Sula

I've read Toni Morrison's Beloved before, but Sula has a different quality to it. It has less terror and haunting and abuse or perhaps just has all of these qualities in a more subtle way. I found her introduction to her novel very insightful and assisted my interest in what was to come. I do think that the context of the inception of the work is as important as its contents. And the inception of this work is very conscious of its potential ignorant audience, the whites, who will not be approaching this work with the appropriate guards up if they have any at all. The "buffer zone" of the foreword manages to create this guard for them, to establish very clearly the misunderstanding of her communities activities, joy and general livelihood. The story itself is again conveniently encapsulated for those sensitive to or ignorant of the content shes is about to present by the presentation of this town as a historical fact and not something which any longer 'taints' the present. It could be suggested that this is a fact of her youth as an author at this point in her career, and consequently her anxiety about getting favorable reviews. The description of war by Shadluck is very similar to presentation of war in A Red Badge of Courage. The fact that we learn of his racial identity at the same time he rediscovers it in the toilet bowl, a place of filth and unwanted contents, is an interesting linguistic turn.