AS OF MARCH, this was one of the Morrison novels I had not yet read (for the record, the others are Tar Baby, A Mercy, and God Help the Child). I had certainly intended to read it--I had owned it for years--but you know how it goes. In April, though, I was scheduled to teach an OLLI adult class on Beloved, so it was time for a Morrison booster--which was exactly what this was.
I was not prepared for the rocket ride this novel is. The Morrison novels I had read most recently--Paradise, Love, Home--were worthwhile, and Paradise I think among her best, but they did sometimes seem weighed down by their own gravitas. Wise, but solemn. Earthbound.
Sula is quick, violent, funny, colorful, irreverent, fantastical, voracious. And wise. But it soars like a hawk, dives like a hawk, strikes home like a hawk.
We have two main characters, Sula and Nel, childhood friends who become estranged, later to reconcile during Sula's final illness. We also find out a lot about their families, their communities, and Black life in the USA between the wars.
Really, though, it's all in the voice.
Accompanied by a plague of robins, Sula came back to Medallion. The little yam-breasted shuddering birds were everywhere, exciting small children away from their usual welcome into a vicious stoning. Nobody knew why or from where they had come. What they did know was that you couldn't go anywhere without stepping in their pearly shit, and it was hard to hang up clothes, pull weeds or just sit on the front porch when robins were flying and dying all around you.
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