God Help the Child
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
The new novel from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.
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The new novel from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.
Klappentext zu „God Help the Child “
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child-the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment-weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride's mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."
A fierce and provocative novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.
Lese-Probe zu „God Help the Child “
SweetnessI
t s not my fault. So you can t blame me. I didn t do it and have no idea how it happened. It didn t take more than an hour after they pulled her out from between my legs to realize something was wrong. Really wrong. She was so black she scared me. Midnight black, Sudanese black. I m light-skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula Ann s father. Ain t nobody in my family anywhere near that color. Tar is the closest I can think of yet her hair don t go with the skin. It s different straight but curly like those naked tribes in Australia. You might think she s a throwback, but throwback to what? You should ve seen my grandmother; she passed for white and never said another word to any one of her children. Any letter she got from my mother or my aunts she sent right back, unopened. Finally they got the message of no message and let her be. Almost all mulatto types and quadroons did that back in the day if they had the right kind of hair, that is. Can you imagine how many white folks have Negro blood running and hiding in their veins? Guess. Twenty percent, I heard. My own mother, Lula Mae, could have passed easy, but she chose not to. She told me the price she paid for that decision. When she and my father went to the courthouse to get married there were two Bibles and they had to put their hands on the one reserved for Negroes. The other one was for white people s hands. The Bible! Can you beat it? My mother was housekeeper for a rich white couple. They ate every meal she cooked and insisted she scrub their backs while they sat in the tub and God knows what other intimate things they made her do, but no touching of the same Bible.
Some of you probably think it s a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color the lighter, the better in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity? How else can you avoid being spit on in a drugstore,
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shoving elbows at the bus stop, walking in the gutter to let whites have the whole sidewalk, charged a nickel at the grocer s for a paper bag that s free to white shoppers? Let alone all the name-calling. I heard about all of that and much, much more. But because of my mother s skin color, she wasn t stopped from trying on hats in the department stores or using their ladies room. And my father could try on shoes in the front part of the shoestore, not in a back room. Neither one would let themselves drink from a colored only fountain even if they were dying of thirst.
I hate to say it, but from the very beginning in the maternity ward the baby, Lula Ann, embarrassed me. Her birth skin was pale like all babies , even African ones, but it changed fast. I thought I was going crazy when she turned blue-black right before my eyes. I know I went crazy for a minute because once just for a few seconds I held a blanket over her face and pressed. But I couldn t do that, no matter how much I wished she hadn t been born with that terrible color. I even thought of giving her away to an orphanage someplace. And I was scared to be one of those mothers who put their babies on church steps. Recently I heard about a couple in Germany, white as snow, who had a dark-skinned baby nobody could explain. Twins, I believe one white, one colored. But I don t know if it s true. All I know is that for me, nursing her was like having a pickaninny sucking my teat. I went to bottle-feeding soon as I got home.
My husband, Louis, is a porter and when he got back off the rails he looked at me like I really was crazy and looked at her like she was from the planet Jupiter. He wasn t a cussing man so when he said, Goddamn! What the hell is this?
I hate to say it, but from the very beginning in the maternity ward the baby, Lula Ann, embarrassed me. Her birth skin was pale like all babies , even African ones, but it changed fast. I thought I was going crazy when she turned blue-black right before my eyes. I know I went crazy for a minute because once just for a few seconds I held a blanket over her face and pressed. But I couldn t do that, no matter how much I wished she hadn t been born with that terrible color. I even thought of giving her away to an orphanage someplace. And I was scared to be one of those mothers who put their babies on church steps. Recently I heard about a couple in Germany, white as snow, who had a dark-skinned baby nobody could explain. Twins, I believe one white, one colored. But I don t know if it s true. All I know is that for me, nursing her was like having a pickaninny sucking my teat. I went to bottle-feeding soon as I got home.
My husband, Louis, is a porter and when he got back off the rails he looked at me like I really was crazy and looked at her like she was from the planet Jupiter. He wasn t a cussing man so when he said, Goddamn! What the hell is this?
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Autoren-Porträt von Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Toni Morrison
- 2016, Internationale Ausgabe, 192 Seiten, Maße: 17,3 x 10,4 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: VINTAGE
- ISBN-10: 1101971940
- ISBN-13: 9781101971949
- Erscheinungsdatum: 18.01.2016
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for Toni Morrison sGOD HELP THE CHILD
Utterly compelling . . . Morrison remains an incredibly powerful writer who commands attention.
Roxane Gay, The Guardian
God Save the Child is superb, its story gliding along the tracks of Morrison s utterly assured prose.
Charles Finch, USA Today (critic's pick)
Morrison is such a masterful writer that even those who don t prefer stream of conscious novels may find them sucked into these minds, turning page after page of this short novel until they ve finished the book in one sitting.
Sarah Hutchins, Portland Book Review
Toni Morrison [is] still breaking new literary ground . . . a readable and entrancing novel that rivals her earlier work in its powerful range of effects . . . This novel is worth reading on the strength of Morrison s narrative talents alone. But it also makes an inviting introduction to her entire body of work. God Help the Child finds this American legend still breaking new ground and, as always, delivering an uncompromising and memorable novel.
Jack Pender, Waterloo Region Record
A wrenching tale.
Entertainment Weekly
Morrison possesses enough generosity of spirit to see a few glimmering moments of genuine hope amid the ruin, along with the intellectual heft needed to understand their context, and the graciousness to share them with us.
Andrew Ervin, Philadelphia Inquirer
The prose is lean, uncluttered. Morrison s novelistic architectures have always been exceptionally well-designed; she crafts the vessels, carefully and uniquely to each story, before pouring in the water, and God Help the Child is no exception.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
[Morrison s] powers are proudly on display in God Help the Child. At its best, this new novel demonstrates that the author is, as she suggested recently in a New York Times Magazine profile, fully capable of writing novels forever.
The Atlantic
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A searing, lyrical story . . . Even Morrison's minor characters are complex, intriguing people deserving of closer inspection, and as Bride's journey acquires a momentum of its own, the magnetism of her troubles pulls the reader along . . . Beautifully composed in a variety of distinct voices and covering a range of family concerns, God Help the Child employs a hint of magical realism and explores issues of race and women's lives familiar to fans of Morrison's fiction. The story of Bride's life and trials is sensual, both delicate and strong, poetic and heavy with sex, love and pain, exemplifying a revered author's unfailing talent.
Julia Jenkins
With God Help Help the Child, Morrison gives us an unflinching look at the wounds that adults can inflict on children with life-altering consequences . . . By the final page, God Help the Child reminds us that few authors can deliver exquisitely written prose as Morrison.
Patrik Bass, Essence.com
A slim, modest work that still manages to pack an emotional wallop.
Boston Globe
Another unflinching, gorgeously written story.
San Francisco Chronicle
Every page contains at least one passage of breathtaking prose, a lyrical flow accentuated by stark imagery and laden with poetic contrasts.
Dallas Morning News
Morrison has a Shakespearean sense of tragedy, and that gift imbues God Help the Child. The ending is exquisite, bringing to mind Gwendolyn Brooks' wonderful lines: Art hurts. Art urges voyages -- and it is easier to stay at home.
Newsday
A book to be read twice at a minimum the first time for the story, and the second time to savor the language, the gems of phrasing and the uncomfortable revelations about the human capacity both to love and destroy.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Succinct but beautiful, with a powerful message that will reach readers of all demographics, because frankly, we all have things in our pasts we'd like to change. The power is not in time travel; the power is in realizing we must move on and push forward to succeed.
SheKnows.com
Morrison . . . proved with God Help the Child that her writing is still as fresh, adventurous and vigorous as ever . . . Morrison s characteristically deft temporal she fits and precisely hones language deliver literary riches galore. And which this novel is very readable, the pleasure is in working for its deeper rewards.
The Observer
Like a Picasso painting telling a story in a multi-dimensional series of superimposed snapshot as each character becomes ever more rounded and complete.
Independent on Sunday
Not for nothing has Morrison been garlanded with a Novel Prize, Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award. There s always a sense of grand occasion when Morrison releases a book, and with good reason: the journey is always vivid, dazzling and rich, each paragraph a mealy morsel in its own right. A highly personal and affecting tale that manages to be deftly political, God Help the Child is emotionally rousing and gut-wrenching.
Irish Independent
True to style, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning Morrison uses simple yet poetic prose as she tackles timely issues in a timeless way.
Big Issue in the North
Powerful . . . attests to her ability to write intensely felt chamber pieces that inhabit a twilight world between fable and realism, and to convey the desperate yearnings of her characters for safety and love and belonging . . . Writing with gathering speed and assurance as the book progresses, Ms. Morrison works her narrative magic, turning the Ballad of Bride and Booker into a tale that is as forceful as it is affecting, as fierce as it is resonant.
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Toni Morrison is one of the gods who walk among us. A righteous, fearless teller of necessary truths . . . sensually written and commanding.
Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair, May 2015
It is a beautiful thing to watch Morrison move characters through the full range of human emotion and into cathartic transformation. Here, Morrison shows us the importance of not holding on to what needs to be put down; the necessity of forgiveness, the necessity of beginning again.
Hope Wabuke, The Root
Nobel laureate Morrison continues to add to her canon of eloquent, brilliantly conceived novels defining the crises and cultural shifts of our times . . . Yet another finely distilled masterpiece.
Jane Ciabattari, BBC
Powerful portraits in lean prose . . . . The pieces all fit together seamlessly in a story about beating back the past, confronting the present, and understanding one s worth.
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, (starred review)
Sly, savage, honest, and elegant . . . . Morrison spikes elements of realism and hyperrealism with magic and mayhem, while sustaining a sexily poetic and intoxicating narrative atmosphere . . . . Once again, Morrison thrillingly brings the storytelling moxie and mojo that make her, arguably, our greatest living novelist.
Lisa Shea, ELLE Magazine
A chilling oracle and a lively storyteller, Nobel winner Morrison continues the work she began 45 years ago with The Bluest Eye.
Kirkus (Starred Review)
Another dazzler from Nobel laureate Morrison.
Barbara Hoffert s Fiction Picks, Library Journal
Emotionally-wrenching . . . [Morrison s] literary craftsmanship endures with sparse language, precise imagery, and even humor. This haunting novel displays a profound understanding of American culture and an unwavering sense of justice and forgiveness.
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
A searing, lyrical story . . . Even Morrison's minor characters are complex, intriguing people deserving of closer inspection, and as Bride's journey acquires a momentum of its own, the magnetism of her troubles pulls the reader along . . . Beautifully composed in a variety of distinct voices and covering a range of family concerns, God Help the Child employs a hint of magical realism and explores issues of race and women's lives familiar to fans of Morrison's fiction. The story of Bride's life and trials is sensual, both delicate and strong, poetic and heavy with sex, love and pain, exemplifying a revered author's unfailing talent.
Julia Jenkins
With God Help Help the Child, Morrison gives us an unflinching look at the wounds that adults can inflict on children with life-altering consequences . . . By the final page, God Help the Child reminds us that few authors can deliver exquisitely written prose as Morrison.
Patrik Bass, Essence.com
A slim, modest work that still manages to pack an emotional wallop.
Boston Globe
Another unflinching, gorgeously written story.
San Francisco Chronicle
Every page contains at least one passage of breathtaking prose, a lyrical flow accentuated by stark imagery and laden with poetic contrasts.
Dallas Morning News
Morrison has a Shakespearean sense of tragedy, and that gift imbues God Help the Child. The ending is exquisite, bringing to mind Gwendolyn Brooks' wonderful lines: Art hurts. Art urges voyages -- and it is easier to stay at home.
Newsday
A book to be read twice at a minimum the first time for the story, and the second time to savor the language, the gems of phrasing and the uncomfortable revelations about the human capacity both to love and destroy.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Succinct but beautiful, with a powerful message that will reach readers of all demographics, because frankly, we all have things in our pasts we'd like to change. The power is not in time travel; the power is in realizing we must move on and push forward to succeed.
SheKnows.com
Morrison . . . proved with God Help the Child that her writing is still as fresh, adventurous and vigorous as ever . . . Morrison s characteristically deft temporal she fits and precisely hones language deliver literary riches galore. And which this novel is very readable, the pleasure is in working for its deeper rewards.
The Observer
Like a Picasso painting telling a story in a multi-dimensional series of superimposed snapshot as each character becomes ever more rounded and complete.
Independent on Sunday
Not for nothing has Morrison been garlanded with a Novel Prize, Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award. There s always a sense of grand occasion when Morrison releases a book, and with good reason: the journey is always vivid, dazzling and rich, each paragraph a mealy morsel in its own right. A highly personal and affecting tale that manages to be deftly political, God Help the Child is emotionally rousing and gut-wrenching.
Irish Independent
True to style, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning Morrison uses simple yet poetic prose as she tackles timely issues in a timeless way.
Big Issue in the North
Powerful . . . attests to her ability to write intensely felt chamber pieces that inhabit a twilight world between fable and realism, and to convey the desperate yearnings of her characters for safety and love and belonging . . . Writing with gathering speed and assurance as the book progresses, Ms. Morrison works her narrative magic, turning the Ballad of Bride and Booker into a tale that is as forceful as it is affecting, as fierce as it is resonant.
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Toni Morrison is one of the gods who walk among us. A righteous, fearless teller of necessary truths . . . sensually written and commanding.
Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair, May 2015
It is a beautiful thing to watch Morrison move characters through the full range of human emotion and into cathartic transformation. Here, Morrison shows us the importance of not holding on to what needs to be put down; the necessity of forgiveness, the necessity of beginning again.
Hope Wabuke, The Root
Nobel laureate Morrison continues to add to her canon of eloquent, brilliantly conceived novels defining the crises and cultural shifts of our times . . . Yet another finely distilled masterpiece.
Jane Ciabattari, BBC
Powerful portraits in lean prose . . . . The pieces all fit together seamlessly in a story about beating back the past, confronting the present, and understanding one s worth.
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, (starred review)
Sly, savage, honest, and elegant . . . . Morrison spikes elements of realism and hyperrealism with magic and mayhem, while sustaining a sexily poetic and intoxicating narrative atmosphere . . . . Once again, Morrison thrillingly brings the storytelling moxie and mojo that make her, arguably, our greatest living novelist.
Lisa Shea, ELLE Magazine
A chilling oracle and a lively storyteller, Nobel winner Morrison continues the work she began 45 years ago with The Bluest Eye.
Kirkus (Starred Review)
Another dazzler from Nobel laureate Morrison.
Barbara Hoffert s Fiction Picks, Library Journal
Emotionally-wrenching . . . [Morrison s] literary craftsmanship endures with sparse language, precise imagery, and even humor. This haunting novel displays a profound understanding of American culture and an unwavering sense of justice and forgiveness.
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
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