Three Men in a Boat

5th July 2011

It was generally agreed that the story told in the book was quite "laddish". The 'pranks' of three young men in the late 1800s were comically told and made for relatively easy reading. It was noted that it is impossible to accurately provide a chronology to the story. There is a great deal of digression and many non sequiturs in the recounting of this journey down the Thames. The book suffers from the author's indecision regarding the genre of the book - whether it is a treatise on the British countryside, a comedy or a serious reflection on the mores of the period. Many of the reflections on the British countryside are maudlin and the social commentary is erratic and sits jarringly amidst the narrative. The characterisation of the three young men is poorly fleshed-out and the three merge seamlessly into a single person. Nonetheless, the book provides an insight into the period, albeit, from a very limited perspective.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Be warned, Beloved is not an easy read and you need to stick with it! It is really two different stories , one being told through flashbacks to the 1850s and the days of slavery, the other taking place in the novel's present, 1873. Thus the story unfolds in an elliptical way, as allusions are made in the narrative to events which are only developed and clarified later on in the book.

The main character is Sethe, who escapes from slavery by fleeing across the Ohio River, then kills her older daughter in an attempt to keep her being taken back to the South by her cruel old master, the Schoolteacher. This story is taken from the real story of Margaret Garner, who like Sethe, escaped from slavery in Kentucky and murdered her child when slave catchers caught up with her in Ohio.

A ghost then haunts the house, 124 Bluestone Road, where Sethe lives with her younger daughter, Denver. Paul D, who knows Sethe from their past, moves into the house and chases the ghost away. A mysterious figure, calling herself by the name on the dead daughter's tombstone, Beloved, appears at the house shortly after that. It is generally believed by all the characters in the book that Beloved is the embodied spirit of the dead girl.

Paul D and Beloved hate each other, and he is finally driven out of the house by her, and by the revelation that Sethe murdered her baby. Thereafter the relationship between Sethe and Beloved becomes more intense and exclusive, with Beloved growing increasingly manipulative and parasitic, and Sethe more obsessed with satisfying her demands. Denver is worried about the way her mother is wasting away, and seeks the help of the community to exorcise Beloved from 124. Beloved does eventually disappear in the ensuing confusion. Afterwards Paul D comes back to Sethe, and the story thus ends on a hopeful note, Paul saying that he and Sethe "got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow."

The book does not mince its words. Apparently when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's cabin she had to tone down the facts to make the novel publishable - this book really brings home to the reader the spiritual, emotional and physical devastation wrought by the horrors of slavery. The book is also a commentary on the legacy of slavery, which affects not only the identities of its black victims, but also those of its perpetrators, and which leads to everyone suffering a loss of humanity and compassion. Morrison suggests that, like Sethe, contemporary readers must confront the history of slavery in order to address this legacy which reveals itself in on-going racial discrimination and discord.

One final point: this is a complex, non-linear story, and there are, at least in this edition (World Book Night 2011), no numbered chapters, which means that it is very difficult to find your way around it when you need to refer back to a relevant point.