Beloved By Many (Beloved)

For someone who went to high school in America and, indeed, took every English class she could fit into her schedule, it is probably quite appalling that I've never read a book by Toni Morrison. Because her writings are set in America's past with a particular focus on the culture and history of African Americans, Morrison's novels have instilled themselves into the US education system and appear on many a reading list.

But while my peers were reading classics like Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations, I was either immersing myself in trendy contemporary fiction like 1984 or Catch-22 (some things never change), or fulfilling my reading requirement at the last minute by reading a 70-page, double-spaced play like Equus or A Streetcar Named Desire.

Nonetheless, Toni Morrison seemed to follow me around - excerpts from her novels appearing in a few of my university courses and newly published books staring down at me from bookshop shelves. At the age of 76, Morrison is still going strong so I decided I owed it to her, as well as my literary-lazy high school self, to read one of her offerings.

Beloved (1987) is Morrison's fifth, and probably best known, novel. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Thandie Newton, the novel revolves around the life of ex-slave Sethe in 1920s Cincinnati.

Haunted by her past (quite literally), Sethe carves out a lonely life for her and her daughter, Denver. The unexpected arrival of Paul D Garner, another former slave from the 'Sweet Home' plantation, brings about a dark series of events that draws on Sethe's past, present and future.

Morrison's prose is lyrical, yet unforgiving, with the novel depicting the horrors of Sethe's life somewhat beautifully. Unfortunately, the pacing and complexity left me unusually apethetic and unmoved. Likewise, the supernatural aspects of the book initially took my imagination, but eventually left me feeling cold (no pun intended).

Nonetheless, I can appreciate Morrison's vast talent and contribution to American history, and I wouldn't rule out reading another of her works. But choose her over George Orwell or Joseph Heller? Perhaps I'll forever be classically lackadaisical.