Maybe it's just because we started the book so late in the quarter--when I got all those end-of-the-quarter assignments that make me want to grab my teachers by the collar and shout "Come ON! Don't you get it?! I'm BUSY!"--but I really have not been enjoying Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark. I wasn't so sure about blogging about this, but it's gotten to a point where I feel like I have to for, if no other reason, catharsis' sake.
I can't speak for the class, but, personally, I've found Morrison's book to be one of the most dense I've ever read. She consistently has way too much going on on one page and writes in a way that makes me feel like I'm being talked down to. We've been given several days to complete reading assignments only thirty pages long, yet at the four-page-an-hour pace I somehow seem to go with this text (you'd think that'd be an exaggeration. . .but you'd be wrong), I feel like I need a lot longer.
Also, from what I do manage to get through, I've noticed that I don't even really enjoy the subject matter of her book. She's formed interesting, truthful general concepts, but I don't particularly care for the way she applies them to text with race at the center. I mean, I don't think I'd care for a text that did that with just about anything that's been a big issue in our country, which is why I don't understand why she chose to do it. I never get why people point those kinds of things out and leave it at that. It doesn't fix anything, and things are rarely "just pointed out" if they're not broken.
So. . .curiosity? A "close exploration. . .without the mandate for conquest"? I'm not sure what I buy and what I don't, but, regardless, this just seems like a terrible aspect to want to examine in literature. "To each her own" is one of few justifications I have for it. I don't know if I agree with her or not either--too much of what she writes is far too cut-and-dried for me to connect with--but if I did, I wouldn't be glad about it. It might be an "interesting" topic, but it's also horrible, and I don't see why she wants to highlight that without getting all revolutionary about it. To me, it just seems to strengthen the presence but do little to change it. And I suppose that's the point of an analysis, to illuminate but not makeover, to serve as the foundation and the foundation alone for said makeovers, but I guess I just don't see the sense in that.
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Thank you for expressing what the rest of us have been trying to say. I'd just like to take my own parting shots at the book:
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, Ms. Morrison chose the perfect title for the book, I felt like I was dicking around in the dark the entire time.
Also, it is amazingly similar to some pieces of post-modern art. She spent a lot of time talking her head off with out a clear thesis. It's like Pollack throwing paint at a canvas. If you throw enough s*** at it, something will stick, she was just the first to talk about it.
I can rant more, I might...