Toni Morrison, Novelist

TONI MORRISON, NOVELIST is a collection of essays on Morrison's eleven novels from THE BLUEST EYE to GOD HELP THE CHILD. The author of the collection analyses the novels strictly from a literary- critical point of view and deliberately avoids approaching them from any theoretical perspective, as he believes that Morrison's fiction-for that matter, literary work of any writer of merit, -- is too rich and complex to yield to theoretical analysis and that much would be lost by any such study. This position may sound heretical today, but invites accommodation in the present context when Morrison herself has declared that she contributes no ideology or theory. She is committed to the presentation of black experience, but she does so in a way to make it look like common human experience of the oppressed classes of people of any race, nationality, or color. A reader can easily relate to the characters in her novels and their lives. Morrison's fiction is not easy reading. A reader has to put in a good deal of effort to construct her story/plot, characters, and setting from the writer's non-traditional/non-liner ways of presenting them. TONI MORRISON, NOVELIST is written primarily to develop appreciation of Morrison's works among those who would require a little help.