Author | Toni Morrison |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | African-American literature |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf Inc |
Publication date | 2015 |
Media type | |
Pages | 192 |
ISBN | 0307740927 |
Preceded by | Home |
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God Help the Child is the 11th novel by American writer Toni Morrison. News of the book, as well as the title and opening line, were released in December 2014.[1] The novel's original title, preferred by Morrison herself, is The Wrath of Children.[2]
Toni Morrison Strangers Full Text
Every time I hear that Toni Morrison has published a new book I immediately make room/space to digest her words. Thus it was with The Origin of Others. At 118 pages and almost pocket size it is a short but mighty read. Morrison references her (and others) work to name the continued atrocities of racism and 'othering'.
Release[edit]
On February 9, 2015, The New Yorker published an excerpt from the work under the title 'Sweetness'.[3]
God Help the Child was first published by Alfred A. Knopf on April 30, 2015.[4]
Plot[edit]
A young girl with blue-black skin is neglected and abused by the light-skinned parents who are ashamed of her. Lula Ann Bridewell, who calls herself 'Bride', is blue-black beautiful, the kind of woman who turns heads wherever she goes. She is tall, elegant, and dresses only in white, the better to reflect her beauty.
But Bride did not always know her beauty or how to wear it. As a child, her mother Sweetness punished Bride for her dark skin, which ended her marriage. Sweetness’s husband Louis could not bring himself to love a child with skin as dark as Bride’s. 'We had three good years,' Sweetness tells us, 'but when she was born, he blamed me and treated Lula Ann like she was a stranger, more than that, an enemy.' Her mother, meanwhile, insisted her child call her Sweetness instead of anything maternal.
Bride grew up without love, tenderness, affection or apology. Sweetness makes it clear she saw herself as protecting her child from a world that would be even more inclined to punish Bride for the darkness of her skin. While Sweetness will apologize for her child’s dark skin, what she will not apologize for is how she sees the world and how she raises her child, saying: 'Some of you probably think it’s a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color – the lighter, the better – in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity?' This is what makes it so difficult to judge Sweetness’s choices. She should know better, but it is painfully clear her choices have been shaped by the realities of being black in a white world – a world where the lighter your skin, the higher you might climb.
Reception[edit]
Morrison and her publishers announced they were publishing the book in December 2014, causing Gawker to jokingly proclaim it the best novel of 2015 based on the synopsis and Morrison's previous work alone.[5] The novel was listed by publications including The Globe and Mail, Publishers Weekly and The New York Times as one of their most anticipated book releases of 2015.[6][7][8]
Upon release, the novel received mixed reviews. Artist Kara Walker writing for The New York Times praised Morrison for her 'loving attention to the textures and sounds of words.'[9]Ron Charles writing for The Washington Post compared the novel unfavorably to Morrison's debut novel The Bluest Eye (1970), criticizing the characters in her latest work as people with 'no interior life'.[10] Similarly the review by Razia Iqbal for The Independent complained that the characters were 'too didactic on the page: prototypes for an idea rather than real people.'[11]
References[edit]
- ^Flood, Allison (December 4, 2014). 'Toni Morrison to publish new novel on childhood trauma'. The Guardian. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Chen, Angela, 'Toni Morrison on her novels: 'I think goodness is more interesting', The Guardian, February 4, 2016.
- ^Morrison, Toni (February 9, 2015). 'Sweetness'. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Associated Press (December 2, 2014). 'Toni Morrison to release new novel, 'God Help the Child,' April 30'. Cleveland.com. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Parham, Jason (December 2, 2014). 'Toni Morrison Already Wrote the Best Book of 2015'. Gawker. Archived from the original on April 15, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Medley, Mark (January 2, 2015). 'The 50 most anticipated books of 2015 (the first half, anyway)'. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- ^Williams, John (January 2, 2015). 'New Books for the New Year'. The New York Times. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^'The Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2015'. Publishers Weekly. February 3, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Walker, Kara. 'Toni Morrison's 'God Help the Child''. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- ^Charles, Ron (April 14, 2015). 'Toni Morrison's familiar, flawed 'God Help the Child''. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^Iqbal, Razia (April 9, 2015). 'God Help The Child by Toni Morrison, book review: Pain and trauma live just under the skin'. The Independent. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=God_Help_the_Child&oldid=916950279'
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America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid?
Drawing on her Norton Lect...more
Drawing on her Norton Lect...more
Published September 18th 2017 by Harvard University Press (first published 2016)
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Rating details
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I wish I was 1/8 as smart as Toni Morrison’s thumb.
Nov 13, 2017Janani rated it it was amazing Shelves: north-american-authors, poc-author-artist-mc, essays, owned-books, social-justice, non-fiction, women-nb-gf-authors-protags, 2017-favourites
Honestly Toni Morrison could write her drink order on a napkin and I would love it.
Jul 01, 2018Jon(athan) Nakapalau rated it it was amazing Shelves: cultural-studies, favorites, sociology, history, politics, crime, psychology, philosophy
Toni Morrison has long been on my list of authors to read - but I never seem to have time to make for her. Now I will - this book was beyond any expectations I had. I can truly say that this slim volume has opened my eyes wide to so many issues in which we make other people 'Others' who are not like us - and hence do not deserve the same consideration we give to those we consider like 'Us'. This book should be right alongside The True Believer by Eric Hoffer - highest recommendation.
Sep 20, 2017Book Riot Community added it
DISCLAIMER: I have not read this book, which is the transcripts of a series of lectures Morrison gave about the themes that preoccupy her books. But I feel like it’s not getting any press anywhere, and how can that be, when people need to know that there’s a new ToMo book out in the world!!! And even better, with an introduction by Ta-Nehisi Coates! Consider yourself informed now.
Backlist bump: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new...more
Backlist bump: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new...more
Since this book only took me a day to read, I will likely go back and read it again. Contained in it's 111 pages is so much that cannot possibly be absorbed in one read through. From the introduction through to the end of the 6th lecture, there is so much that we still need to learn, that I still need to learn. To deconstruct the 'Other', we must know her and face her and realize that she is us. 'Race is the classification of a species, and we are the human race, period.' I highly recommend this...more
I honestly put this on my reading list because, I mean, it's Toni Morrison. But it gets 5 stars not just because it's Morrison, but because she is genius. This tiny book packs so much into just a few pages. For a lover of Morrison's body of literature this is a treat or an invitation for those new to Morrison. I have often been troubled by the way that 'celebrated' white writers have treated race and the Other in their work and Morrison articulated it in a way that I never could. I highly recomm...more
Sep 11, 2017Kathrin rated it really liked it
Separating the 'us' from the 'other' has been used to strengthen the 'us' in order to have a common enemy. It's a strategy to peg groups of people against each other. Toni Morrison's reviews this concept of 'othering' with examples in literary works of her own and of other authors. This collection of essays is very current in the light of the political climate in the USA, but also on a grander scale due to globalization and the refugee crisis in Europe.
While I liked this a lot, it felt like Morrison could have gone a little deeper. Maybe it's only meant to serve as an intro to her works, as opposed to fully-fleshed out analytical essays. Worth reading!
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3.5 stars.
The Origin of Others is a collection of lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 2016, that serves as a potent and relevant read. The lectures explore the theme of 'Othering,' that is the act of defining/creating the outsider. It's funny how this book feels simultaneous...more
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3.5 stars.
The Origin of Others is a collection of lectures, delivered at Harvard University in 2016, that serves as a potent and relevant read. The lectures explore the theme of 'Othering,' that is the act of defining/creating the outsider. It's funny how this book feels simultaneous...more
A great series of essays (lectures, really) concerning the Other (who that is and how they are classified) and how literature contextualizes the constructs of how we view them. There’s a lot of food for thought here and I loved that Morrison pulled examples from her novels and provided insight into the artistic decisions she made to address race, class, and “the Other”. In his introduction to the text, Ta-Nehisi Coates calls Morrison “one of the finest writers and thinkers this country has ever...more
Oct 06, 2017Sara rated it really liked it
I enjoyed Toni Morrison's explanations of how she incorporated various dynamics of race into different of her fictions. I appreciated how she was explaining how she used fiction to attempt to explore and understand the constructs of blackness and whiteness and otherness. Her discussions about how 'othering' others reduces people from individuals to non-human ciphers on which one can project what one wants for their own benefit reminds me of one of the themes explored in Infinite Jest.
Sep 09, 2017Joslyn Allen rated it really liked it Shelves: arc, black-americans, poc, essay, race, women-s-voices
Review published: https://chronicbibliophilia.wordpress...
'Language (saying, listening, reading) can encourage, even mandate, surrender, the breach of distances among us, whether they are continental or on the same pillow, whether they are distances of culture or the distinctions and indistinctions of age or gender, whether they are the consequences of social invention or biology.'
On this day - September 12, 2017 - the newest works of two heavyweights are being released to likely widely differin...more
'Language (saying, listening, reading) can encourage, even mandate, surrender, the breach of distances among us, whether they are continental or on the same pillow, whether they are distances of culture or the distinctions and indistinctions of age or gender, whether they are the consequences of social invention or biology.'
On this day - September 12, 2017 - the newest works of two heavyweights are being released to likely widely differin...more
I admit to believing Toni Morrison’s writing is perfect. Reading The Origin of Others only reinforces this belief. This book is an examination of prevalent themes in Morrison’s work such as color-ism, racism, and slavery especially in the novels Paradise, Beloved, and The Bluest Eye. Why is literature set up so that one group is seen as acceptable, wholly realized individuals and any person not belonging to that group seen as other or less than? We know literature most likely is rooted in realit...more
Interesting that she dives into her own fiction to elucidate some of the issues of race and power structures in America that her novels already seems to embody. I was hoping these lectures turned essays would ride closer to Playing in the Dark - as in a close reading of Hemingway and Faulkner and O'Connor. Some points I wish were further explored. Guess I just have to wait for her next novel!
Jan 04, 2018Never Without a Book™ rated it it was amazing
I end my crazy long day with Toni Morrison’s The Origin of Others. Short , sweet, and to the point. Toni Morrison walks you through literature, racism/race, whiteness, and the creation of the Other. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a powerful Foreword to the book in which he describes Toni as “one of the finest writers and thinkers this country has ever produced.” I would be inclined to agree.
Nov 20, 2017Read By RodKelly rated it it was amazing
It was too short!!! Toni Morrison is simply brilliant and of course I enjoyed this insightful little collection of the essays!
Jun 28, 2019Fran rated it really liked it
There is a lot to process while reading this short book. At moments the thoughts swirling through my head made it hard to breathe. I feel transformed as a result. Morrison not only touches on the 'romance of slavery' and highlights the more salient examples in literature but she calls for the reader to examine their thoughts and actions in relation to the present day climate around the world. Thoughtfully she explains the purpose of most of her books and cries out for society to unite under the...more
Race it the classification of a species and we are the human race, period. Then what is this other thing – the hostility, the social racism, the Othering? Pg. 15
I especially appreciated the first part of this book with its focus of “Being or Becoming the Stranger” which is really the starting point to think about racism. I suppose the idea of “the Other” it is a starting point for thinking about humans in all aspects of engagement with the world and could be applied to not just people, but anima...more
I especially appreciated the first part of this book with its focus of “Being or Becoming the Stranger” which is really the starting point to think about racism. I suppose the idea of “the Other” it is a starting point for thinking about humans in all aspects of engagement with the world and could be applied to not just people, but anima...more
3.5
I appreciate when my favorite writers do double duty as novelists, as well as critics. (See also, Chinua Achebe's adapted lectures and works of criticism. Morrison is indeed in conversation with him). For the most part, I found the lectures accessible and illuminating. For instance, I don't think I've noticed Morrison's refusal to explicitly racialize her characters, even though she has also made it quite clear that she is writing about Black people. I also appreciated that she references he...more
Nov 20, 2017Sherri rated it it was amazingI appreciate when my favorite writers do double duty as novelists, as well as critics. (See also, Chinua Achebe's adapted lectures and works of criticism. Morrison is indeed in conversation with him). For the most part, I found the lectures accessible and illuminating. For instance, I don't think I've noticed Morrison's refusal to explicitly racialize her characters, even though she has also made it quite clear that she is writing about Black people. I also appreciated that she references he...more
Shelves: race, african-american, adult-nonfiction
I remembering seeing Toni Morrison speak about 20 years ago. Her book Paradise had just come out, and she read sections from it. This book, a transcript of her 2016 lectures, reminds me of that experience. In many of these lectures, Morrison shares how Paradise and several other of her books illuminate the complexities of 'otherness' and also how they connect to our polarized political climate today. I really appreciated hearing her commentary about the books I've read (about half) and I'd like...more
I read this book pretty quickly and I enjoyed it. I don’t want my low ranking to scare anyone away. I’ve watched Morrison’s lectures on YouTube and I was pretty excited to read this one. Unfortunately it covered topics that I’ve already heard her speak/write about, so I felt disappointed and I definitely wanted to read more.
This is a fascinating book by Ms Toni Morrison! It’s gives the reason why race matters from 6 different perspectives and literary examples to support them. I love a book that gives me even more books to read! ?
Nov 11, 2017Beverly rated it it was amazing
thoughts coming shortly
Nov 19, 2017Havebooks Willread rated it really liked it
Toni Morrison is one of those people who thinks on such a higher plane than I do that I am wowed every time I read something of hers. I am certain I only grasped a small percentage of the gems she shares in this short collection of lectures and could benefit from a re-reading in a few years.
I especially enjoyed the way she examined the role race plays in literature, referencing and discussing works by people such as Hemingway, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Flannery O'Connor, Joseph Conrad, and her own...more
I especially enjoyed the way she examined the role race plays in literature, referencing and discussing works by people such as Hemingway, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Flannery O'Connor, Joseph Conrad, and her own...more
These six lectures take the reader through coded language designed by the powers that be to differentiate between who belongs in the group and who does not. Morrison pulls from different stages of American history, from antebellum history to the most active periods of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century to Jim Crow to our more recent history.
This exploration challenges a whitewashed view of not only history but a culture which is defined in the States more by color than by any re...more
This exploration challenges a whitewashed view of not only history but a culture which is defined in the States more by color than by any re...more
Aug 20, 2018Jenna rated it it was amazing
'The Origin of Others' is a short but powerful book. It is based on the series of Norton lectures that Toni Morrison delivered at Harvard in 2016. In it she discusses the human concept of Otherness. Where does this come from? What makes us fear and hate people we perceive as different from us? Why do we need to identify people as 'Others'? Drawing on examples from literature, both her own and other American writers, Ms. Morrison delves into the history of race and racism in America.
It is amazing...more
It is amazing...more
Feb 09, 2018Mridula rated it it was amazing
Every time I hear that Toni Morrison has published a new book I immediately make room/space to digest her words. Thus it was with The Origin of Others. At 118 pages and almost pocket size it is a short but mighty read. Morrison references her (and others) work to name the continued atrocities of racism and 'othering'. She names how social and dehumanizing constructions of 'race' continue to violate and oppress others.
Morrison's words are powerful and insightful. The last few pages focus on Cama...more
Morrison's words are powerful and insightful. The last few pages focus on Cama...more
I love Toni Morrison. I've seen her in person and she's amazing. Funny, sincere, heart breaking in many ways. But I didn't enjoy this book. It was very 'academic' (for lack of a better word) and while I learned a few points that were 'light bulb' moments for me regarding racism, the language was too complex for me. Which of course, makes me look and feel like an idiot--but it's an academic read for sure.
Toni Morrison Strangers Essay Pdf
A powerful and compelling transcribed lecture that examines othering in life and in literature, including the author's own works.
As wonderful and thoughtful as the nonfiction parts are, I most cherished a long except from _Beloved_ that lands near the end of the book. I've read _Beloved_ 3 times, and I'm glad to know it can still hit me right between the eyes.... [warning: it's very much a love it or hate it kind of book].
As wonderful and thoughtful as the nonfiction parts are, I most cherished a long except from _Beloved_ that lands near the end of the book. I've read _Beloved_ 3 times, and I'm glad to know it can still hit me right between the eyes.... [warning: it's very much a love it or hate it kind of book].
Oct 28, 2017Sarah Weathersby rated it really liked it
Ta-Nehesi Coates wrote the 16-page Foreword for this book. (A book of 114 pages that fit in the palm of my hand) He has remarkable insight into the challenges of black people dealing with racism.
But when it comes to Toni Morrison, what is an 'Other?' Ms. Morrison's text does not use the word 'race,' but characterizes 'Others,' by the ways in which they interact. They can be male or female, sometimes ghosts that walk. If you have read her book 'Beloved,' you know what 'Others' can be.
But when it comes to Toni Morrison, what is an 'Other?' Ms. Morrison's text does not use the word 'race,' but characterizes 'Others,' by the ways in which they interact. They can be male or female, sometimes ghosts that walk. If you have read her book 'Beloved,' you know what 'Others' can be.
Toni Morrison Strangers Summary
Jan 24, 2018Tammy rated it it was amazing
Toni Morrison will forever be my literary lodestar, and the insight into her mind as she confronts the idea of the Other is beyond special to me. This small collection of her 2016 Norton Lectures at Harvard is both timely and timeless. I fear we will never escape the consequences of slavery and the mental and moral magic act necessary to build a society on the backs of slaves, but at least we have Morrison (and Coates) to help us understand and try to do better.
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Toni Morrison Recitatif Full Text
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Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford) was an American author, editor, and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author 'who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.'
Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best k...more
Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best k...more
“The danger of sympathizing with the stranger is the possibility of becoming a stranger. To lose one’s racial-ized rank is to lose one’s own valued and enshrined difference.” — 1 likes
“Kalabalıklar içinde olmak isteyenler yalnızlık çekenlerdir hep.” — 0 likes
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