Toni Morrison takes a more relaxing Caribbean pace to tell a story which involves sex, colonialism, and love. It is a tantalzing mix and, as always, so well-written. I loved how the narration passed fluidly from one character to the other and how several scenes were narrated by butterflies outside the windows observing the crazy humans. Also, the dialogs in the story are incredibly realistic.In a nutshell, Valerian is a 70-year-old wealthy American businessman who has purchased an island near Ha...

It is difficult to explain the force that permeates Toni Morrison's books. I felt drunk on words by the end of this book.In this book's foreword Toni Morrison writes: "All narrative begins for me as listening. When I read, I listen. When I write, I listen—for silence, inflection, rhythm, rest. Then comes the image, the picture of the thing I have to invent to invent: the headless bride in her wedding gown; the forest clearing."I took these words to be instructive and tried to read this story thi...

Everyone knows that Beloved is Toni Morrison's most famous work, but I would argue that Tar Baby is better. There are so many relationships in this book and so many layers to each of those relationships. Love, sex, race, gender, class, ethnicity, even geography...there isn't much Morrison doesn't take on in this beautiful story. And, of course, there are always those heart-stopping passages that Morrison's writing never fails to produce. Tar Baby is an absolute must-read, and if you have the pri...

After reading Morrison's Tar Baby I felt slighted. Although I know that a perfect resolution is not required, I felt as though she left the primary characters' conflicts unresolved. Jadine and Son especially. Maybe I am a hopeless romantic and wished for them to make it, for their love to sustain them where ever they traveled, whether from Isle des Chevaliers, New York, Eloe to Paris. The situation on Isle des Chevaliers, at Valerian's house seemed a bit more tidied up. Morrison conveyed a sense...

Toni Morrison is amazing. She is the greatest of all time (in my opinion); but really, which other author could keep me entertained and awestruck on Every single page for five consecutive books? I must preface all reviews of her writings with total praise and veneration because her work demands nothing less. I did not expect to enjoy this as much, since Tar Baby is one of her less popular books, but as it turns out this is my favorite of her books so far and not only that, it is now one of my fa...

Re-read this for a little litery refreshment and I just feel like Toni can do no wrong. Clunky, ridiculous ending and all, this novel is a mountain of incendiary ideas about identity: black identity, black womanhood, black manhood, cultural identity, childhood trauma, motherhood, class, sex, and on and on. But seriously, what is the ending of this novel??? Nonetheless, I live.

The opening of this book was a complete surprise to me as a moderately seasoned TM reader – it felt just like the start of an action movie, some kind of spy thriller, only infused with poetic beauty. Something of this atmosphere persisted; perhaps because of Valerian, the white millionaire, who somehow wears an arch-villain halo even when he’s being likeable. I also found the dialogue sparky and often humorous, the tone frequently lightSo is it a light book? Noooooo of course not. From the turbu...

I simply can't stomach a book in which I'm expected to accept that a woman falls in love with a man who essentially sexually assaults her, and whose justification for it is explicitly that he was so in awe of her that he needed to debase her.This is the core of the "romantic relationship" at the center of this book, and while the book is critical of the gender dynamics in Jadine and Son's relationship as they attempt to sort out whose world they will live in and whose relationship model they wil...

RereadI remembered practically nothing from my first read of this (thirty years ago), so it was all fresh, though I did have Morrison’s comments about the folktale she was exploring (not retelling) in my head. In the version she heard growing up, the tar baby was female; the big implication being it was a Black seductress. An obvious “tar baby” of the novel is Jadine, her real name insisted upon by Son, even as she is called Jade by her benefactors, friends, and in her career. Son insists on Yar...

"The island exaggerated everything. Too much light. Too much shadow. Too much rain. Too much foliage and much too much sleep."- Toni Morrison, Tar BabyI think the tropical Caribbean setting and all the talk of candy and flowers fooled me into thinking that this would be one of Toni Morrison's simpler reads. It turns out that like with most Toni Morrison books, it's impossible to summarize everything; there's just too much to talk about.In this novel we meet retired rich American Valerian Street

I'm wondering how many 1 and 2 star ratings came from readers thinking this would be a good Caribbean vacation beach read. I also wonder how many of them were clueless to the meaning of the term "tar baby". Sigh... There should be no need to discuss that, it's rather obvious that, well, ALL the characters, black, white and mulatto, were tar babies. Inextricably stuck to who they are, no matter where they are, they cannot escape themselves, their pasts, their childhoods. In fact, WE ARE ALL tar b...

If you don't think Toni Morrison is the greatest just go ahead and unfriend me because I don't like you and I want to fight you.

xxxxxxx

Tar Baby was the #ReadSoulLit read along selection for this year and I am truly conflicted about how I felt about this story. Toni Morrison is not an author that writes stories that you can just blow through. It takes true concentration and thoughtfulness to work your way through one of her books. She will take her readers to some truly dark places and leave you to figure out a character's true motivation, which is a good thing. Tar Baby of course explores themes of race and tensions among peopl...

Not a bad book, there are some things that I'm still working out and I'm waiting for the rest of the book club to come together so I can get a better handle on the story. Right now, 3 stars, but I'm giving it room to grow upon considerable reflection.

This is my fifth Toni Morrison novel (after Beloved, Jazz, The Bluest Eye, and Paradise). I'm on the fence about this one. On one hand, "Tar Baby" is a meaty study for students of literature, appropriate for various levels of engagement. On the other hand, I couldn't wait to get through it. I have little patience for theatrics, which became a problem when the cast walked in with their inner monologue and dialogue-heavy scenes. The most intriguing characters are the locals of Dominique, but I was...

Pretty much any possible interaction between blacks and whites, rich and poor, man and woman, is played out in this novel - there are no real resolutions and some of the relationships are wildly overplayed, but overall this is an incredible piece of literature that I could see spending an entire semester on in college. It is basically the story of the rich white Valerian who retires to the Caribbean where his much younger wife broods over the absence of her college-aged son who is racked by whit...

Enthralling! Enchanting! Electrifying. Ms. Morrison's "Tar Baby" is all of that and so much more. Set mainly on an island in the Caribbean, where a rich, retired candy manufacturer, has built a mansion high on top of a mountain where he lives with his young wife, thirty years younger than him, his butler Sydney and his wife and cook Ondine and occasionally their niece, Jadine, whom the butler and cook have raised since her mother died when she was very young. Jadine is beautiful and black like h...

My personal opinion on the book? Well, I believe that the book was terrible and I would not recommend this book to anyone. I say that because the book was altogether irrelevant and I did not understand why it was written. To add fuel to the fire, it was boring. There was no action whatsoever and the first few chapters of the book was meaningless. If I had to give the book a rating out of 5 stars, I would literally give it a 1 star. I would give it that because at least she tried to write somethi...

Wow. I shall be needing to sleep on this book....