Author: Toni Morrison
Title: God Help the Child
Year of Publication: 2015
Language: English
My rating: 6.7 out of 10
Toni Morrison is one of the greatest American writers of all times. She is also a Nobel Prize winner who actually deserved the prize, which is something that becomes increasingly rate. God Help the Child is nowhere near the level of, say, the author’s brilliant Beloved. Still, we should not reject a good novel only because we know that its author is a genius who can produce books that are much more powerful.
In her most recent novel, Morrison brings to the readers several characters who were badly damaged as children. They go through life carrying the destruction inside them and spilling it over everything and everyone they touch.
Bride and Booker, the protagonists, differ from the rest of characters in that they at least manage to allow for the suspicion that the damage done to them as children might somehow be linked to their current dysfunction. This sets them so far apart in terms of their development as human beings from other characters that they turn into heroic, exceptional figures.
It seems a bit of a waste to use the literary genius of Morrison ‘ s caliber to bring home the point that child abuse and neglect have consequences but Morrison was always extremely American in her interests as a writer. She writes about what’s needed at the time when it’s needed.
The novel reads very easily, and could serve as a great introduction to Morrison ‘ s much more complex earlier fiction. If you are looking for ” Morrison for Dummies”, this is it. And I mean it in the best way possible.
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