Love By Toni Morrison

By Keith Boykin, in books
Friday, November 21 2003, 11:26AM

I first met Toni Morrison in a college course on African American literature. I rediscovered her when she published Jazz while I was in law school. With both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize for literature under her belt, no American writer is more distinguished than Toni Morrison, and no one tells a story like she does.

Set in a black oceanfront community in the south, Morrison's new novel Love tells the story of six women obsessed with the owner of a famous resort that once attracted the rich and fabulous to their shores.

The story spans the twentieth century, from the proud black communities of the segregated south to the much less glamorous modern black communities, and in so doing it examines the effects of integration on ordinary black people. Careful not to overwhelm us with history, Morrison presents the events of World War II, the murder of Emmet Till and the assassination of Martin and Malcolm as subtle backdrops for the developing story.

As the novel unfolds, all of the women and two of the men explore and explain their relationship with the resort owner. Cosey is a father, lover, husband, guardian and friend, as the book jacket explains. But of course he is much more than that. He, like all the characters, is shrouded in mystery from the beginning.

Morrison constructs and develops her story with as many unanswered questions as you might find in a great murder mystery. But unlike the plots in the mystery genre, Morrison's character-driven story uses mystery not to tell you whodunit but to explain who they are and how they got there.

Each character has his or her own mystery. And so does the story itself. At the beginning, we know nothing about the time or place of the story. Morrison never even tells us who is speaking in the first chapter. We have to find that out on our own.

As the story unfolds, we start to figure out the answers. We learn what happened to May to make her crazy. We discover where Christine disappeared for years. We understand what happened to Heed's hands. We learn who Junior is. We explore Vida's theory. And we eventually figure out who is L and who is Celestial?

In the process, we also learn about the men in the story: the young Romen, the elder Sandler, the conflicted Cosey and the legacy of Dark. And most importantly, we learn about the nature of love.

This novel is no sappy story of two young lovers who fall for each other and fight the world to be with each other. Well, at least it doesn't seem that way at first. It is and it isn't.

This is a story of the complexity of love: romantic love, paternal love, hateful love, jealous love, platonic love, even love of strangers. Sometimes the love is so complex that the characters themselves don't even realize when they're acting out of love. And sometimes love is a word that's never spoken.

If you're a little confused, you should be. Morrison wants you to think in this book and grapple with the people to whom she introduces you. She employs the symbolism of the serpent, the trumpet, the eyes and a silver spoon to communicate ideas that do not jump out on the page.

Morrison's books are studied in college courses because she layers them with structure, symbolism and mystery not often found in popular fiction. Hers is not merely the mystery of plot but the mystery of character. In fact, the plot in Love is very simple in the end. The people, on the other hand, are not.

I'm not sure if I actually saw this on Oprah, or if I imagined it, but I seem to remember a time when Morrison was asked why her books were so difficult. She replied, "It's called reading."

Yes, Morrison doesn't make it easy to skate through her books. Her new novel, although somewhat less complicated than her previous books, is no less complex.

What emerges in this book is a beautiful story of fascinating people learning to live with and love with one another. If you want to know what love is, you should read this book. If you think you already know what love is, you should definitely read this book. And if you want to find out why Toni Morrison is such a loved and praised author, you owe it to yourself to read Love.

Selected Lines From Love

"The women's legs are spread wide open, so I hum." (p.3)

"Before Up Beach drowned in a hurricane called Agnes, there was a drought with no name at all." (p. 9)

"Twelve rings, two on three fingers of each hand, snatched light from the ceiling fixture and seemed to elevate her task from drudgery to sorcery." (p.20)

"Junior shouldered out of her jacket, the cheap leather mewing." (p.26)

"The two of us were like the back of a clock. Mr. Cosey was its face telling you the time was now." (p. 103)

"A woman is an important somebody and sometimes you win the triple crown: good food, good sex, and good talk. Most men settle for any one, happy as a clam if they get two."

"And you had to admire any girl who survived on the street without a gun." (p. 169)

"The eyes of each are enslaved by the other's. Opening pangs of guilt, rage, fatigue, despair are replaced by a hatred so pure, so solemn, it feels beautiful, almost holy." (p. 177)

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Toni Morrison will appear tonight, November 21, at Hue Man Bookstore in Harlem.

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