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Song of Solomon
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Song of Solomon
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Song of Solomon
Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

Song of Solomon

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 26, 2009
ISBN9780307704351
Unavailable
Song of Solomon

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Reviews for Song of Solomon

Rating: 4.056029946733668 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the story of a family whose last name is "Dead." Macon Dead is the father, married to Ruth who was the daughter of a locally famous Black doctor. Macon despises Ruth and Macon is caught somewhere between. Ruth lives in the past with her father, Macon lives to accumulate wealth. Their son, Macon, soon earns the nickname "Milkman" due to Ruth's nursing of him well past the time of toddlerhood.Macon is estranged from his sister Pilate who lives with her daughter Reba and her granddaughter Hagar. Pilate wears an earring made of a tiny brass box carrying her name as written by her father who picked it out of the Bible. Milkman and Hagar eventually carry on an affair but Milkman leaves her leaving her angry and out to kill him.There are so many family situations, most not good. Milkman eventually returns to where the family originated as slaves and finds out much of his family history. This is a book about the importance of family names and history; however, there is just too much weirdness for my taste.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very well written, I look forward to reading more by Toni Morrison.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this book for a Lit class, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I had heard horror stories about Beloved, and assumed that Song of Solomon would be the same way. Either Song of Solomon was better, or I just have a taste for the darkness of Toni Morrison that my friends don't, because I really liked it. The writing was wonderful and the characters were interesting. It's a strange book, and some weird things happen, but they seem to make sense in the context of the book. I'd recommended to anyone who wants to read something very different.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read in March 2001. There were different reactions to this book. This was the first Toni Morrison read for most of us, though some have read Beloved and The Bluest Eye. Beautifully written dealing with complex family issues ..... this book took us to a different place altogether and generated an interesting discussion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I took a Toni Morrison seminar, and had to read nearly all of her books. Many of them were entirely too depressing, had predominantly female characters, and involved themes of child molestation as well as race hostilities. Song of Solomon has some characteristics of other Toni Morrison books, but the primary characters are male, and it is at least not the same kind of depressing. I found this to be a beautiful story, and would recommend it to anybody.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Song of Solomon is an absolutely brilliant synthesis of a mythic journey, family drama and story of origin. There are strong echos of James Baldwin, and probably many other authors of whom I am ignorant. Morrison juggles a lot of ideas without looking like she's trying too hard. The characters are compelling and real, and they grow and learn in a bumpy real-world way. Milkman, who chafes at his father's attitudes about life, waits until he is in his thirties to take his voyage of self-discovery. My favorite up-ended traditional character is Pilates, who is an earth-mothery root worker who ends up being just plain wrong about the dominant spirit in her life.It's worth reading the book just for the names, which provide the kind of humor that one character describes as being vital to living life as a black woman. An ancestor of the main character, being illiterate, unintentionally accepts a post-slavery surname of "Dead" and names his children by pointing at the Bible, resulting in some of the best names in English-language literature.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of my favorites - and my favorite of Morrison's books. I was introduced to this book in 1978 in a college lit class. I've read it many times since and own too many copies to count because I get a craving to read it and need it now!I love the beauty of Toni Morrison's words and the terribly complicated but simply human characters of this novel. The plot takes me to places and worlds I would never know without this book. I want to know Pilate and Circe as strongly as my own grandmothers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another one of my favorites. In my opinion, this is Morrison's best book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Song of Solomon is a well written book that helps you learn from the main character Milkman of who he really is. You feel sorry for him even though he is a jerk towards others, but learn to love him as he becomes more aware of his own life. There are many twist, and turns in the book that build up to the plot, and the ending will be unsuspecting. This is a must read book if you love to learn about African-American liturature.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This may be Morrison's best novel. It's a great story about a quest to find one's people and learn to fly. This is also a good book for someone reading Toni Morrison for the first time since the style is a lot more accessible than her other books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was really an amazing book. It is the only Morrison book other than Beloved that I have read, and, while this one does not quite compare to Beloved, it was still excellent.The only negative that I can come up with is that there is a bit too much plot. I feel like Morrison's writing is at a high enough level that she can forgo some of the plot and just write. She gives the reader a feeling of deep, deep roots and a beautiful melancholy that is enough without the overwrought plot. Her writing is reminiscent of Faulkner, which is for me, a very high compliment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    African/indigenous spirituality at its deepest and finest. Sister Morrison channeled this story as a gift for those of us who innerstand.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5

    “You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

    -

    It has been a while since I have lost myself in Toni Morrison. Her work speaks for itself. The best way I can describe this is the beginning of the book is preparing itself for flight, the middle of the book is gaining the speed needed for lift off, and the ending of the book has taken flight and headed to its destination.

    -

    “Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is one of the most chilling tales from author Toni Morrison.

    Like many of Morrison’s works, the setting is created with black people in mind. Morrison uses this to share history both factual and some loosely true. The themes of family, secrecy, roots, linage, love and death show themselves throughout this work.

    The audiobook itself is not read completely by the author. For some reason there are bits throughout that were read by a man. (Not clear explanation as to why) this can be distracting but is manageable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Macon Dead, Jr. was born the day another man jumped from the cupola of the hospital wearing homemade wings and couldn't fly. When he's a young boy, he gets the nickname "Milkman" when a man comes in and sees that his mother still nurses him. These are just pieces of his story, as he grows up and becomes a man, falls in and out of love, and learns about family.I am convinced that Toni Morrison writes everything with a precision of language that is truly remarkable. This is only the second novel of hers that I've written besides Beloved. It was written fifteen years earlier and on the surface is very different, with a lot of dialogue and less descriptive passages. But it is stunning. I hesitate to say too much because the way the last third of the book unfolds is amazing. Did I like it? I don't know, but it will definitely stick with me for a long time. An excellent book club pick.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Morrison kan een stukje schrijven, dat maakt dit boekje wel duidelijk. Maar ze vergt toch ook wel wat haar lezer: soms neemt ze haar tijd om situaties uitgebreid te beschrijven, soms (vooral in het laatste deel) neemt het verhaal een rotvaart, en heel dikwijls loopt ze vooruit op de gebeurtenissen, zodat pas na enkele tientallen pagina's de puzzelstukjes in elkaar vallen. Het thema van deze roman: de identiteit van een man, in dit geval de zwarte Milkman Dead, eigenlijk een rijkeluiszoontje dat zich van niemand iets aantrekt, maar zich eens voorbij de 30 realiseert dat hij eigenlijk een "man zonder eigenschappen" is, die volledig afhankelijk is van zijn vader. Milkman raakt in de war door de zeer tegenstrijdige verhalen die hij hoort van zijn familieleden. De zucht naar een vermeende goudschat en het verlangen om duidelijkheid te krijgen over de afkomst naar zijn familie trekt hij naar het zuiden. De raadsels vinden (gedeeltelijk) hun oplossing in een kinderliedje.Dit is een rijke roman, met vele lagen: de zwarte problematiek komt aan bod, maar staat zeker niet centraal; dat geldt ook voor de positie van vrouwen; uiteindelijk is het de zoektocht van een man naar zijn sociale achtergrond die primeert; je bent getekend door je voorouders, lijkt de boodschap van Morrison.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A beautiful, deeply moving book about family, relationships, communication, community and belonging, about racism and class. There are characters here I will carry with me for a long time, I am so glad I listened to Toni Morrison reading the book aloud. A beautiful reading voice and perfect sensitivity.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Song of Solomon is about the past, present, and future of an extended family whose ancestors were slaves. The character names were brilliant. The novel has many layers of meaning and contexts in which it might be appreciated, and the names are just the beginning to unraveling them. One of my favorites. A bold coming of age story threaded with a complex understanding of black culture. Milkman's birth is signified by a man's vain attempt to fly, symbolizing Milkman's continued efforts to fly throughout the rest of the novel. Worth the read, requires work to understand.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Completely awesome.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like a lot of great literature or art in general, Toni Morrison’s ‘Song of Solomon’ is not a tidy little story where everything is easily comprehensible, and that may put some readers off. It’s also not a book that depicts African-American characters as downtrodden victims, as successive men in generations of the Macon Dead family succeed at farming, being a doctor, and in real estate. Within its long and winding story it does describe elements of the African-American experience that seem so alive today, 40 years after the book was written: the police using profiling and stopping people just for being black, the justice system not caring about black people getting killed, and the excessive, random, and arbitrary violence of white people towards blacks, and for that alone it’s well worth reading.Morrison’s style is unique, as she writes at times with magical realism and poetically weaves her way through the story, and at others with dialogue and events that are so direct and real that they sear on the page. You may shudder at the ‘Seven Days’ club’s desire for vengeance, but Morrison does not flinch in describing this. Her writing seems very honest in so many ways: in the banter in her characters’ dialogue, the relationships between men and woman particularly when there is sexual obsession, and in the observations she makes, such as at one point expressing the criticism that there is sometimes a tendency for blacks to excuse themselves from doing better because everything is “The Man’s fault”. One of the central themes of the book is the hope of transcending difficult conditions, and also to know one’s past, one’s people. Most have lost their real names and sometimes get the ridiculous names out of white hubris, or because “White people name Negroes like race horses”, and indeed, the dedication to the book reads “The fathers may soar, and the children may know their names”. The book is ambitious in its scope and in how the story was told. Maybe too ambitious for an even higher rating from me. Parts of the plot don’t seem plausible, such as Guitar’s actions towards Milkman towards the end, though perhaps they are also symbolic. Regardless, all in all, a good read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Morrison kan een stukje schrijven, dat maakt dit boekje wel duidelijk. Maar ze vergt toch ook wel wat haar lezer: soms neemt ze haar tijd om situaties uitgebreid te beschrijven, soms (vooral in het laatste deel) neemt het verhaal een rotvaart, en heel dikwijls loopt ze vooruit op de gebeurtenissen, zodat pas na enkele tientallen pagina's de puzzelstukjes in elkaar vallen. Het thema van deze roman: de identiteit van een man, in dit geval de zwarte Milkman Dead, eigenlijk een rijkeluiszoontje dat zich van niemand iets aantrekt, maar zich eens voorbij de 30 realiseert dat hij eigenlijk een "man zonder eigenschappen" is, die volledig afhankelijk is van zijn vader. Milkman raakt in de war door de zeer tegenstrijdige verhalen die hij hoort van zijn familieleden. De zucht naar een vermeende goudschat en het verlangen om duidelijkheid te krijgen over de afkomst naar zijn familie trekt hij naar het zuiden. De raadsels vinden (gedeeltelijk) hun oplossing in een kinderliedje.Dit is een rijke roman, met vele lagen: de zwarte problematiek komt aan bod, maar staat zeker niet centraal; dat geldt ook voor de positie van vrouwen; uiteindelijk is het de zoektocht van een man naar zijn sociale achtergrond die primeert; je bent getekend door je voorouders, lijkt de boodschap van Morrison.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the passages that struck me most was that of several African American men talking about the murder of Emmett Till. It could be a contemporary discussion of the murder of Trayvon Martin. "They say Till had a knife," Freddie said. "They always say that. He could of had a wad of bubble gum, they'd swear it was a hand grenade."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Macon Dead, III, is coming of age in the Southside of Chicago (you know, the "baddest part of town"), where his father is a prosperous and respected man of property (read "landlord"), his mother is the daughter of the first black physician in the city, and his two older sisters make velvet roses to sell to department stores while drifting into terminal spinsterhood. His parents' loveless marriage occasionally erupts into low-level violence. None of this seems to matter much to Macon (who is known in the community as "Milkman", for reasons unknown to him), until one night at the dinner table, when without forethought, he decks his father for hitting his mother. From that moment on, spurred partly by his father's peculiar version of the "she had it coming" speech, Milkman becomes more interested in his family, his identity, his life. He learns bits and pieces of his family history from various individuals; sometimes the pieces fit, but often they contradict one another and raise more questions than they answer. As Milkman grows older he becomes more and more determined to sort out his place in his "tribe", to learn why names are so important, and what Life and Love are really worth. His roots-journeys to his family's former homes in Danville, PA, and Shalimar, VA, as well as into his own head and heart, make for a captivating and beautiful story. This doesn't happen often, but I am tempted to turn back to the beginning of this marvelous novel and re-read the whole thing right now.Review written April 2014
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Morrison's third novel is a little bit more ambitious than the first two in the amount of time and space it covers; it's also unlike the first two in using a male central character — a choice prompted by the recent death of the author's father — although, as you would expect, it's still full of strong female characters. But in other ways we are very much still in the world of the earlier novels. The core setting for at least the first part is the black community of a small industrial town on the Great Lakes around 1940; the story is framed by two families, one that defines itself by "respectability" and its social and economic success compared to other families in the black community and the other that consists of three generations of strong, independent women without men, who seem to care nothing for other people's rules and conventions.At the centre of the story is Milkman. He's officially called Macon Dead, like his father and grandfather — who originally got the name when a drunken official registering freed slaves filled in a form in the wrong order — but universally known by the nickname that reflects his mother's attempt to delay his growing up as long as possible. We follow his progress from being the spoilt son of a successful local businessman to a kind of self-realisation through the perils and humiliations of a journey back into his family's past in the South. With plenty of the kind of grotesque, paradoxical and borderline magic-realist elements you would expect in a Morrison novel, he learns that you can't be a fully-developed human being until you understand some important things about who you are and where you come from and what it means to love and be loved. Reading this directly after the first two, it felt a little bit drier, more detached in its style: there is a lot of suffering and injustice, some brutal murders and even more abrupt and tragic pieces of self-destruction, but they are just that little bit further away from us as readers than they were in Sula and The bluest eye. It's hard to say whether that makes it more or less effective as a novel, though: it's simply a different approach.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dang. This one left me reeling a little. Morrison is honestly one of THE BEST American writers in our literary history. She creates a narrative and a mythology regarding a family, and she teases you with little bits throughout until you find yourself captivated by this incredible story. And then she gives you an ending that is both unsatisfying and fulfilling AT THE SAME TIME. It's a puzzle, and she does it better than anybody. Song of Solomon starts off slow but it picks up speed, and the characters gain clarity and poignancy as the story moves on. The end of the book feels like the end of Darren Aronofsky's film The Wrestler: you think you know how it will end, but you're really not sure. It's abrupt, and you as the reader are left to fill in the blanks.

    This is a book that, like many of Morrison's others, is best read with patience and curiosity. The payoff was worthwhile. Not a starting point if you've never read Morrison, but definitely a must-read if you're a fan. 4.5 stars.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Toni Morrison’s third novel was written in response to her father’s death, and was her first book to focus predominantly on male characters. In her essay, The Site of Memory, Morrison wrote, “But it seemed to me that there was this big void after he died, and I filled it with a book that was about men … But I created a male world and inhabited it and it had this quest--a journey from stupidity to epiphany, of a man, a complete man. It was my way of exploiting all that, of trying to figure out what he may have known.”Milkman is the youngest child of Ruth and Macon Dead. Ruth’s father was a well-known doctor; Macon’s mother died in childbirth and his father was murdered by whites. Macon earns his living as landlord for low-rent homes in the city’s Black community, and considers his relative financial success as something that sets him apart from his tenants. He is a tough landlord and a difficult husband and father. And then there’s Macon’s sister, Pilate, who lives nearby with her daughter Reba and granddaughter Hagar. Macon is estranged from Pilate and forbids his children from seeing her.Milkman enters adulthood with little knowledge of the dynamics operating within his family. As he comes to understand some of his history, he feels compelled to discover his roots (the possibility of financial gain is also a strong motivator). Thus begins a journey, a sort of quest, in which Milkman retraces the path of his ancestors, as best he can determine by piecing together family legend. Like any good quest, he discovers much more about himself along the way. This is a richer, more layered story than I have described here, populated with a cast of memorable characters. I know Morrison was intentionally placing men at the center of this book, but I can’t help wishing she’d also written a full-length novel focused on Pilate, a strong and colorful woman if there ever was one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There are some great characters in this book but I have to confess the story line didn’t really develop for me until the last quarter of the book. Nevertheless it was a genuine pleasure to listen to this book read by the author herself in a slow evocative narration. Maicon Dead is a black real estate magnate in a northern city in Michigan and he married the classiest black woman he could find. Ruth was the daughter of a black doctor who was revered among the black community. They had two daughters and after a long hiatus a son also named Macon but called Milkman by everyone (for a reason gone into in the book). Macon the elder was not raised in Michigan; he and his sister Pilate grew up in a small rural community in Pennsylvania but when they were quite young their father was shot and killed. Their mother had died giving birth to Pilate so they were alone in the world. After sheltering for a while with the local black healer and midwife they left together because they could not show their faces in the community or they would also be killed. The brother and sister became separated with Macon going north and Pilate travelling around the US. By the time Milkman is born Pilate has also moved to Chicago. She with her daughter and granddaughter operate an unlicensed wine shop out of an old house that has no electricity or running water. Macon doesn’t want anything to do with his sister and has forbidden Milkman to see her but of course Milkman is drawn to this mysterious aunt. He and his buddy Guitar become frequent visitors and Milkman becomes romantically involved with the granddaughter who is about his age. Years pass; Milkman becomes an essential part of the father’s business but longs to do something else. When he breaks off his relationship with his cousin she becomes enraged and vows to kill him. Milkman does then leave Michigan and follows his family’s northward path in reverse. He tracks down the truth and myth of his grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s origins. Excited by his discoveries he returns home to tell his father and his aunt what he has learned.Names are important in this story. Sometimes names are changed and sometimes they are chosen. Biblical names are common; Pilate’s name was chosen by her illiterate father out of the Bible when she was born. The slip of paper on which he wrote the name carefully copied from the text of the Bible is cherished by her. Milkman’s sisters’ names were also chosen from the Bible with one of them being called First Corinthians. The story of Milkman’s own nickname is an important part of his background story. His great-grandfather’s name was changed after emancipation. The family story includes the fact of the changing but not what it was changed from. I imagine Morrison draws attention to naming to highlight how Africans brought as slaves to the US were named by the slave owners usually using the white owner’s last name as the slaves’ last name. It is the ultimate proof of freedom to choose a name for one’s own children but that is something whites take for granted.Morrison also incorporates elements of the supernatural into this story. Pilate hears a message from her dead father; there is a story about the slave great-grandfather leaping into the sky and flying back to Africa. I’ve noticed this in some other more contemporary works by African-Americans (such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer and The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead) I’m not sure if this is a trend that Morrison started or if it is a long-standing tradition in black storytelling. Something to explore.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Interesting book about black relations. Read almost like a fairy tale with allusions to flying and a children's song abou the main charachter "Milkman's" family. All the names of the charachters were indicative of something. Lots of refrences to the Bible. I felt like I understood a lot but that there was a lot hidden in the book I didn't get.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Thanks to everyone who recommended I read this next. fanciful and heartbreaking, a family history and late bildungsroman, just an amazing read full of gripping characters being terrible to each other, and the entitled young man who only seeks out the reasons why because of a treasure hunt... Really this is a stunning novel and should be required reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    To me this novel is about not being limited by your history and circumstance, but learning to understand, transcend and even love it. I was struck most when I read it about Pilate Dead's ability to love others and propel Milkman to transcendence over self and sense of place in the world.

    The character names were brilliant. The novel has many layers of meaning and contexts in which it might be appreciated, and the names are just the beginning to unraveling them.