| Tar Baby |  | Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 6846943
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0452260124
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780452260122
ASIN: 0452260124
Publication Date: September 1, 1987
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Product Description
The author of Song of Solomon now sets her extraordinary novelistic powers on a striking new course. Tar Baby, audacious and hypnotic, is masterful in its mingling of tones--of longing and alarm, of urbanity and a primal, mythic force in which the landscape itself becomes animate, alive with a wild, dark complicity in the fates of the people whose drama unfolds. It is a novel suffused with a tense and passionate inquiry, revealing a whole spectrum of emotions underlying the relationships between black men and women, white men and women, and black and white people.
The place is a Caribbean island. In their mansion overlooking the sea, the cultivated millionaire Valerian Street, now retired, and his pretty, younger wife, Margaret, go through rituals of living, as if in a trance. It is the black servant couple, who have been with the Streets for years--the fastidious butler, Sydney, and his strong yet remote wife--who have arranged every detail of existence to create a surface calm broken only by sudden bursts of verbal sparring between Valerian and his wife. And there is a visitor among them--a beautiful young black woman, Jadine, who is not only the servant's dazzling niece, but the protegee and friend of the Streets themselves; Jadine, who has been educated at the Sorbonne at Valerian's expense and is home now for a respite from her Paris world of fashion, film and art.
Through a season of untroubled ease, the lives of these five move with a ritualized grace until, one night, a ragged, starving black American street man breaks into the house. And, in a single moment, with Valerian's perverse decision not to call for help but instead to invite the man to sit with them and eat, everything changes. Valerian moves toward a larger abdication. Margaret's delicate and enduring deception is shattered. The butler and his wife are forced into acknowledging their illusions. And Jadine, who at first is repelled by the intruder, finds herself moving inexorably toward him--he calls himself Son;he is a kind of black man she has dreaded since childhood; uneducated, violent, contemptuous of her privilege.
As Jadine and Son come together in the loving collision they have both welcomed and feared, the novel moves outward--to the Florida backwater town Son was raised in, fled from, yet cherishes; to her sleek New York; then back to the island people and their protective and entangling legends. As the lovers strive to hold and understand each other, as they experience the awful weight ofthe separate worlds that have formed them--she perceiving his vision of reality and of love as inimical to her freedom, he perceiving her as the classic lure, the tar baby set out to entrap him--all the mysterious elements, all the highly charged threads of the story converge. Everything that is at risk is made clear: how the conflicts and dramas wrought by social and cultural circumstances must ultimately be played out in the realm of the heart.
Once again, Toni Morrison has given us a novel of daring, fascination, and power.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...
"No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence." June 15, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Toni Morrison's fourth novel, published in 1981, between Song of Solomon (1997) and her Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved (1987), experiments with some of the techniques and themes which make the latter novel such a powerful achievement. Set, unusually, on Isle des Chevaliers, a Caribbean island owned by a white man who made his money manufacturing candy, the novel uses the small population who live and work at his house as a microcosm which illustrates themes of racial identity and culture. Valerian Street, now retired, lives at his island estate with his wife Margaret, a former beauty queen from Maine who hates the isolated island and can hardly wait to return to her "real" home in Philadelphia.
Two house servants, Sydney and Ondine, who have traveled from Philadelphia with the Streets, are also anxious to return to their more comfortable surroundings in Philadelphia. Their niece Jadine, a Sorbonne-educated fashion model who is visiting the island from Paris, straddles black and white culture. Valerian Street has paid for her education, and she stays in a guest room at the house, not in the quarters occupied by Sydney and Ondine. Jadine's decision about whether to marry her white boyfriend in Paris becomes significantly more difficult when Son, a black renegade from Florida, is discovered hiding in their house after jumping ship.
The passionate affair between Jadine and Son complicates the island's domestic life and leads to the intense development of the racial themes. Valerian insists that Son sit for Christmas dinner with the family, since his own son does not arrive for the holiday. Margaret is frightened by Son's flagrant sexuality. Sydney and Ondine find him uneducated and "uncultured," at least by their standards. Other blacks with whom Sydney and Ondine must deal in their day to day life take the blame for some of Son's actions, and Valerian is often cruel in his "discipline." The conflicts between black and white, between blacks living in a white world and blacks living in a black world, and the economic dominance of whites who live among blacks take center stage. Jadine traverses both worlds, but she finds that she is bored when she is in an all-black community of people uneducated in the white world, whereas Son finds that he, from rural Florida, cannot relate to blacks who live in New York City.
Morrison's style takes on tones of magic realism, as ghosts of the chevaliers, for whom the island is named, and spirits known as "swamp women" all participate in the action. Her shifting points of view, the overlapping narrative, and swirling, sometimes impressionistic, action all presage the style of Beloved. Symbols, especially of the tar baby, emphasize the themes, with much of the story being told through (occasionally tedious) dialogue. The conclusion is enigmatic, as Morrison leave the reader to decide whether important decisions made by various characters are the "right" ones and whether they indicate triumph or failure in this powerful story of racial identity. n Mary Whipple
The Bluest Eye (Oprah's Book Club)
Jazz
Sula
Love
A Mercy
What Is This Book About? June 11, 2007
I adore the writings of Toni Morrison but I got lost in the jungle of this book.
It is an interesting read because Morrison is so gifted and her use of language is so graceful, but I really had no clear idea of how many layers she had covered over her message with.
I wish she would go back to her "in your face" style of Bluest Eye or Song of Solomon or Sula.
I am simply not getting "it".
Toni Morrison's examination of this topic is, in my opinion, wonderful. June 3, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Each time I read this novel I appreciate it even more. The characters are carefully drawn, unveiling their idiosyncrasies layer by layer. Valerian's retreat into the greenhouse where he must learn how to get plants to bloom and ants to walk the other way is both amusing and pathetic. What I have found particularly enjoyable is Morrison's use of symbolism. The woman in the yellow dress, the tar pit, etc. all weave together to form a powerful novel. Perhaps not quite as arresting as "Beloved," "Tar Baby" certainly deserves high marks.
"Tar Baby" is among Morrison's best, and near the top of my list of American literature. Morrison's prose is angry here; perhaps that is why so many had a difficult time with this novel. I admit I do not agree with the racial philosophy of this book. The idea of a Black woman "selling out" is preposterous to me. But this does not lessen the impact of the statement, nor does it illegitimate the novel, allowing a reader to dismiss it as bigoted, or separatist. Rather, it exposes one to another point of view which, while disturbing, is nonetheless thought-provoking. Funny, but I always likened her writing style to Hemingway. Distinctly her own. While it is seldom easy to read a book of hers, she is an adept master of language, and crafts sentences filled with emotion and beauty.
It is too easy to say this book creates boundaries and contrasts- Black/White, Strong/Weak, Good/Bad. However, the point of the novel is identity. Toni Morrison's examination of this topic is, in my opinion, wonderful, and captivated me throughout.
The book may not be an easy read but it's also not a newspaper. Just like anything in life, what is worthwhile takes focus and time. I can whip through the works of Crichton and Grisham in a month and still would not get the knowledge and perspective that Tar Baby or almost any Morrison novel can offer.
If you want a light, airy read never take on the challenges of Morrison. If you want literature that has weight and an array of beautiful images and philosophies then "Tar Baby!" is worth the effort of resisting the quick read and delving into this text.
 A poignant and contemporary struggle April 11, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Morrison is such a masterful author. Her novels always have a force behind it that draws the reader in and makes sure that you understand the various points of view. We first see Valerian's point of view, and we agree with him. Then we see Margaret's point of view and we agree with her also, although Valerian and Margaret are arguing with each other. This is how Morrison brings a story to life, using recursive narration to move forward and back in time regardless of the time period that the novel is currently in. One minute we are looking at Valerian and his past, the next we are looking at Margaret until it catches up to the present storyline and then advances further, which allows us to understand how and why each character acts the way that they do. Simply masterful.
What is even more masterful is Morrison's ability to articulate the struggle between races, but more importantly the struggle that black people go through. Should one embrace their past and their culture as Son does, even though it means living in squalor and primitive ways? Or should one educate themselves and try to make their lives better as Jadine does? The struggle is huge, and this is what adds the powerful flavor to the story. Ultimately, it is the side of Jadine that wins over, I believe, the side that no longer blames the white man and "his" culture, but rather embraces her culture and attempts to further herself, as a black woman, rather than let the past weigh her down and prevent her from bettering herself.
A poignant novel, of which I would expect nothing less from Morrison. A definite recommend, not only the book but any of her books.
5 stars.
totally different than i envisioned- in a really great way December 14, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
When I began reading TarBaby I had no idea what it was about. I borrowed it from a high school classroom while I was student teaching and couldnt believe the difference between it and other Morrison novels while the language is beautiful and that is what makes it uniquely a Toni Morrison masterpiece. However, the love story between a black man and a woman who is black yet not, surprised me. Their love was so deep and so poignant - yet totally overwhelming and surprising at the same time.
The other story that is intertwined (that of Valerian Street and his dysfunctional upper-class white family) also startled me. I could not identify with the characters and found myself trying so hard to do so.
The ending of the novel left me wanting more. While it is not in Morrison's nature to write a sequel, I sincerely hope we find out what happens to Jadine, Son, and the Street's as their futures are left open-ended. Perhaps that is the point, and while I felt like the book could've gone on, I loved it nevertheless. Please read this book - it is one of Morrison's best!
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