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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Toni Morrison's brilliant first novel, The Bluest Eye, has haunted readers since its original publication in 1970. In it we follow the tragic life of Pecola Breedlove, rejected from society by both her peers and her family alike. She is taunted for her looks, despised for her extreme poverty, and persecuted by her father, who rapes and impregnates her. Pecola is consumed with the desire to obtain blue eyes, which are to her a symbol of whiteness, and therefore a symbol of all that is beautiful and admired. This desire nudges Pecola into a gradual state of insanity. Pecola's pain comes from the words of other people--the cruel songs of the children in the playground, the voice of her mother cherishing the white child as her "baby," while calling her own child "a rotten piece of apple." Yet Pecola is never given her own voice; to give her a voice would be to give her some form of control. She is kept a passive victim throughout, completely at the mercy of the voices around her. The audio edition of The Bluest Eye, although abridged, loses nothing in its translation from the original text--still a tragic and moving exposé of difficult social and racial issues. In the three hours of tape, several decades of time and a multitude of characters are explored. Toni Morrison and Ruby Dee passionately re-create the narrative voices of these characters; they are astute in their oral interpretation of this classic, perfectly capturing the characterizations of drunken fathers, downtrodden mothers, and neglected children. --This text refers to the audio cassette edition of this title From AudioFile
With haunting poignancy Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison writes of the hardships of poor black America. Ruby Dee's reading of Morrison's first novel is masterful. The Bluest Eye is the tragic story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, who "each night without fail" prays for blue eyes, believing her ugly reality will be made beautiful through them. Pecola's life is read in an unhurried, emphatic style, which respects the somber strength of the book. Dialogue is abundant, and Dee lends great depth to characters with unique voices and skillfully handled dialect. Nothing of the poetic, contemplative nature of this book is lost in ... read more Book Description
2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by Toni Morrison and Ruby Dee Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her ... read more The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1, 1995
First novel by Toni Morrison, published in 1970. This tragic study of a black adolescent girl's struggle to achieve white ideals of beauty and her consequent descent into madness was acclaimed as an eloquent indictment of some of the more subtle forms of racism in American society. Pecola Breedlove longs to have "the bluest eye" and thus to be acceptable to her family, schoolmates, and neighbors, all of whom have convinced her that she is ugly. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The Bluest Eye
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Reviewer:
Mary D Greenwood
from Djibouti
December 10, 1999
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I have not yet read The Bluest Eye. However, I am sick of reading Toni Morrison. Therefore, any book written by her that I haven't yet read is considered to be terrible.
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0 people found this review helpful.
5 did not.
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Good, but not Morrison's best
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Reviewer:
A reader
from D.C.
December 9, 1999
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Since it was written by Toni Morrison, it can be expected that this is an excellent book. It very powerfully illustrates the way people can internalize self-hatred. The conversations between the children and the powerlessness they feel in the adult world are also masterfully described. However, I think this is Morrison's weakest work, as she often slips into explanations instead of letting the story relate us these ideas on its own.
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1 people found this review helpful.
0 did not.
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Mind threathing
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Reviewer:
Reneedsome@aol.com
from Ca
December 7, 1999
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This book by Toni Morrison would have your mind wondering about what the next page is going to be about. Although the book was hard to follow it made it worth wild to read.If your looking for a book that will get you brain to working then this is the perfect book for YOU!
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A very powerful and life changing novel.
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Reviewer:
Antionette Lopez
from San Francisco, California
December 7, 1999
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The way Toni Morrison writes THE BLUEST EYE,is very powerful and touching. I like that in a book. It was very hard for me to believe children were treated in a way that they were afraid to live. You really get to see and feel how the pain Pecola, her friends, and family had to go through affected their lives. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read very powerful real life stories.
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