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Lisa of Troy's Reviews > The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye
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Toni Morrison stole my thunder! She says it best about The Bluest Eye.
“If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.”
Set in Loraine, Ohio in 1941, young girls, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer welcome an 11-year-old girl, Pecola Breedlove into their home. Pecola is temporarily sheltering with the MacTeer family while her father is in jail.
“Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes.”
“He laughed the grown-up getting-ready-to-lie laugh.”
The last half of the book presents the backstory of Pauline Williams (Mrs. Breedlove), Cholly Breedlove, and Mr. Henry.
Who-eee! Sumptuous and majestic, Toni Morrison’s prose is like running your hand through stardust. Her prose is astoundingly sophisticated, whipped smooth—a phenomenon of a debut novel.
The first half of the book is an electric triumph, a richly insightful tale of a cruel and broken world balanced with humor and the excitement of anticipation and hope.
Unfortunately, the spell was broken in the last half of the book. While the bits of stardust still lingered, the enchantment was waning.
To step back for just a moment, The Bluest Eye starts off with Claudia MacTeer’s first person narrative and shifts into a third person omniscient voice. Ugh! This did not work well.
How does an author decide which parts of a story to include? To a certain extent, it boils down to personal choice.
My personal philosophy closely alights with Philip Pullman, and he wrote a really great article that fits nicely here. In the essay, “The Path Through the Wood,” Pullman likens writing to a path through the woods. The danger is that authors might be tempted to get lost in world building (“the forest”). The idea is that when authors leave the path (stop moving the plot forward), readers lose interest.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison wants to build up her world by focusing on multiple characters. Because she casts the net wide, she can’t go deep, and the stories would have otherwise been stronger.
At the same time, it is admirable that Morrison attempts to show the complexities of her characters. Cholly Breedlove isn’t merely a “baddie”; he is a nuanced character—a victim of trauma suffering abandonment and alienation.
In another essay by Pullman, “The Writing of Stories”, he talks about where the author puts the camera, whose voice do we hear. Morrison’s indecision in selecting a narrative voice is amateurish and confusing.
All that to say….
You don’t have to take my word for it!
Here is Toni Morrison:
My solution—break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader—seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now. Besides, it didn’t work; many readers remain touched but not moved.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text - $11.75 from Amazon
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
“If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.”
Set in Loraine, Ohio in 1941, young girls, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer welcome an 11-year-old girl, Pecola Breedlove into their home. Pecola is temporarily sheltering with the MacTeer family while her father is in jail.
“Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes.”
“He laughed the grown-up getting-ready-to-lie laugh.”
The last half of the book presents the backstory of Pauline Williams (Mrs. Breedlove), Cholly Breedlove, and Mr. Henry.
Who-eee! Sumptuous and majestic, Toni Morrison’s prose is like running your hand through stardust. Her prose is astoundingly sophisticated, whipped smooth—a phenomenon of a debut novel.
The first half of the book is an electric triumph, a richly insightful tale of a cruel and broken world balanced with humor and the excitement of anticipation and hope.
Unfortunately, the spell was broken in the last half of the book. While the bits of stardust still lingered, the enchantment was waning.
To step back for just a moment, The Bluest Eye starts off with Claudia MacTeer’s first person narrative and shifts into a third person omniscient voice. Ugh! This did not work well.
How does an author decide which parts of a story to include? To a certain extent, it boils down to personal choice.
My personal philosophy closely alights with Philip Pullman, and he wrote a really great article that fits nicely here. In the essay, “The Path Through the Wood,” Pullman likens writing to a path through the woods. The danger is that authors might be tempted to get lost in world building (“the forest”). The idea is that when authors leave the path (stop moving the plot forward), readers lose interest.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison wants to build up her world by focusing on multiple characters. Because she casts the net wide, she can’t go deep, and the stories would have otherwise been stronger.
At the same time, it is admirable that Morrison attempts to show the complexities of her characters. Cholly Breedlove isn’t merely a “baddie”; he is a nuanced character—a victim of trauma suffering abandonment and alienation.
In another essay by Pullman, “The Writing of Stories”, he talks about where the author puts the camera, whose voice do we hear. Morrison’s indecision in selecting a narrative voice is amateurish and confusing.
All that to say….
You don’t have to take my word for it!
Here is Toni Morrison:
My solution—break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader—seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now. Besides, it didn’t work; many readers remain touched but not moved.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text - $11.75 from Amazon
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
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The Bluest Eye.
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Reading Progress
March 6, 2021
– Shelved
May 6, 2024
–
Started Reading
May 13, 2024
–
Finished Reading
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Thank you for helping me put into words what i was feeling. I also felt myself growing distant from each of the characters as the story progressed, that by the end of the novel all my emotions had dwindled. This combined with the over-wordiness made for an experience that felt more or less chaotic for me.
Did I miss something? The last half of the book didn’t give a backstory for Mr. Henry. It was for Soaphead Church.
I think this is an excellent review. We can all feel the "wow" factor of stardust, at times, when we read, but there is something called "objectivity," too, and sometimes it is necessary to "go there." I think Ms. Morrison may be the greatest female writer that the U.S. has ever produced, but she wrestled with her demons, as an author, as we all do. I think this is a startling, imperfect work, and I think you did a fantastic job of giving it the attention it deserves.