Mar 25 2008
At the Podium: Toni Morrison
Out of thousands of words in a novel, few paragraphs can stand on their own. It’s these paragraphs that everyone can relate to. It’s these paragraphs that take an old story and give it new life. It’s these paragraphs that separate authors from writers.
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye: “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”
Toni Morrison is a true artist. It’s her novels that inspire me to write. It’s her novels that weaken my knees. It’s her novels that stop me in my tracks for fear that I will fail miserably.
Where I would simply write:
The Catholic Irishman didn’t notice the little black girl.Toni Morrison writes in The Bluest Eye:
He does not see her. Because for him there is nothing to see. How can a 52 year old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the dough-eyed Virgin Mary, his sensibilities blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl?
Take a listen:
Click HERE for previous At the Podium posts
That is one of greatest joys (good writers) and greatest sorrows (I can never come close, so why allow a person the chance to read my crap, when they can read transcending works of art?)…how wonderful you heard her words. I got to hear Maya once, was afraid to approach her. Thank you for sharing.
She is divine. I’ve heard her speak (and Nikki Giovanni too) in person and they are such glorious writers. True craftswomen. Thanks for sharing.