 | A WRITER'S WIT |  M. Huneven |
MY BOOK WORLD
Serpell, Namwali. On Morrison. London: Hogarth, 2026.
“Critics generally don’t associate black people with ideas.”
Thus author Toni Morrison quietly shouts from Serpell’s epigraph page. It seems a shocking realization that one of our most distinguished Nobel laureates would be treated in such a manner, but the essayist Serpell’s assertion rings true. Her first chapter is titled “On Difficulty,” in which she acquaints readers with how Morrison is treated by the (nameless) New York Times critic: “She will often put on an act. In conversation, she might suddenly ‘get down’ and be very chicken-and-ribs, sucking her teeth, poking a finger into her scalp and scratching—a strange, primitive gesture that makes her hairdo rock back and forth on her scalp like a wig” (4). Instead of discussing Morrison in the manner that this same critic might discuss a (white) male author of equal status, the critic appallingly pokes Morrison in the eye with a word like “primitive”; he might as well jab her in the stomach. On the other hand, given our country’s history for literary bigotry, one should not be surprised by this kind of behavior. And would the idea have occurred to the critic that she was—um—putting him on just a little, testing his racistometer just a tad?
I do admit I have found Morrison difficult to read. Difficult to follow at times. Difficult to decipher meaning. Difficult to piece together the novel, its structure, the author’s purpose. I may have understood the individual words, but the manner in which they were artfully threaded together stumped me. There may be a good reason for that. Morrison is whip smart, and she wishes to structure her work so that it IS complex. In part, such complexity is for her own intellectual amusement, and we’d better be willing to jump on board if we intend to get anything out of the book.
Much is expected of the reader. As my elementary teachers often said, “Let’s put on our thinking caps, shall we?” The vague writer is also hard to understand, but Morrison is challenging because she intends to make things difficult, expects the reader to work to get her; the vague writer is merely lazy. It’s almost as if Morrison doesn’t care whether we do get her or not. Perhaps that is the way of many notable writers. In order to create the works they have conceived, they must not give a damn about what people, even their editors, think. Serpell shares a revealing anecdote in which Oprah Winfrey phones Morrison and asks her if it’s true that people often have to re-read her work to understand it. Morrison responds with “‘That, my dear, is called reading’” (13). Yo! It’s what every Advanced Placement English pupil learns the first week of class: You must do a close reading if you expect to draw nigh to understanding a work of literature. And going after it more than once doesn’t hurt.
In this book, Serpell examines nine of Morrison’s works and devotes a chapter-long essay to each one: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Soloman, Tar Baby, “Recitatif,” Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and A Mercy. For the sake of brevity, I shall focus on the chapter titled “A Mercy and Other Reprisals,” in which Serpell focuses on how Morrison, throughout her career, reworks ideas from earlier novels. Morrison begins with the premise that failure is all right.
“. . . you have to make something out of a mistake, and if you do it well enough it will take you to another place where you never would have gone had you not made that error . . . you have to risk making that error” (270). According to Serpell, perhaps Morrison’s greatest “failure” is a script called Dreaming Emmett, a play in which she portrays the life of murder victim, Emmett Till. Morrison confesses: “‘I wrote it during a time when I could not get her (Beloved’s) voice—a long time, as it turned out’” (272). According to Serpell, “The dead boy who failed to speak from the grave allowed her [Morrison] to channel the dead girl who did, a testament to the creative force that, for Morrison, lies curled up in the darkness of that ultimate failure—of life itself” (272). Serpell’s assertion also reinforces the old saw (off which authors like Fitzgerald and Baldwin riff) that writers have one story to tell and continue to write it again and again:
“Bride herself is just as immature, the last of a series of Morrison’s shallow young women—Hagar, Jadine, Dorcas, Junior—who tend to be obsessed with appearances and oblivious to other people” (282).
What a declaration! But it does seem to reinforce the idea that one’s subconscious continues to hammer away at the same characters, the same ideas, the same hurts and joys, until the recipe is just right—at least in the mind of the author. Serpell’s observations and assertions concerning the remainder of Morrison’s novels are well considered, and when I choose to read and re-read Morrison, I believe I shall return to this pithy book to help me understand her work. And I do wish to understand.
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“Critics generally don’t associate black people with ideas.”
Thus author Toni Morrison quietly shouts from Serpell’s epigraph page. It seems a shocking realization that one of our most distinguished Nobel laureates would be treated in such a manner, but the essayist Serpell’s assertion rings true. Her first chapter is titled “On Difficulty,” in which she acquaints readers with how Morrison is treated by the (nameless) New York Times critic: “She will often put on an act. In conversation, she might suddenly ‘get down’ and be very chicken-and-ribs, sucking her teeth, poking a finger into her scalp and scratching—a strange, primitive gesture that makes her hairdo rock back and forth on her scalp like a wig” (4). Instead of discussing Morrison in the manner that this same critic might discuss a (white) male author of equal status, the critic appallingly pokes Morrison in the eye with a word like “primitive”; he might as well jab her in the stomach. On the other hand, given our country’s history for literary bigotry, one should not be surprised by this kind of behavior. And would the idea have occurred to the critic that she was—um—putting him on just a little, testing his racistometer just a tad?
I do admit I have found Morrison difficult to read. Difficult to follow at times. Difficult to decipher meaning. Difficult to piece together the novel, its structure, the author’s purpose. I may have understood the individual words, but the manner in which they were artfully threaded together stumped me. There may be a good reason for that. Morrison is whip smart, and she wishes to structure her work so that it IS complex. In part, such complexity is for her own intellectual amusement, and we’d better be willing to jump on board if we intend to get anything out of the book.
Much is expected of the reader. As my elementary teachers often said, “Let’s put on our thinking caps, shall we?” The vague writer is also hard to understand, but Morrison is challenging because she intends to make things difficult, expects the reader to work to get her; the vague writer is merely lazy. It’s almost as if Morrison doesn’t care whether we do get her or not. Perhaps that is the way of many notable writers. In order to create the works they have conceived, they must not give a damn about what people, even their editors, think. Serpell shares a revealing anecdote in which Oprah Winfrey phones Morrison and asks her if it’s true that people often have to re-read her work to understand it. Morrison responds with “‘That, my dear, is called reading’” (13). Yo! It’s what every Advanced Placement English pupil learns the first week of class: You must do a close reading if you expect to draw nigh to understanding a work of literature. And going after it more than once doesn’t hurt.
In this book, Serpell examines nine of Morrison’s works and devotes a chapter-long essay to each one: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Soloman, Tar Baby, “Recitatif,” Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and A Mercy. For the sake of brevity, I shall focus on the chapter titled “A Mercy and Other Reprisals,” in which Serpell focuses on how Morrison, throughout her career, reworks ideas from earlier novels. Morrison begins with the premise that failure is all right.
“. . . you have to make something out of a mistake, and if you do it well enough it will take you to another place where you never would have gone had you not made that error . . . you have to risk making that error” (270). According to Serpell, perhaps Morrison’s greatest “failure” is a script called Dreaming Emmett, a play in which she portrays the life of murder victim, Emmett Till. Morrison confesses: “‘I wrote it during a time when I could not get her (Beloved’s) voice—a long time, as it turned out’” (272). According to Serpell, “The dead boy who failed to speak from the grave allowed her [Morrison] to channel the dead girl who did, a testament to the creative force that, for Morrison, lies curled up in the darkness of that ultimate failure—of life itself” (272). Serpell’s assertion also reinforces the old saw (off which authors like Fitzgerald and Baldwin riff) that writers have one story to tell and continue to write it again and again:
“Bride herself is just as immature, the last of a series of Morrison’s shallow young women—Hagar, Jadine, Dorcas, Junior—who tend to be obsessed with appearances and oblivious to other people” (282).
What a declaration! But it does seem to reinforce the idea that one’s subconscious continues to hammer away at the same characters, the same ideas, the same hurts and joys, until the recipe is just right—at least in the mind of the author. Serpell’s observations and assertions concerning the remainder of Morrison’s novels are well considered, and when I choose to read and re-read Morrison, I believe I shall return to this pithy book to help me understand her work. And I do wish to understand.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Elsa Morante
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Ogden Nash
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Anne Cameron
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Mart Crowley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Abide with Me
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