Love by Toni Morrison
...From Bookreporter.com
In the magical mélange that informs Toni Morrison's creative talent, she transforms her stories into masterpieces. LOVE is her first novel in five years. It follows on the heels of PARADISE, her masterful story of free slaves, driven across the country until they were able to settle and build their own town. All was as it should be in their "paradise" until over time it became a painful form of hell. Like an alchemist she takes words, ideas, events and characters through an ingenious array of juxtapositions and transmogrifications, which transcend their mundane use by others. All of her work is rich in myth, metaphor, mirth, wisdom, humanity and biblical references.Love in its many heartfelt forms --- seductive, romantic, obsessive, misplaced, conjugal, courtly, honorable, devotional, intimate, affectionate, sentimental, abiding and faithful --- are catalogued in a concatenation of elegant structure. Love in its other forms --- unresolved, unrequited, betrayed, brokenhearted, faithless, critical, cold, misplaced, forbidden, jealous and degraded --- turns into hate. Love and hate emerge as mysterious "characters" imbued by their inherent inexplicability, and this adds depth to her newest provocative novel. LOVE is an exploration into the deepest regions of these most complicated of human emotions. Culture and society are rich in examples of how mere mortals have always attempted to understand the animal attraction between two people and, in doing so, to rationalize the essences of passion and romance. Ancient myths, poems, plays, novels, songs, folklore, fairy tales, film, advertising and popular culture in general all reflect peoples' preoccupation with love and its dizzying impact on the human psyche; both lover and beloved are equally bewildered by its bewitching spell. In a recent interview Morrison said, "I was interested in the way in which sexual love and other kinds of love lend themselves to betrayal. How do ordinary people end up ruining the thing they most want to protect? And obviously the heart of that is really the effort to love."
Third Girl from the Left
My mother believed in the power of movies and the people in them to change a life, to change her life.” So explains Tamara, daughter of Angela, granddaughter of Mildred—the three women whose lives are portrayed in stunning detail in Martha Southgate’s accomplished third novel, Third Girl From The Left.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1970 is not a place a smart black girl wants to linger in long. For Angela, twenty years old and beautiful, the stifling conformity is unbearable. She heads to L.A. just as blaxploitation movies are pouring money into the studio and lands a few bit parts before an unplanned pregnancy derails her plans for stardom.
For Mildred, movies have always been a blessed diversion in a life marked by the legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race riot. In the Dreamland Theater, she and Angela sat in rare harmony, enthralled by the images on the screen. But when Angela herself appears onscreen, dancing naked, it breaks Mildred’s proper heart, and a rift ensues. It falls to Tamara, a budding documentarian, to help mother and grandmother confront all that has been left unsaid in their lives.
We will be meeting on Saturday, May 30th to discuss this book. Please check your emails for the evite information.
Happy Reading!!
It's that time of the year again! Authors have invaded Los Angeles and converged on UCLA for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. If you love reading, love listening to your favorite authors wax poetic about books, or you're looking to break into the writing game, you WANT to attend this event.
Need more of an incentive to attend? This event is easy on the wallet (read: free!).
Check out the website for details about speakers, location, and parking.
Enjoy!
Our April book club selection is Guy Johnson's face-paced, prohibition-era novel, Standing at the Scratch Line.
Johnson, the son of acclaimed author Maya Angelou, weaves an exciting tale of a "cut-and-shoot" protagonist, LeRoi "King" Tremain. Tremain's quick temper, and even quicker hands, drives this epic tale of that spans the early 20th Century.
Ladies, bring your books and your thoughts about this page-turning novel. Can't wait to discuss this one!
Want to start the discussion early? Leave a Comment!
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By the way: April is also National Poetry Month. Check out Guy's momma, Maya Angelou, wax poetic about love.
