First impressions review: Sula, by Toni Morrison

 

How can so short a book - thinner than my thumb - be so hard to describe, and stir up so many emotions? 'Sula' revolves around two black women growing up in a (probably unofficially?) segregated Ohio town in the 1920s, who are each other's complement and shadow. Nel is the daughter of an upright church woman, Helene, who relies on rules and respectability to shield herself from racism, and from the legacy of her own mother, a New Orleans sex worker - but, of course, that never really works. The titular Sula comes from a vibrantly messy family that includes sharp-tongued one-legged matriarch Eva; Sula's effortlessly sensual mother Hannah, who somehow manages to sleep with every man in town without annoying anyone; and various waifs and strays including the trio of boys known only as "the Deweys". The two girls gravitate toward one another, sharing a deep unspoken bond. Over time, their different approaches to life seem to drive them apart, and yet each remains the other's center of gravity.

What I liked:

            First off, the writing is absolutely beautiful, both earthy and poetic. The story is sad, and yet full of occasional ordinary joys and pleasures coexisting with hardship. For instance, very early in the book it says:

...if a valley man happened to have business up in those hills - collecting rent or insurance payments - he might see a dark woman in a flowered dress doing a bit of cakewalk...The black people watching her would laugh and rub their knees, and it would be easy for the valley man to hear the laughter and not notice the adult pain that rested somewhere under the eyelids...He'd have to stand in the back of Greater Saint Matthew's and let the tenor's voice dress him in silk, or touch the hands of the spoon carvers (who had not worked in eight years)...Otherwise the pain would escape him even though the laughter was part of the pain.

            It isn't a 'magical realism' book, but something about the flow of the language, the oddness of some of the characters and events, and the overall structure of the story makes it feel that way, even though, strictly speaking, nothing magical or unrealistic is happening. Sula is regarded as something of a witch, though it is the way people react to her presence that has an alchemical effect on the town, more than anything she actively does. The townsfolk are drawn together, become kinder to each other, in opposition to the evil they think they see in her. And after she dies many of them are struck with a wild rebellion that is very Sula, striking out at a symbol of their oppression in a way that is both glorious and...fatal. I was going to say 'self destructive', but of course it is the exact opposite of that, a true expression of feelings long bottled up, come what may.

            This book also explores in really interesting ways how prejudice (from both inside and outside one's own group), financial hardship, gender roles, and all the other things that make limits and boundaries can shape how people think about themselves and about life itself. Different characters respond in different ways, all with limited success, but all are looking for a way to survive and find meaning and - at least in some cases - be true to themselves.

When Hannah asks Eva: "Mama, did you ever love us?" Eva replies:

'You settin' here with your healthy-assed self and ax me did I love you? Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes full of maggots if I hadn't'

'I didn't mean that, Mamma...Did you ever, you know, play with us?'

'Play? Wasn't nobody playin' in 1895...They wasn't no time...With you all coughin' and me watchin' so TB wouldn't take you off and if you was sleepin' quiet I thought, O Lord, they dead...what you talkin' bout did I love you girl I stayed alive for you..."

While Nel stays and gets married, Sula somehow manages to leave town, go to college, see the world. But she comes back, in the middle of a plague of robins. Eva asks her: "When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It'll settle you." To which Sula says:

I don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself...Whatever's burning in me is mine...And I'll split this town in two and everything in it before I let you put it out.

Sula is fiercely independent, but she is lonely too. She struggles with that, but as she says at one point:

My lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you.

            I must admit, through the early part of the book part of me kept hoping Nel and Sula were going to get together, though I knew they wouldn't; there was no clear indication of either of them having a sexual or romantic interest in women, and the social conditions probably wouldn't allow it if they did. But the rest of the book did bear out that their relationship is the most important one in both their lives, deeper and closer than any they could have with a man, if only because they can treat each other as equals. Nel describes her feelings about Sula's return thus:

Sula. Who made her laugh, who made her see old things with new eyes, in whose presence she felt clever, gentle, and a little raunchy...Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself. Was there anyone else before whom she could never be foolish?...Even Nel's love for Jude, which over the years had spun a steady gray web around her heart, became a bright and easy affection..."

Nel is the main reason Sula comes back to her hometown, and after she semi-inadvertently betrays Nel and drives her away, she thinks:

She had clung to Nel as the closest thing to both an other and a self, only to discover that she and Nel were not one and the same thing...Nel was the one person who had wanted nothing from her, who accepted all aspects of her...She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and never could be - for a woman.

When Sula is dying, her last thought is of Nel, and it is Nel who brings Sula medicine and who makes sure she gets a decent burial, even though at the time she is still convinced she hates her old friend. You see why part of my brain was going "Just kiss already!" every time they interact, right? You don't often see this intense a 'platonic soulmates' relationship in fiction (or in life, for that matter)...but that certainly doesn't mean such a bond is impossible or shouldn't be valued for what it is.

What I didn't like:

            I don't think I would change a word of this book. There are things that are hard to read, things that are weird and slightly hard to follow, and some rough language at times, but they all fit. For instance, every man in the book is basically worthless - which is technically unrealistic, but completely makes sense with how Nel and Sula have probably experienced the world. Similarly, their reaction when they are young to the death of another child is very odd, but it works because it is an extreme version of the secrets young girls often share and illustrates their ride-or-die relationship at that point.

Recommendation:

            A short and satisfying read, so absolutely give this one a look if you can find it. Very timely, as well - and not just at the time I'm writing this. While Black Lives Matter, a reinvigorated attention to everyday sexism, and a pandemic that illustrates how little true control we have over our lives makes it feel particularly appropriate right now, there is much in this book from 1974 that will, sadly, likely resonate with readers for some time yet to come.