Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio.
Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines the present. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterised her writing.
‘She revealed the sins of her nation, while profoundly elevating its canon. She suffused the telling of blackness with beauty, whilst steering us away from the perils of the white gaze. That’s why she told her stories. And why we will never, ever stop reading them’ Afua Hirsch
‘Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is rarest of pleasures’ Washington Post
‘When she arrived, with her first novel, The Bluest Eye, she immediately re-ordered the American literary landscape’ Ben Okri
Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction
Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She was the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Paradise and Love. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour, in 2012 by Barack Obama. Toni Morrison died o...
- 莫里森首部小说，剖析种族与审美霸权
- 黑人女孩佩科拉渴望蓝眼睛的悲剧命运
- 揭示白人审美标准对黑人的精神摧残
- 关注种族、性别与社会议题的读者
- 喜爱文学性强的英文原版阅读者
- 对非裔美国文学及女性写作感兴趣者
- 建议阅读英文原版以体会语言政治
- 注意书中独特的百衲被叙事结构
- 需具备对历史语境及种族问题的认知
- 文笔惊艳，立意深刻，令人震撼
- 深刻洞察种族歧视与自我厌恶
- 黑人女性文学中值得反复阅读的经典
本导读基于书籍简介、目录、原文摘录、短评和书评生成，不等同于全文精读。
- "我知道，有些严重自暴自弃的受害者最后会变得危险、暴力，会重蹈曾一次次侮辱他们的敌人之覆辙。另外一些则会抛弃自尊，融入一种能够创造自己所缺乏的强势人格的体制。然而，更多的人会跨越阻碍，继续成长。但是，也有些人会就此在沉默和无名中湮灭，连表达或承认的声音都不曾发出。他们无声无息。"
- "当年轻具有的脆弱性与冷漠的父母、不负责任的成年人以及一个用自己的语言、法规和形象来强化绝望的社会联系在一起，那么他们注定会走上通向毁灭的旅程。"
- "从一个凄惨的精神谋杀故事展开，"
- "为什么她渴望自身发生如此天翻地覆的变化。她的这个愿望隐含着种族性自我厌恶的暗示。二十年后，我依然惊奇于人们是如何产生这种想法的。谁告诉过她？谁让她感觉做个怪人也比保持自己的本来面目要好？谁又曾注视过她，并且发现在美的天平上她显得如此单薄，如此轻微？这"
- "谈话如同一场略带淘气色彩的舞蹈：声音相遇，屈膝行礼，摇摇摆摆，然后退开。接着另一个声音加入，却又被下一个声音掩盖：两个声音绕着圈子互相追逐，然后打住。她们的话语有时高高地盘旋而上，有时大步腾跃几下，然而所有的声音都时不时地被温馨律动的笑声—就像一颗果冻做的心脏的跳动—打断。"
- "情感已被某种永恒的失落感磨钝。"
- "她身上的一切都在流动与变化，可是黑皮肤却静止不变，令人害怕。正是这身黑皮肤制造了白人眼睛里那带有嫌恶棱角的虚无。"
- "和某些景象与声音一样，天气的变化也开始影响她的情绪。这些感觉在她心中化作极度的悲伤。她经常想起新生事物的死亡，孤独的小路，从虚空中出现的陌生人拉着姑娘的手，夕照中的树林之类的情景。这样的幻想特别容易在教堂里滋生。歌声轻抚着她，当她努力把思绪集中在罪孽的代价上时，她的身体却为无需努力就可以自然发生的救赎、拯救和重生而颤抖不止。沉浸在这样的幻想中，她向来都柔顺温和；她常常在河岸徜徉，或者在田里捡拾浆果，这时有个人会翩然出现，目光柔和而具有穿透力，他—无需语言的交流—什么都能领会；在这个人的注视下，她的跛脚痊愈了，目光低垂。这个人没有面目，没有躯体，无声无息。他不过是一种存在，有种拥抱一切的温柔，却"
Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing
Life 3.0
The Snowman
In Spite of Myself
The Beautiful and Damned
Ashenden