Toni Morrison leaves the stage

It is frankly a bit embarrassing to get around to this post basically a full month after Toni Morrison's passing.  I could say that I have been reflecting on her place in American literature (and trying to come up with something profound to say), though that's not really true.  I will say that even from an early age (18 or 19) I was aware of who she was and probably had read The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon.  I did read very widely in those days, and I probably would have come across her anyway, but I know that her work was discussed in one of my American literature classes at University of Michigan.

I actually saw her at University of Michigan giving the Tanner Lectures, which were eventually published in the Michigan Quarterly Review. (This link gives a significant portion of the lecture, though then you have to go page by page through the archive for the rest.)  The themes are fairly similar to the Massey Lectures that were published as Playing in the Dark. I remember this was a three part lecture, with breaks built in for people to escape to class (or dinner).  I think I ended up losing out on lunch and dinner to stick it out for the whole thing.  The following day there was a response from Eric Foner and Amiri Baraka! (also in the MQR issue).  That was pretty interesting.  I can't recall if Ms. Morrison was in the audience or on the panel for this follow-up, though it is likely that she was still in Ann Arbor and probably turned up.

I have to be honest that I kind of run hot and cold with her novels and pretty much stopped reading them around Jazz (more due to running short of time than anything else).  I recognize the importance of The Bluest Eye but don't love it.  Beloved left me fairly cold, and I never was a fan of the novel, even though I recognized it was "important."  My favorites among her novels are Song of Solomon and Tar Baby. 

I think this year I will commit to rereading The Bluest Eye (it is quite short, and I have it in the Norton's Anthology of Literature by Women) and Song of Solomon.  However, someone has convinced me to give Sula a second look, and Tar Baby is also fairly short, so maybe I will reread everything (though I'll certainly bail on Beloved if I don't like it any more on the second go-around).  I'll then restart with Jazz and try to read one or two of her later novels each year until I get through them all.

To help me keep track of progress, here is a list of her novels:

R  The Bluest Eye (1970)
R  Sula (1973)
R  Song of Solomon (1977)
R  Tar Baby (1981)
R  Beloved (1987)
O  Jazz (1992)
   Paradise (1997)
O  Love (2003)
.  A Mercy (2008)
R  Home (2012)
.  God Help the Child (2015)