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Title: Jazz (Plume Contemporary Fiction) by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0-452-26965-2 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: April, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.84 (50 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A lyrical, brooding, rumbling, passionate, epic jazz poem
Comment: As a child of artists and a classical and jazz musician, I had no idea or understanding as to why many of the churches- from the turn of the century to almost the present day in many areas- consistently referred to jazz as the devil's music, or dangerously secular, until now. Toni Morrison becomes the metaphor herself along with her invented characters as a story of love and passion, anger and rage, sorrow and grief, hunger and lonliness, acknowledgement and quiet, earhty epiphany unfolds as uncontrollably as the tides, with all the simple complexity of a jazz riff, and with as much freedom from judgement. The power of the emotions and events sweeping across the landscape of history and the landscape of the individual character's lives is frightening in its ability to overwhelm, and she brings it all out with such lyricism and painful joy. The novel can at times feel like a giant apotheosis or denoument, yet its slowly building climaxes are what make it more than readable; it makes it exciting and sublimely predictable and unpredictable simultameuosly. It almost makes one understand better why the story of Christ is called a "Passion"; passion, as exemplified in this novel, is not just a sexy or damaging thing, but also the way to come to know God.
There are small pars of the novel that are a bit too detailed in the rendering of lesser character's lives. Yet her rendering of the time period, the 20's, and the community is incredible. This is more, or different, than a novel. It is an epic poem- an epic jazz poem that has you hearing the music as it mildly, painfully, poignantly and triumphantly ends. Toni will not let you down with this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: Uhhh, well . . . .yea!
Comment: Once again I'm left speechless. I know that Jazz was an enjoyable read, I just can't seem to find the words to articulate the experience. At times the novel seemed to speak to all the human senses and at times I couldn't make sense of the novel at all. But I finished it. And I know that I have been affirmed, enlightened and enriched by it. Like all of Morrison's work that I've read to date, I will draw from these characters' experience in times when I need to renew myself. At that point the words to describe this novel will pour forth, and, as always with a Morrison novel, I'll smile and acknowledge that Toni Morrison is an extraordinary writer, who tell a story that you'll always remember.
Rating: 5
Summary: Rereadable
Comment: Toni Morrison's novel "Jazz" features one of the most initially inscrutable narrators in recent history. While the story itself is compelling (and is, according to the author herself, based on an actual Harlem murder circa the 1920's) and the language is liquid, poetic and wholly engrossing, it is, I think, the point of view from which this story is told that will make this particular Morrison work immortal. Is it God telling the tale, or is it, as Morrison herself has also suggested, the simple, oft-unheard inner voice of a universal "me" that can never achieve physical contact, being unembodied? Is it an omniscient neighbour listening in, putting the pieces of the tale together for himself/herself?
"Some people find other people's chaos very inspirational."--Toni Morrison
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Title: Tar Baby by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0452264790 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: September, 1987 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Paradise by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0452280397 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0452260116 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: September, 1987 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Sula by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0452283868 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 05 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Love by TONI MORRISON ISBN: 0375409440 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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