Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

This fight is for everything.

Not all heroes wear capes.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

No one could have predicted…

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Bark louder, little dog.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP Toni Morrison

RIP Toni Morrison

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We’ve lost a giant.

Thread here for any remembrances, or just literary fandom.

I’ll start: the writing speaks for itself. Others speak of her unparalleled commitment to other writers, of color, of course, but also to anyone driven to the vital act of committing words to paper:

I just retweeted that one.  Then there’s this:

And with that, over to you.

Images: Toni Morrison lecture at West Point Military Academy in March, 2013. photo credited to West Point.

Toni Morrison signature.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    FROM TONI MORRISON:

    The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    She was so authentically herself; just watching her in interviews was a wonder. She chose all her answers with deliberateness. Her mastery of the English language put her on another plain.

    True realized genius.

    RIP. :(

  3. 3.

    bruins01

    Toni Morrison wrote the single best opening line of any novel, ever:

    “The shoot the white girl first.”

  6. 6.

    artem1s

    “I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”

    that’s some powerful stuff right there. I think this is the exact quality I hope to see in a leader and candidate running for public office. Are they in a power grab? or are they empowering those around them – are they hell bent on setting all of us free?

  9. 9.

    Booger

    ‘Beloved’ was the worst book I ever read…and I mean that in the best way possible.

  11. 11.

    greenergood

    How to convey sorrow for someone you didn’t know as an individual, but gave you every sense of what it’s like to be a real live person? Thank you so much, Toni Morrison. In an earlier post I wrote that you were the greatest US novelist of the late 20th/21st century. Your writing made me think about US life and history in ways we were never taught in school, though so many of us knew from experience (not me – as a white girl, Toni Morrison’s prose was my teaching ground). Thank you so much for all your beautiful, breathtaking words …

  12. 12.

    Gemina13

    Toni Morrison was a master of the literary craft. Her prose was both direct and evocative, so straightforward that you couldn’t miss the point, and so poetic it made you catch your breath with moments of perfect beauty. And her stories . . . God, her stories. My favorite was “Sula,” but “Beloved” is one of the finest American ghost stories ever written.

  14. 14.

    laura

    I posted this at another place in the blogosphere and only want to add that she referenced using the power you have to do the work that needs doing – helping each other get through this life:
    Each and every word, carrying the full weight of its potential, arrayed in sentences so freighted with meaning to enlighten and burden the reader with truths so profound, so ultimately obvious, and stripped of easy comforts or dodges back into the safety of pretending we are who we hope to be.
    She was a Master of literary achievements. May her name be a blessing.

  16. 16.

    JanieM

    I love the tweet in the OP that starts “Language preserved for a future we will not see…” — both Tom’s words and Toni Morrison’s. It reminds me of a W. S. Merwin poem called “Place” that I ran across recently (maybe even here?). It starts out:

    On the last day of the world
    I would want to plant a tree…

  17. 17.

    AM in NC

    I didn’t read her until grad school – shame on my undergrad institution who let me get through an English major in the late 1980s without reading her. Her novels were a revelation in so many ways. I will miss her light in the world.

  18. 18.

    moonbat

    Before “woke” was even a thing, Toni Morrison’s writing woke me up. It changed me with it’s beauty and its tragedy and it’s truth. She was peerless.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: Good. I don’t want Trump anywhere near Morrison.

    FWIW, she has a distinctive signature. I know so little about her, but it is thrilling to have lived and breathed the same air with some of these people who are “for the ages.” I am glad she was recognized during her lifetime, and then some.

  20. 20.

    Felanius Kootea

    The first Toni Morrison book I ever read was The Bluest Eye; I was a teenager and it just opened my eyes to a new world.
    RIP Toni Morrison. Thank you for bringing us Pecola Breedlove, Violet Trace, Sethe (Margaret Garner), and other unforgettable
    characters.

  21. 21.

    Lynn Walthall

    @SiubhanDuinne: I miss moral leadership. Obama excels at it, but I miss even the decent feint toward it. Of all the things to mourn in the Trump era, I mourn that the most. God, I think so poorly of anyone who voted for this current travesty, for any reason.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    AFAIK, Trump hasn’t so much as acknowledged Morrison’s passing (although, to be fair, I doubt he’s ever heard of her). But the last real POTUS, President Barack Obama, did so with his usual graciousness, thoughtfulness, and admiration.

    Obama’s wonderful words may inspire someone to read Morrison’s work for the first time.

    I don’t think that Trump has ever read a novel in his entire life.

  23. 23.

    Miss Bianca

    Sadness, although she lived a long full life and gave us priceless works of art and words of inspiration as part of it, so a life well-lived.

    Time to review her works – it’s been way too long. RIP

  24. 24.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    My favourite rap song of all time was inspired by The Bluest Eye. If anyone ever needs convincing that hip-hop isn’t an art form, play this for them. It’ll probably convince almost everyone who isn’t just an outright racist.

    Regarding Morrison herself, she was a giant of American letters, and even though she had a long, productive life, it’s a massive loss for all of us that she’s no longer with us, because we need voices like hers more than ever. However, I draw some comfort from knowing that she will still be read long after the terrorists responsible for the past few days’ attacks have been forgotten.

    I don’t believe I’ve read any of her novels besides Beloved – which, of course, was a harrowing masterpiece unlike anything else I’ve ever read. I also haven’t read Beloved in far too long. I think it’s time to fix both of those. I’ve also heard recommendations for the collection of nonfiction she released not too long ago. I may actually start there.

    Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.

  26. 26.

    VeniceRiley

    After this loss and the loss of Maya Angelou, I’m going to need Alice Walker to live forever like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    I say we do a Toni Morrison book club in a few weeks. I confess, I have not read a one yet. Have been meaning to remedy that for a few years now …

  28. 28.

    prostratedragon

    @(((CassandraLeo))): Heh, that parental advisory on the rap should be, “Make sure your kids hear this.”

    I’ve only read Ms. Morrison’s first three, having read little fiction for some years. Must catch up to the trilogy soon. The Bluest Eye is essential.

  31. 31.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t think that Trump has ever read a novel in his entire life.

    I don’t think he can read, really. I mean, sure he can read words on a teleprompter, or a business contract, but read it to understand it? Nope. Can’t do it.

    If it was anyone else, it would be sad. Being him, I’m glad he won’t ever have the pleasure of a good novel by a fire.

  32. 32.

    J R in WV

    I’ve been reading way more fiction lately, to avoid some of the bleak prospects of current reality.

    Better off to read space opera, where heroes destroy pirates and evil empires, rather than non-fiction where tyrants win elections and destroy free societies.

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    @artem1s:
    This is what makes a natural leader. Someone who inspires you to follow/do as they need because you see the value and the reason behind what the leader wants/needs. They empower you to decide that you need to follow them rather than force you to do something you probably wouldn’t normally do. It doesn’t even have to be all that subtle to work, it just has to be natural to the leader.

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @Elizabelle:

    She’s one of my favorite writers: the images, magical language-making, just the whole thing. I especially liked that she started out in publishing at Random House. I think my time in publishing may have overlapped hers, and I may have very well walked near her at a trade show. I’m generally somewhat oblivious, but I can’t imagine not sensing her awesomeness being in the same building as I.

    I remember reading a book (I think it was called Daily Rituals) where famous, creative types shared what they did to get them in a creative mood. I can’t find the entire excerpt, but there’s this from Paris Review:

    Recently I was talking to a writer who described something she did whenever she moved to her writing table. I don’t remember exactly what the gesture was—there is something on her desk that she touches before she hits the computer keyboard—but we began to talk about little rituals that one goes through before beginning to write. I, at first, thought I didn’t have a ritual, but then I remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark—it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come. And she said, Well, that’s a ritual. And I realized that for me this ritual comprises my preparation to enter a space that I can only call nonsecular . . . Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.

    I would have loved to know her.

    ETA: Oops, forgot the link:

    https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison

  35. 35.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @J R in WV: Sam Bee warned us about it years ago!

    @prostratedragon: Yeah, by hip-hop standards this album is practically G-rated material. Definitely the sort of music you should play your kids if you have them, at any rate. I mean, OK, there’s a few swear words here and there, but overall it has a very positive message against violence and bigotry. Which is probably a large part of the reason it ranks among my favourites.

    If time permits, I’d totally be down for a Toni Morrison book club, though I doubt I’d be able to participate in the first one :( Hopefully I’d have time to catch up by the time the second one rolled around, though.

  39. 39.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @(((CassandraLeo))): …WTF. That should say “If anyone ever needs convincing that hip-hop is an art form”. I’ve made my share of typos over the years, and usually don’t correct myself over them if it’s too late to edit, but that one’s a doozy. Hopefully my intended meaning was clear to everyone anyway!

  42. 42.

    Janet Strange

    This is what I posted on Facebook. It’s not a metaphor or any other kind of figure of speech. It’s what happened. A bookworm since age 6, a degree in English – no other book affected me so deeply.

    Sometimes, you enjoy reading a book. Other times, you become so immersed in a book that you become part of it and it becomes part of you. For weeks after I finished Song of Solomon, when I looked down at my hand or my forearm, I had a second or two of surprise that I was not Black.

  43. 43.

    Gemina13

    The end of Sula has haunted me since I read the novel at 12.

    ‘All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude.’ And the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. ‘We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining something. ‘O Lord, Sula,’ she cried, ‘girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.’

    It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”

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