A Few of My Favorite Passages in ‘Beloved’

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a masterclass in writing.

I’ve been thinking about Toni Morrison’s Beloved this week, and not only because it’s shown up among a growing list of books that parents, school boards or politicians want to ban from schools. I’ve been thinking about its writing; its words; its craftsmanship; its author’s way of presenting human emotions in ways I’ve never encountered.

As part of my reading life, I try to read or re-read at least one classic a year, usually something I’ve missed. In 2021, it was Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. I’m an active reader; a hunter for great sentences and paragraphs. I underline them and scribble notes about them in the margins of paperbacks. For hardbacks — which as a book collector I treat with a bit more reverence — I keep a notebook and pen handy.

I made several notes while reading Beloved. Here are a few from my Alfred A. Knopf hardcover edition (First Edition, Seventh Printing). On page 58, when Morrison writes of Sethe’s opening up to Beloved with stories she’d not told anyone else:

“It became a way to feed her. Just as Denver discovered and relied on the delightful effect sweet things had on Beloved, Sethe learned the profound satisfaction Beloved got from storytelling.

“It amazed Sethe (as much as it pleased Beloved) because every mention of her past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost. She and Baby Suggs had agreed without saying so that it was unspeakable; to Denver’s inquiries Sethe gave short replies or rambling incomplete reveries. Even with Paul D, who had shared some of it and to whom she could talk with at least a measure of calm, the hurt was always there — like a tender place in the corner of her mouth that the bit left.

“But, as she began telling about the earrings, she found herself wanting to, liking it. Perhaps it was Beloved’s distance from the events itself, or her thirst for hearing it — in any case it was an unexpected pleasure. “

There’s foreshadowing here, but also a mini “Why I Write” essay. This simple sentence jumps out: “… it was Beloved’s distance from the events itself.” There’s so much in the entire passage about storytelling, both for the storyteller and the audience, before she casually dismisses it with “… in any case it was an unexpected pleasure.” You stop and reflect on that after reading it; maybe take a walk around the block. You want to write? There’s your reason.

On Page 115, Paul D can’t seem to sleep in Sethe’s bed anymore, or anywhere else in the house. Something is pushing him out.

He believed he was having house-fits, the glassy anger men sometimes feel when a woman’s house begins to bind them, when they want to yell and break something or at least run off. He knew all about that — felt it lots of times — in the Delaware weaver’s house, for instance. But always he associated the house-fit with the woman in it. This nervousness had nothing to do with the woman, whom he loved a little bit more every day: her hands among vegetables, her mouth when she licked a thread end before guiding it through a needle or bit it in two when the seam was done, the blood in her eye when she defended her girls (and Beloved was hers now) or any colored woman from a slur. Also in this house-fit there was no anger, no suffocation, no yearning to be elsewhere. He just could not, would not, sleep upstairs or in the rocker or, now, in Baby Suggs’ bed. So he went to the storeroom.

It would be easy to describe this feeling as “trapped,” but that’s not what Morrison calls it, because that’s not what it is. Notice there is “no anger, suffocation, no yearning to be elsewhere.” It’s an entirely other emotion. You know how other languages sometimes have words for things for which there is no English language equivalent? That’s what Morrison has done here with “house-fits.” I get it. I know what she’s talking about. It’s brilliant.

Writers know the classic “show don’t tell” axiom. It was drilled into us in creative writing class, until someone told us rules are meant to be broken. I don’t recall anyone ever telling me to “smell don’t tell.” Probably because it doesn’t sound as good.

On Page 121, Morrison offers a simple passage about washing and ironing clothes:

The clothes will thaw slowly to a dampness perfect for the pressing iron, which will make them smell like hot rain.

That’s a perfect sentence. It’s rare that I send my dress shirts to the dry cleaners. I wash them at home, and instead of putting them in the dryer, I try to iron them as soon as I pull them out of the washing machine. It has never occurred to me that they “smell like hot rain” until Toni Morrison told me they did. I love her for it.

“If you focus on five passages, you’ve got obscenity,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom, to The New York Times recently. “If you broaden your view and read the work as a whole, you’ve got Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved.’”

She’s right. Anything taken out of its proper context can be misconstrued. I would add that when it comes to Morrison’s Beloved, if you focus on only three passages, you’ve got brilliance. If you broaden your view and read the work as a whole, you’ve got one of the greatest novels in American literature.