7 Secrets For Successful Living Book

You may have noticed my feed has been a bit Toni Morrison heavy this month but I'm currently researching my dissertation (topic as yet uncemented) so this was the next logical step. I've now read all of Toni Morrison's novels and am working on getting my hands on her non-fic ASAP but in the meantime I decided to read some critical approaches to her work.

Furman's book was being withdrawn from the university stock, so, like most of my academic books, it is an adopted/rescue book that I would otherwise not have been able to afford to own.

Unfortunately I kind of see why this book was being withdrawn from stock- first of all, and through no fault of Furman's, the book is now hopelessly outdated. Each chapter focuses on a work of Morrison's from The Bluest Eye up to Jazz and Playing in the Dark. Since then the canon has expanded to include Paradise, Love, A Mercy, Home, and God Help the Child which obviously change the way we see Morrison's fiction as an entirety. Being outdated isn't something an author can be responsible for, as my dissertation will probably be outdated pretty much immediately after completion if Morrison brings out a new novel at any point in the next few years.

I also unfortunately felt that the criticism of this book left something to be desired. There were a few superficial errors- such as saying Morrison went to Howard in '74 when she actually went in '49, the misuse of 'loose' for 'lose', 'shred' for 'shrewd', etc; but the real problem for me was in the triteness of some of the points, the generalisations and reductions that, for me at least, stand in total opposition to what Morrison's fiction tries to achieve.
Statements such as 'as culturally specific as Morrison's novels are, they are not restrictive. They appel to an eclectic audience, one that is not limited by race and gender' are difficult to argue with, I'm a white, Irish girl in 2016 reading Morrison's work for example- BUT it does seem to me to be a bit of a gloss or a glazing over the fact of Morrison's writing being by, and for, and about African-Americans living the African-American experience, and I think maybe it lets readers like me off the hook too easily when we should constantly be hyper-vigilant against colonising her narratives and making them about 'us' (as much as I do or don't believe in an 'us' and 'them' mentally being beside the point).

HOWEVER, I will say Furman has done a fantastic job in giving me a solid grounding and jumping off point for my own research. If I came away with more questions than answers then that can only be a good thing; I was constantly asking myself during the reading 'what does this mean and how does this change when the other novels are added to the mix? What is the bigger picture here? What's at stake? What matters about these arguments'- and the book gave me an intense feeling of heart-thumping, rapid page-flipping urgency that I was ON to something. What exactly I'm onto, or ON to, as it feels at the minute, I don't know yet, but I'm going to try and figure it out.

Please feel free to talk to me about all things Morrison, consider it aiding my research!
Booklove,
Grace