Beloved some more.

I'm sure I've written about Beloved before. I'm reading it to finish it now, and it's gotten great. All these books do, or should, at some point, and Beloved just has. From the middle of the book we get a juicy section and I've just kept reading it.

It's made me think of two things. The use of language, new or redefined, and my initial impressions of the books on the list, based on just their names. I'll write about the latter first.

"Beloved" sounds like a love story, or certainly one about family, where I imagined some poor white woman has lost a child, and spent days moping about it, and eventually turned over a new leaf and got on with life. Then again, that's a boring and generic story, and would it really be allowed on the List if that was true? Nah, Beloved is quite the opposite, much more real, relevant (Historically and story writing wise) and certainly not generic.

I don't think I could be further from the truth when it's about a slave who's killed her own child, and a full and proper explanation of the reasons why, how it came about, and how it's effected all the people around her, black and white. It really doesn't tell you a gimpy little story, but rather looks at everything possibly relevant, including language.

The book has quite a few different points of view. There is the normal narrative voice, which is closed but omniscient. We know what's happening, but every odd chapter we're given just one characters point of view, and it's not a story. Then it becomes a retelling. It's in the characters words and thought, and in their mind, and very much like they're creating a mental diary for themselves to read over later.

This works quite well at creating a language all for the book itself. We're reading written words, but within the story we're just fortunate enough to hear a characters oral passing on of their story, their events, their experience. In this way we're given many characters different points of view, all of whom contribute to the story being told in the book, but none of which are giving the full and complete and utter story.

Once I get to the end I can see I'm going to have many different threads of experience, and retroactively I'll be able to tie them back together and see the full and splendid tapestry of the story for what it is. I haven't been told The Story, so much as Everyone has contributed their Part to the Event. Capital letters help so much, don't they?

So I'm liking Beloved a great deal more than when I just started it, and I really didn't get what I was expecting. That's a great thing!

I also turned 30 lately and my brother bought me both Gravity's Rainbow and Margaret Atwoods novel, The Blind Assassin.