5 Stars
While my first attempt at reviewing this title, a
task I’m not sure anyone can do justice to, this is not my first reading of the
novel. That was many moons ago back in graduate school. Fast forward two decades
later and I’m now teaching it to my oldest. I’ve been looking forward to days
like this—introducing a deeply layered, complex, literary juicy piece and
letting those critical thinking, analytical wheels in the mind begin to turn.
If you’ve also never read this, then hopefully I’ll inspire more than one.
In full honesty, I didn’t fall in love with it on my
first read. I was sure then that Song of
Solomon was my favorite by Morrison, and Paradise hadn’t replaced it. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s different
from her previous novels, and doesn’t necessarily wow you at first glance. It
takes some digging to dust off murky surface impressions before the luster emerges.
So that said, I believe this is one of those books that you have to read more
than once. Notice I didn’t say simply twice.
This might be one of those limitless reads because
you’ll continue to pick up more pieces of the 10,000 count puzzle that Morrison
sort of tosses out on the living room floor, some pieces turned upside down and
maybe even an edge or two hiding under the couch, with each read. Given the way
that math plays out in the storytelling, it’s likely that a few of the 10,000 pieces
are missing and there’s only 9,999 or maybe there’s really 10,005. Regardless,
this story is a challenge, one that even some literary scholars and book
critics can’t fully put together. A few might even have jammed some wrong
pieces. And who knows, possibly only Morrison has the box with the uncut, non
disjointed image. But once you start getting enough connections to get some
semblance of a picture, the jem that this is will begin to shine through even
if like many truths it’s still enshrined in the earth.
If you haven’t guessed, there isn’t a neat little
linear plot. It’s not meant to be skimmed. If you read this book in that
manner, you surely won’t get it. Nor is it meant to be read simply for surface
value or for the story (stories) alone. You can try that and you might still enjoy it,
but it’s a tale about what’s underneath the surface….what’s really going on
with not just the five displaced women (Mavis, Gigi, Seneca, Pallas, and
Connie) who don’t need men or God, who break the mold of acceptable society and
decorum to find wholeness, but also the men and the community they offend. In
fact, be prepared to get an eclectic, and at times disjointed, history of the
town and its residents as it’s interwoven with the arrivals of the women at the
Convent—a building that’s sorta a
former house of worship, school, and playboy mansion. (Yep, you read that
right.)
While the premise (depicted on Goodreads and on
the book’s cover)—“Paradise opens with a horrifying scene of mass
violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural
Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus
from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on
righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away,
another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is
upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby
will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage” —sets an
accurate tone of the tale, imagine it playing out on screen as the lovechild of
The Wild Bunch and Lost in an all black Peyton Place. And then every now and again Morrison throws out
some doozy of a moniker or backstory tidbit and it might even feel a little bit
like Soap!
Ruby is a second chance town—literally and
figuratively, though it’s debatable if some people ever got a first. It was
founded by nine families, only seven of which are represented in the children’s
Nativity play that’s an amalgamation of town and biblical history after their
first safe haven stopped prospering. On what seems to be a daily basis, the
town’s elders wax nostalgic about, well, anything and everything that’s not
happening in the present. That is except for everyone’s interest in the only
spare Morgan heir, manwhore K.D. A marriage to Arnette Fleetwood, who K.D. got
pregnant four years before, would appease his twin uncles who are ready for him
to settle down; but he really wants Gigi who showed up in town looking for an
obscene rock and has never left. Arnette’s best friend, Billie Delia, can’t
stand K.D. but she is in love with two brothers, and despite the town’s
certainly that she’s hot for a ménage, Billie Delia is purer than Arnette. Billie
Delia’s mother is one of only two women in town who the handsome new minister
might consider courting, but widow Pat Best is more interested in her town
genealogy project filled with convoluted (and in some places incestuous) family
trees alongside ‘quiet as its kept’ tidbits about the branches. What’s not
quiet is the old reverend who can deliver a fire and brimstone sermon at a
wedding sure to make any young couple want to elope, if the youngsters in town
weren’t more concerned with hanging out at the Oven that’s only flaming a fire
over its faded inscription rather than cooking any meals. Meanwhile, out at the
Convent, Connie was blinded by the light, and annoyed with her roommates, has
an awakening where art supplies and yoga poses make what has to be some
interesting chalk outlines, foreshadowing the carnage that’s to come while at
the same time freeing the girls from the pasts that haunts them. When the town men let the seven deadly sins
(or definitely five of them) get the best of them, they grab their guns, gum,
and sunglasses and let their testosterone take over. It goes down as history
usually does. Or does it?
Lost? You might be, but I don’t believe Morrison
wrote any of it for shock value. There’s a message and plenty of social
commentary littered throughout all that happens, at times almost poetic and
lyrical, at times comical. There’s
also enough misfortune, heartbreak, and injustice to make you cry from the
tragedy of it all, flinch at the ignorance and baseness in people, and seethe
when you consider or simply realize that while this story is fiction, it’s also
the story of generations and generations of a not so pretty history of not just
America but also mankind. There’s enough intrinsic commentary on religion, race,
misogyny, gender relations, myth-making, memory, history, hypocrisy, and so
much more to make the whole puzzle of it all worth it without hitting you over
the head with the heavy themes. While some are blatant like the opening line,
others are subtle, and if you fly through the pages too fast you might miss them.
It’s not a book to get hung up on spoilers. After all,
Morrison starts the story with the climax. She tells you right off the bat,
“They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they take their time.” Who is the white girl? ⚠Spoiler alert: You
never know. And if another reader tries to tell you they are certain which one
it is, they are as unreliable as the narrator of this story.
I’m guilty myself of trying to solve the opening line
mystery as well as a few other intriguing ambiguities. Knowing there’s no
definite answers maybe even makes me appreciate it all the more. I still look
for clues like millions who flock to religion in search of answers even more
unattainable. Ah, look what Morrison did there?
But mostly this is about the journey in the pages in between.
While the novel starts with the men’s arrival at the convent for the last time and builds to the how and why their quest for purity and peace becomes tainted, bigoted, and
bloodied, this is just as much, if not more, about how the women got where they
are, were made what they were, the
obstacles that stood in their way, and the ties that bound and the shackles
they broke. Even when they are 17 miles
from the town, separate from the community and “unequal” they are central to
the world around them. And so perhaps it’s about how all women, marginalized
and vilified, got where they are and still struggle to ascend in a world where
witness testimony, histories, and religious scripture has been twisted to suit
those in control much like the Ruby mens’ public proclamations for the
slaughter are nothing but smoke screens, pathetic and thinly veiled excuses for
the real selfish motivations that drive them to their patriarchal insanity.
“the women are not hiding. They are loose” (287).
For my romance
reading friends— if you’re looking for a break from that formulaic but
smutastic genre, for something that delivers more substance, this is one to
crack open and take a whirl at.
Safety wise….
Well, it’s probably irrelevant
because while the book is about love to the extreme, there’s no romance here. Nor
is anything romanticized, which is really key. Arguably, there’s also no heroes
or heroines. You could ponder through the entire book whether there is a
protagonist. Or are there five of them? At least nine are antagonists. Are we
getting into Morrison math again? It’s all as head-scratching as who the white
girl is. I couldn’t even pass verdict on whether there’s an HEA. It’s like
there isn’t…or is there?
There may be no right
or wrong answers to the questions your mind will turn over when you start
trying to connect the pieces of the intellectual puzzle that is this book. Morrison herself said in an article back in
1998 that she’d rather have readers “grapple with her work than merely revere
it.” And in the vast sea
of corruption that has plagued the contemporary romance world, that’s
refreshing. It’s also a good reason to give the story a chance. Feel free to
hit me up to chat if you do.
*I own a paperback copy
of this book. All reviews written by
Book-Bosomed Book Blog are honest opinions.
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