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The Bluest Eye: A Novel
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The Bluest Eye: A Novel
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The Bluest Eye: A Novel
Audiobook7 hours

The Bluest Eye: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.

It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

Editor's Note

Poetic sorrow…

Morrison’s prose forms a beautifully poetic sorrow as she artfully commands the power of the written word even in her very first novel, and even while covering taboo issues from rape and incest to self-hate and racial inequalities.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 19, 2011
ISBN9780307941121
Unavailable
The Bluest Eye: A Novel

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Reviews for The Bluest Eye

Rating: 3.944265844944623 out of 5 stars
4/5

2,799 ratings107 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fortune favored my time with The Bluest Eye, especially in the context of my encounter with William Styron's Nat Turner. I read this for a Feminist Ethics course. There were only white people in the class. I had been trumpeting the theories of Woolf and Irigaray and the class appeared either pissed or slightly afraid. Ms. Morrison picks up the busted springs of a shattered family and interrogates each relation, each causal arrow, each societal grievance, each sardonic discrimination. That this pillaging occurs in Ohio is the element which doesn't forgive.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was very good. Starting with Claudia and Frieda, two preteen sisters from a dirt poor black family in Ohio in the 1940s, the focus soon shifts to twelve-year-old Pecola, a temporary foster child, whose father raped her and got her with child. Later in the novel, extended flashbacks delve into the histories of each of Pecola’s parents. This is not a happy read: essentially, the book deals with successive generations succumbing to cycles of abandonment, violence and internalised inferiority complexes. It is about concentric circles of rancor: within each marginalised group a power dynamic develops that recreates that external enmity -- all the way down into the individual. The bluest eye is not a straightforward read, either: different focalisers skip from first-person to third-person, and the story jumps back and forth between several decades. Speaking as a white person, grokking systemic racism is hard to do. This book definitely helps in turning intellectual understanding into a glimpse of, well, grokking.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I get the feeling that Morrison is using the same characters and same ideas in most of her novels, and as a result, this one at least comes off as forced and tired--particularly to a reader who's familiar with her other works. Somewhat boring, and nowhere near the caliber of her other novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What a terribly tragic story. Disturbing on multiple levels, and dark in its reality. It should make you uncomfortable, and furious, and sad. How easy it was (is) to tear black girls down. How an innocent child becomes practically a villain, and the very environment that is supposed to support her is the one who tears her down. All because she isn't pretty. All because she's black, and she's young, and she feels that she has to be something she can never be. It's a book that should be read, but not one that should be enjoyed. If only someone had let Pecola, and all those other black girls out there, know that they're beautiful. If only someone had cared.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Bluest Eye presents the story of Pecola Breedlove, a poor young Black girl who yearns to have blonde hair and blue eyes (and, presumably, white skin). Her desire stems from internalized hatred caused by the racism in her community, the trauma of being raped by her father, and the complicated intersections of race, class, and color in the American south, and it represents the dangerous physical, social, and psychological impacts of being “othered.”Like all of Morrison’s novels, The Bluest Eye is difficult to read because of the visceral responses it elicits and the difficult, unpleasant, and downright horrifying facts it forces us to face. Morrison’s writing never fails to help me understand what life is like for someone who is very different from me, and it pushes me to explore my role as a young white woman in a culture that breeds contempt for women and people of color. It’s rarely easy, but it is always worthwhile.Full review at The Book Lady's Blog
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very well written book that shows many of the difficulties and tragedies experienced by black Americans.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    there's no denying that this is masterfully written, and that Toni Morrison is clearly deserving of all her accolades, but boy oh boy the disjointed structure left me feeling pretty cold
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Bluest Eye is the first novel by Novel-prize winning author Toni Morrison. This book is a complex exploration into how both racial attitudes and life experiences shape our definition of physical beauty for both blacks and whites. I found this a difficult read emotionally as there are a number of incidents that were difficult to read about. A young twelve year old girl is raped by her father, and there are various accounts of domestic violence and racial prejudice. The story describes a very troubled family, the father is often drunk and he and the mother fight both physically and verbally. The young girl, Pecola, considers herself ugly and unworthy of love, and believes that if only she could have blue eyes, she would be pretty and happy. The view shifts from character to character over the course of the story and the reader comes to understand what drives each character and become engaged by their experiences.Although this is a raw and hard hitting story, The Bluest Eye flows like poetry and despite all the tragedy there are moments of humor and hints of hope. Originally published in 1970, the author was fearless in exposing her themes and visions and has produced a powerful and unforgettable American novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This harrowing tale of incest and pedophilia takes place on a backdrop of internalized racism that is so deep and thick and real it may as well be a whole 'nother character in the book. The book features three African-American girls, ages nine, ten and eleven, who all feel ugly and somehow less than their white counterparts and the more light-skinned black girls. They have different ways of dealing with their feelings, sometimes hating white girls, fighting them, envying them. Their feelings seem to focus particularly on blond hair and blue eyes. They are poor, and young, and in Lorain, Ohio, in the 1940s, they have no voice as far as adults are concerned, and little control over any aspect of their environment. They are sometimes exposed to prostitution and often at the mercy of unscrupulous men. Fully three men in this book touch them in inappropriate, sexual ways, and one is raped by her own father and impregnated. There is also quite a lot of alcoholism and domestic violence. In other words: life, in poverty.The question of whether it is appropriate reading for high school students was recently raised and I honestly don't know what I think. I guess I wouldn't not let them read it, but I read Lolita in high school and found it very disturbing and I think I would not have liked this then either, whereas now I find both books beautiful if tragic in parts. I would say, I don't think high school is when you can get the most out of it, but perhaps there would be some students for whom it would act almost as a life preserver, letting them know they were not alone, perhaps allowing them to tell someone something similar had happened to them. These things being almost epidemically common. Also, I think there is a value in letting high school students know the literature can be this real and raw, can really talk about life, can say things people don't usually say out loud. So while it might be shocking and upsetting to some kids, it might be a window to escape through for someone else. Let them read it. The shocked kids should be shocked that such things happen, but they do happen and by the time one is fifteen, one is old enough to begin to contemplate the difficult stuff in life, and lucky if one only has to think of it as a social issue.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have mixed feeling about this book. It depicted the life of black american very well, good and bad.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Ugly-crying. So much ugly-crying.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Morrison illustrates more of the black culture in this story of a young girl who thinks that blue eyes will be the thing to make her beautiful, like beautiful dolls, the girls in story books, the most popular girl in her class. Subtle messages that are transmitted to little black girls that tell them they are not special, like a stepfather who rapes her and leaves her pregnant. Or a mother who beats her before understanding why the girl was discussing certain topics. This was a short book but very powerful in its message and enlightening.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found this book wonderful--for the first ironic 70 (?) pages. Then, like every T.M. I've read, it descends from irony into various word salad. No idea why; my guess was, she wrote too much. ZN Hurston wrote much less--and much better. I take it the Nobel committee was not English as first language.I do say, always, that T.M. is the best researcher-novelist I know, the equal of Flaubert who had to research provincial life--the auction, the cart transportation, the priest's and the physician's life, even the apothicaire. (I say always that in court for the immorality of Mme Bovary, Flaubert beat the charge the same way as Lizzie Borden: The court was assured that a guilty verdict would reflect poorly on their respected fathers! In Flaubert's case, his father was a famous physician who may have saved people in the courtroom.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A little girl with a doll. Sounds like an idyllic picture doesn't it? But when the little girl is black and the doll is blond-haired and blue-eyed, as on the cover of this book, it just looks wrong. How did blue eyes and blond hair get to be the epitome of loveliness? Would a child who had dark skin, curly dark hair and dark eyes ever think they could be lovely if they only had that as an example? Some, like Pecola, would always long for blue eyes. Even when her father raped her and impregnated her she could believe that everything would be alright with blue eyes. Personally I liked how the sometime narrator of this story treated the blond-haired, blue-eyed dolls given to her. She took them apart to see what was inside. That seems like a much more reasonable approach to a toy that doesn't reflect reality.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An absolute MUST read for any human. Timeless yet relevant. A beautiful story with an important lesson.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I had great difficulty giving this book a rating. I finally settled on five stars as a tribute to Toni Morrison’s fine writing. She is extremely skilled in choosing the right words to characterize people, places, and events. I dare say that her writing verges on being poetic. Why then would I award less than five stars? The story is a hard one filled with many acts that caused me great sorrow for the subjects of the story. At times I wanted to escape the book but Ms. Morrison’s writing was so magnetic that I was drawn back to it again and again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Thought provoking. Found it raw, morally and emotionally challenging . Profoundly described portrait of the human condition.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Although "The Bluest Eye" is Toni Morrison's debut novel, her voice -- so evident in future novels -- is already here -- perhaps not as polished, but still recognizable. This is a really bleak story about the impact of systemic racism and its hidden impact on the psyche -- and the role self-loathing plays in reactions and actions. I found this to be well written and thought-provoking though often the plot itself was tough to take.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a challenging and complicated book. I can’t sum it up in a review. So I will say this: Morrison is a delight. Her writing is beautiful and thoughtful, never dehumanizing, never justifying, always examining. Her measured writing is a unique experience and I will never tire of her catalogue.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is devastatingly sad, which is the only reason I did not give it five stars. It is heartwrenching, thought-provoking, and inventive.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The language is exquisite. The story is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. We've lost a master storyteller with the passing of Toni Morrison, but she's left us her gifts to treasure.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not the eye!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow.Just wow.This was...haunting is the best I can come up with.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I can see why Bluest Eye launched Toni Morrison to fame and is regarded as a classic. I found it engaging, loved its wide cast of characters and multiple view points. It wrapped up surprisingly quickly.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very character-driven and poetic, but it lost me on a few parts.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Heart-wrenching story about a young black girl who dreams of having blue eyes so that society would perceive her as "beautiful." I read that Toni Morrison wrote this book to illustrate how hurtful and hard racism is on black people. After reading this story, I have a better understanding. Content warnings for incest, sexual abuse, pedophilia, and racism. An important book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing! My first Toni Morrison book! Opened my eyes to a community I thought I knew, but clearly didn't.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “Then they were old. Their bodies honed, their odor sour. Squatting in a cane field, stooping in a cotton field, kneeling by a river bank, they had carried a world on their heads. They had given over the lives of their own children and tendered their grandchildren. With relief they wrapped their heads in rags, and their breasts in flannel; eased their feet into felt. They were through with lust and lactation, beyond tears and terror. They alone could walk the roads of Mississippi, the lanes of Georgia, the fields of Alabama unmolested. They were old enough to be irritable when and where they chose, tired enough to look forward to death, disinterested enough to accept the idea of pain while ignoring the presence of pain. They were, in fact and at last, free. And the lives of these old black women were synthesized in their eyes—a purée of tragedy and humor, wickedness and serenity, truth and fantasy.”I keep notes on slips of paper stuffed inside the books I read with references to any outstanding passages. I’d written “Pheeeww!” after this citation. Phew, indeed. And that came a quarter page after another note I’d highlighted. That’s how strong this book is. This work. This opus to lost innocence and the blurry eyes that look straight through it into the middle distances of benumbed presents. There were passages that quite literally took the air right out of me. Hence . . . phew . . . There’s nothing new I can possibly contribute to this great work that the author hadn’t already said in her amazing afterword. She seems humble yet smart; honest yet poetic; is redolent with unassuming yet inimitable prose. I dare anyone to read this book aloud to a loved one and not be at a loss of oxygen. And if you can do it, read all that pain and beauty and not be visibly affected, well then . . . care to swap careers? ‘Cause my job means nothing, feels like nothing, is stuffed with conversations that die somewhere in that blurry middle distance. And I’d fucking love to take out that frustration on round head nails, pints of porter, Excel spreadsheets for a spell.And use that fire and fury to pen my own attempt at creation that I’d be only too thrilled to have appear half this powerful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So sad though
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's a 4.5/5 for me. A really well written book. It's harsh in some places. Sometimes I find it hard to review books like this. I feel such sadness for Pecola, this young girl who wants blue eyes as she thinks it will make her beautiful. Throughout the book, she is described as ugly. Even her mother thinks she's ugly, and that's just sad. She's just 11 years old. And just when you think things can't get worse it does. I struggled through the last section this book with the thoughts of a character. I just find it hard to read and comprehend.I wonder how the authors write these chapters. I feel robbed of a happy ending also. So its well worth reading. I can see why it won the Nobel prize in literature.