Even as an adult I found the mistreatment of humans to be chilling and difficult to get through. That and the mention of bestiality and a couple of scenes with sexual abuse were shocking. However, I feel the reason I was so uncomfortable with these scenes as they played out in the book was that these stories were taken from a very real history of slavery in the United States. Today it’s unimaginable, but it was a reality for many people only 150 years ago in this country.

Toni Morrison got the idea for writing Beloved when she came across the true story of an escaped slave who killed her own daughter to keep her from being taken back into slavery. She wrote briefly about the woman at first, but was then encouraged to build upon that story. And from that came Beloved.

Beloved is the tale of Sethe, an escaped slave who is haunted by the memory of her baby girl. Sethe escaped while pregnant with her fourth child, and shortly after birth her owner shows up with the Sheriff to take her back. But before he is able to lay a hand on her, she gathers her four children in the barn and attempts to kill them all in an effort to save them from a life of slavery. She is only successful in killing her third child, whose tombstone reads nothing more than “Beloved” because Sethe couldn’t afford to have a real inscription etched into the rock.

As the book proceeds we are taken back through time to see what led Sethe to escape. We also meet up with others from her past and we watch as her youngest daughter, the one she birthed during her escape to freedom, grow up in a world where freedom no longer exists but continues to haunt those who lived through it and the Civil War. And we also see the incarnation of Beloved come back to haunt Sethe.

This book is one I find fairly difficult to explain well. I thought it was beautifully written and it was an interesting story that kept my attention throughout. I particularly liked the time period because it shows the transition caused by the Civil War. It was a time where people saw a lot of change and for many it must have been a difficult thing to deal with. I think this book conveyed that predicament well. I also appreciated Morrison’s decision to show that not all white people were cruel toward slaves during that time period.

I thought I’d share one of my favorite passages from the book as well, just so you can get a taste of the writing. This excerpt is found on page 89, just after the birth of Sethe’s fourth child, Denver, which she birthed during her escape to freedom:

Spores of bluefren growing in the hollows along the riverbank float toward the water in silver-blue lines hard to see unless you are in or near them, lying right at the river’s edge when the sunshots are low and drained. Often they are mistook for insects – but they are seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future. And for a moment it is easy to believe each one has one – will become all of what is contained in the spore: will live out its days as planned. This moment of certainty lasts no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself.

This book can be difficult to understand at times. In fact, many people at the book club meeting said they didn’t finish it because they found it too confusing. I, too, found it confusing at first, but if you persevere Morrison explains things more fully. And it’s definitely worth the read.

As I began reading this book I fully understood why some people had asked that this book be banned. After all, it kind of reads like a how-to book on pedophilia. But when the subject came up at book club, I found myself defending the book, saying that if someone read this book and thought it condoned their own behavior or it “inspired” them to do something of this sort, well they were likely to have done it anyway. I said this because I saw the reactions of the others who had read this book and all of us, whether we thought the writing was beautiful or the story interesting, were disgusted with the main character and judged him accordingly. This book isn’t going to turn anybody into a pedophile who doesn’t already entertain such thoughts.

The book itself is beautifully written. In the first part when Humbert Humbert is falling in love with Lolita, I was quite taken by his descriptions of her … until I remembered that he was talking about a 12-year-old girl. I also really enjoyed the French phrases sprinkled throughout the book. I felt like each one was a little French quiz for me, especially because he offers no translation like many books do today. His descriptions of living in France and going to the Mediterranean made me think of my own time there, which is always a fun thing.

Aside from all of that though the book is really interesting and it raises a lot of questions about love and family. It also shows the inner workings (albeit fictional) of a truly deranged person and how one is able to justify what he is doing despite all evidence that it is wrong. I thought it was quite interesting that Humbert Humbert often befriended other sexual deviants.

There are many historical and literary references throughout this book, along with the aforementioned untranslated French phrases (some Latin and German as well), so I highly recommend getting the annotated version. I didn’t know there was an annotated version until I went to the book club meeting and now I feel like I need to read it all over again so I can get the inside jokes that some of the others understood better than I did.

In Cold Blood is about two criminals who think they’ve found a good gig when one of their inmates tells them about a farm job he used to have. The inmate tells them that the farmer spends $10,000 a week to run his business and the two assume the farmer, Mr. Clutter, keeps all that cash in a safe on his property. Once the two are released from jail, they drive 300 miles to the Clutter farm with the intentions of robbing the place and leaving no witnesses. When they get there they learn what anyone from the Clutter’s town knows about the family: Mr. Clutter never has any cash on him. The locals joke that he’d write you a check for $1.50 because he never carries that much cash on him. Unfortunately, the lack of cash doesn’t save the family and all 4 family members are shot in the head. It was a crime that rocked the nation in 1959 because it happened in such a small town, where people were presumably more safe than in big cities.

Capote interviews everyone in the town and the two killers after they’ve been caught and he paints a vivid picture of the town and these criminals. You almost begin to feel sorry for the two criminals who had such hard lives up to this point. But once they describe the murder to detectives (more than halfway through the book), you can’t help but be horrified by them. Up until this point you only had a vague idea of what happened based on what police thought. Hearing it straight from the murderers was difficult because they didn’t seem to understand that they’d done anything wrong. One of them, Perry Smith, even says, “I thought he was a very nice, gentle man. I thought so right up until I slit his throat.”

I read this book at home alone at night and ended up not being able to sleep because it gave me the creepies. It was really well written and I recommend it, but if you’re a scaredy cat like me, make sure someone is home with you so you can discuss it and get out all those worries.

This book was also reviewed by:
Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot
A bookworm’s reviews
The Book Tiger

For the blog portion of this site I plan to write reviews of the banned books I read, as well as to link to reviews done by others. In addition, I’d like to start a discussion about banned books and keep you informed about any new books added to the ever-growing list. In a nation that prides itself on free speech, it shocks me to see so many books being added to lists of literature not allowed in some of our public schools. I hope this will become a place where people feel free to talk about issues and give reasons they agree or disagree with banning the books featured here.

Also, I hope to see many of you participate in this challenge. As the date grows closer I will include information on how you can sign up and what kinds of prizes will be given out at the end of the challenge.

OK then, that’s all for today. Reviews will follow.