The Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

The Author

Toni Morrison was born in Lorrain, Ohio in 1931. She has spoken of the ´oral library´ she grew up with, being surrounded by storytellers, and she also read widely from Tolstoy to Austen. She got her BA (Bachelor of Arts) at Howard University in Washington and her MA (Master of Arts) from Cornell University in New York. She went on to teach English at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas and then returned to teach at Howard for six years.

In 1965 she became a Senior Editor at Random House and in 1970 published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, followed by Sula in 1973. Both were well reviewed but it was with her third novel, The Song of Solomon, that she found a national and international audience and both critical and public acclaim.

Morrison retired from Random House in 1984 but has continued to work as a visiting Professor at various universities, including Princeton. She went on to publish the novels Tar Baby, Jazz, Love and Paradise and, most recently, A Mercy and she has also published critical essays. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Morrison describes how her books begin with a question, and come out of her exploration of the themes that emerge. She has written extensively on the nature of love, or rather different kinds of love, on the issues of freedom, agency and self-sufficiency - both individual and societal. In style, her books range from the lyrical to the epic. Many of her books combine the classical themes of great literature with folklore and the conventions of oral storytelling. Critics have often highlighted both the formal beauty of her writing and her ear for dialogue.

The book

In many ways a classic bildungsroman (a novel of growing-up), Song of Solomon follows the fortunes of its protagonist from birth, through experience, to maturity and consciousness. Milkman grows up as the spoilt only son of estranged parents in an atmosphere of family secrets and misunderstandings. His search for his birthright, initially conceived of as material treasure, becomes a quest for personal identity and an understanding of where he comes from, who he is and where he is going. His journey is both physical and spiritual as he moves back in space and time to his personal and collective roots and recognizes himself as belonging to an extended family, fragmented by slavery and its consequences.

The novel is both realistic and magical, making reference to real historical events such as the gang murder of Emmet Till but also exploring the mysteries of human interaction and individual destiny.

While the novel is written from the point of view of the central character, albeit in the third person, Morrison moves seamlessly between points of view, giving us an insight into, and compassion for, every character.

Questions to think about while reading

The title makes reference to the great biblical love poem and to the refrain which haunts the book itself. Why did the writer title the book as she did?

How important are the characters´ names (and naming itself) in the book? To what extent do the naming of people, things and situations shape their fate? Can we be free of what other people call us and how they characterize us in terms of our ethnicity, gender or nationality?

How does the book explore what it is to be a man or a woman? Is Milkman´s quest that of learning what it means to be a black man in 20^th Century America? Or of what it means to be a human being, anywhere and at any time?

Can you imagine what kind of book would have resulted if Morrison had chosen one of the other characters as her protagonist?