" The bluest eye" by Toni Morrison: Review:

“Lonely was much better than alone.”

The bluest eye is a fiction written in the sixties by Toni Morrison .The story is set in the twentieth century, it tells the story of young black girl named Pecola .I must say it was a heavy read but told in a beautiful prose.

I experienced a variety of emotions reading this book, being amazed by the richness of the vocabulary and the lyricism of the language .I felt overwhelmed in some passages by the pain and trauma, disgusted and outraged by the turn of events .And then there was small moments of hope and joy.

The book sheds a light on how the perception of ourselves is dictated by the societies norms or in this case "whiteness" as a norm .How beauty standards are incorporated since a young age with all the damage it can cause .Pecola was labelled ugly by the society and it had a lasting effect on her .She experienced emotional and physical abuse from her family and classmates .She believed having the bluest eyes would change her fate .It was a book full of ugliness against this little girl .A book full of pain and trauma internalized by the protagonist and the characters leaving a small space for hope and joy .

The author chose to break the story into parts ,switching from a character to another .It may have been confusing at first ,but it incited me to focus more on each part and try to reassemble it while reading .

A passage I had to read many times:

"All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, and her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used—to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength."

The story may have happened in the twentieth century, but unfortunately it is still the case in the twenty first century.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did .If you've read the book, you’re welcome to share your thoughts and ideas.