. With her obvious concern with language and her ability to play around with narrative styles, she engulfs her readers into a world of brutal...

Pros: Accessible, a classic that isn't bogged down with tough vocabulary
Cons: of course it's a sad read.

This is a slim book written in plain & accessible language; technically speaking, not a difficult read. Emotionally speaking, it's a hard journey. I read this within a couple months of Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'; the...