In a neighborhood where pain - "adult pain that rested somewhere
under the eyelids" - is as pervasively omnipresent as the
loveliness of May's green shade trees, death and its omens can be
accepted as another face of God. But in the closed black community
of the high hill overlooking a white Ohio town, there are two who
stand outside the defensive webs of familial interdependence. There
is mad Shadrach, victim of World War I, who defies death's
capricious obscenity by ringing his bell for National Suicide Day
every year - and one year he has some takers. And Sula, who will
die, not like "other colored girls" rotting like a stump, but
falling "like a redwood." For she is the product of a "household of
throbbing disorder" and had learned isolation and the "meaningless
of responsibility" early when she accidentally caused the drowning
of a little boy. Intemperate, restless, Sula had some of the
arrogance of her one-legged grandmother Eva. It was Eva who had
long ago pondered the meaning of love when she used her only food
(lard scrapings) to cure her baby boy's bellyache; yet when her son
was a man, regressing to the womb of drugs, she burnt him to death.
Sula also watched her mother die in flames, conscious only that she
wanted the dying dance to go on. She left the village and returns
to become the community's unifying evil - but will the people
eventually love one who stood against the sky? Miss Morrison,
author of The Bluest Eye (1970) in her deceptively gentle
narrative, her dialogue that virtually speaks from the page, and
her multilayered perceptions drawn through the needle's eye of any
consciousness she creates, is undoubtedly a major and formidable
talent, and this is an impressive second novel. (Kirkus Reviews)
As girls, Nel and Sula shared each other's discoveries and dreams in the poor black mid-West of their childhood. Then Sula ran away to live her dreams and Nel got married. Ten years later Sula returns and no one, least of all Nel, trusts her. Sula is the story of the fear that makes people accept self-pity; the fear that will not countenance escape and that justifies itself through myth and legend. Sula herself is cast as a witch and demon by the people who resent her strength. They attack her with the most pervasive weapon of all, the weapon of language and story. But Sula is a woman of power, a wayward force who challenges the smallness of a world that tries to hold her down.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
