Book Review of Love, by Toni Morrison
Love And Hatred are the Backdrop for This Intense Novel
Jul 8, 2009
The title is misleading, for Love is not about the beautiful emotion, but rather about hatred, and the destruction it leaves in its path. It is particularly about the hatred that two women, Christine and Heed, have towards each other.
Friendship
Many years ago, when Christine and Heed where only two little girls, they were the best of friends. They understood each other, played with each other, and even had their own language. But a man came in the picture in the unlikeliest of ways, and helped twist that friendship into hatred forever.
Christine was the granddaughter of Bill Cosey, owner of Cosey´s Hotel and Resort. Christine and her mother May lived under the care of Bill, after both Bill´s wife and son died.
Bill was the most famous, loved, and hated man of Sooker Bay in the 1950´s. People from all over the United States went to vacation at Cosey´s Hotel. The hotel was famous and not only made money, but also elevated a few chosen ones from the worst jobs to be found in the town.
Child Bride
When Bill´s wife died the town´s tongues began wagging about who he would choose as a wife. His choice surprised everyone. He chose Heed, his granddaughter´s friend. She was a girl from Up Beach. A poor girl who didn´t know anything about anything. A girl who was only 11. A child.
Heed didn´t have much choice in the matter - not that she understood what the matter really meant.
Heed believed she would move in with her best friend, and they´d play and be happy.
But May, who never liked Heed to begin with -for what was her daughter doing, playing with such a poor, ignorant child?- began creating problem´s in the girls friendship that Bill only aggravated.
War at Home
May believed that Heed was only after Cosey´s money, and Christine, now seeing her grandfather´s attention devoted to Heed, also began hating her. Together they made Heed´s life impossible.
Bill only stood aside, as a war was being battled in his own home, day in and day out. When he had a chance to fix things, he only made them worse.
Death, And a Will
But then Bill dies - or is murdered, depending on who you ask. The only will found is the scribble of a drunken man on a hotel napkin. Because of his unintelligible will, things between Heed and Christine get even worse.
Many years have passed since all of this, and now Heed is trying to find -or forge, whatever it takes, really- a more understandable will that would grant her everything. For this task she hires Junior, a runaway girl with her own agenda.
Morrison´s Genius
Toni Morrison is a wonderful writer, as it´s showcased by her Pulitzer Prize, and by her Nobel Prize in Literature. She uses the same amazing description in Love that she has in her other books, and the characters are original, interesting and believable.
Throughout the book Morrison does what every writer ought to do; she leaves the reader wanting more. She makes the reader fight between reading more, or going back to real life.
The only downside to this book is that at times it´s as unintelligible as Cosey´s will. Questions arise constantly that are at times answered, but not always. The biggest question mark is the ending, which, as good as the book is, still leaves the reader with a sour aftertaste in its mouth.
(Love, by Toni Morrison was published by Knopf in 2003. ISBN: 0-375-40944-0)
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