Review: Beloved

Beloved, written by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison is a fictional novel set during the period when the anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum in the US. It tells the story of a small family with three main characters, one of which is a ghost. I'd heard a lot about this book from a lot of people and the fact that the author is a Nobel prize winner really made me want to read it. Now having finished it, if someone were to ask me to describe my experience (in one word) while reading this book, the word would be laboured. I had read somewhere that the author wanted the readers to have a "disorienting" experience while reading this book in order to reflect the period that the book was based in. I can assure you that she did succeed in creating that experience. The book often jumps from one timeline to another and that often left me confused. I used the word laboured because even though the book was difficult to read, I could sense that it was building up to an exciting conclusion. The exciting conclusion that I was waiting for didn't work for me though and I was left feeling a little lost. Another major reason I felt that this book was a tough read is because it is very contextual. Being an Indian, there were numerous references to the culture existing in the US that I didn't get. There were also several words that took me a while to figure out the context in which it was being used. Someone told me recently that the idea behind reading a book is to broaden your horizons. The reason I'm giving this book a three star rating is because it was successful in doing just that. Thanks to this book I was encouraged to find out more about the condition of the slaves and the subsequent anti-slavery movement. Have I benefited from reading this book? Yes. I would recommend this book to anyone who has the luxury to spend a little extra time researching the context in which it was written. I didn't have the luxury or the resources to do so which is probably while I couldn't enjoy this book as much as some of the others. I hope to return to this book someday in the distant future when I do have the luxury to do the additional research needed.

My Rating: 3/5