Song of Solomon

"I've now read this book three times."

"Readers don’t realise how speculative Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon actually is. While set in the slavery days of the Deep South, this novel, like Morrison’s other novels, holds Black cultural focus. The essential aspect of its cast is their being Black, their battles with or acceptances of being Black, and the surreality of the text pinnacles at the end when protagonist Milkman flies, literally, speculatively, futuristically. So I suppose I should take from this: cutting-edge technology is not necessary to reflect the Afrofuturist mode? I would say it is limiting and myopic to confine Afrofuturism with “cutting-edge” technology. Afrofuturism, as I wrote in Afro-Centered Futurisms in our Speculative Fiction , is to reimagine Africa in all its diversity, to expand and extrapolate it through literature, music, the visual arts, religion, even philosophy, anyhow that haunts imagination and transmutes a craving for revolution."

"The title of Song of Solomon comes from the Bible, a sacred text that suggests it is a story that appears larger than life. Like the myth and folklore that inform it about enslaved Africans who could fly, the narrative continuously takes twists and turns that challenge the reader’s expectations. The novel begins with her practice of starting in media res , which she does on purpose to unsettle the reader. She doesn’t want her reader to begin with so much comfort that she can’t teach them anything, so she begins with a scene of people looking up in the sky. Then, she weaves the town history and how people are related to that history into the narrative. The novel also gives the history of the community and its own way of reading the racist history it has both tolerated and coped with for years. Before the reader gets to the details of who Solomon or Milkman (the protagonist) is, Morrison begins by introducing a collective sensibility that will be in contradistinction to the individualistic perspective that Milkman brings to his life. Like the Greek and Roman myths, the structure is that of a bildungsroman , which is a narrative about a hero who goes on a major life journey to discover who he is. Morrison deals with myth and folklore throughout the book, along with how folklore and the Black oral tradition are often embedded within one’s identity, naming rituals, and the cultural ways of coming to a sense of self. “At every turn, she countered alienation with the value of belonging and community” More specifically, at the center of the novel is a Black version of the Odysseus story featuring Milkman Dead, a character who has grown up as part of the privileged Black middle class and undertakes a journey to the South—away from the comfort of his self-satisfied self-absorption, to an understanding of his ancestors, his family history, and the larger Black community of which he is a part. Milkman gradually disavows his privileged status as the son of the community’s wealthy Black landlord. Morrison weaves in one narrative after another to reveal who the Dead family is and how they came to be. For example, the name Dead emerged out of the history of enslavement and how the humanity of Black people was mistreated and disregarded. The name originated from an encounter between Milkman’s grandfather and a drunken Union soldier who wrote his place of birth where his first name should have been, and the status of his father—that is, dead—where his last name should have been."

"Books I love talking about with anyone — Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon.""

"Some of the books that have cracked me open include "Beloved" and "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison."

"I read "Song of Solomon" and "Invisible Man" in succession when I was a high school junior. Both of those novels opened me up to the possibilities of what a novel might do."

"Song of Solomon is as brilliant and beautiful today as it was when first published in 1977."

"She's a fallible guru who is guided by love. She is the cornerstone the builders rejected, strange and beautiful."

"If I'm struggling with a piece of science writing, I'm just as likely to reread Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon""

"A sense of sweep... as it is in "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison, or "My Name Is Red," by Orhan Pamuk."

"Milkman Dead from Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon." I tucked that book beneath my arm as my pregnant ex-wife and I were evicted on Christmas Day in 1977 in Detroit."

"I've now read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon three times."

"That book helped me love reading, because before then, reading was kind of like something you did when you had to do it. But that book, it like grabbed me and pulled me and I just kept reading and kept reading."