Don't Be Afraid
"Don't be afraid," begins A Mercy, Toni Morrison's new novel. I shared this sentence with one of my classes today and we had a fun time with a free-write exercise whose first sentence was "Don't be afraid." That class is full of poets, I tell you! Great stuff. We felt inspired by this narrator who was telling us (at least that's what we thought) not to be afraid...
On page two we begin to get a sense of the narrator's intention, this sixteen-year-old girl tells us her story in 1680 or thereabout. She tells us, "Let me start with what I know for certain" and we we go "Okay?" Because we are not sure if we will be familiar with what of her seventeenth century America she knows for certain, but we know she knows, especially when she says, "The beginning begins with the shoes." What shoes? Let's wait and see, right?
I am going to enjoy this story; I am willing to be transported to 1689 Virginia, Mary's Land, etc....
Morrison's novels are becoming more compact, as if she is reconnecting with the concise world of The Bluest Eye and Sula. But I am sensing that we have to value the purity of each word, as if we are reading poetry.
On page two we begin to get a sense of the narrator's intention, this sixteen-year-old girl tells us her story in 1680 or thereabout. She tells us, "Let me start with what I know for certain" and we we go "Okay?" Because we are not sure if we will be familiar with what of her seventeenth century America she knows for certain, but we know she knows, especially when she says, "The beginning begins with the shoes." What shoes? Let's wait and see, right?
I am going to enjoy this story; I am willing to be transported to 1689 Virginia, Mary's Land, etc....
Morrison's novels are becoming more compact, as if she is reconnecting with the concise world of The Bluest Eye and Sula. But I am sensing that we have to value the purity of each word, as if we are reading poetry.
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