A few thoughts on Toni Morrison's work...

...A few days ago, September 1, 2008, Labor Day, I was sitting in Forest Hills, Queens, in a little park near the boulevard, not far from the Barnes & Noble, reading an advanced reader's edition of Toni Morrison's new novel A Mercy, a book about the early days of the United States, about freedom and slavery. I'm still in the early part of the book, so I cannot say anything conclusive. It did seem to me that Morrison is able to use language in ways that seem fresh, imaginative, even startling, but that some of the experimental structure--the stream of consciousness, the shifts in time--could be a bit...unwieldly...I'm looking forward to reading more...And, it's hard, especially now, not to think of Morrison's book Sula, always one of my favorites: and its story of a rebellious woman who returns to the small town in which she grew up. Sula has been too large and too strange a spirit for the town--and yet the town, and her family, are full of misfits...Toni Morrison has been consistently good at suggesting the cost of individuality, its appeal, its dangers, its limits, its pleasures, its punishments, its sacrifices...