The Source of Self-Regard

Starred review from January 1, 2019
For more than four decades, Morrison has written luminous fiction exploring the human condition through complex characters and nonfiction works steeped in sharp intelligence and imagination. This collection of essays and speeches covers a wide variety of topics that resonate with current issues. She begins by focusing on notions of the foreigner in the churning global diaspora driven by economics and geopolitical conflict and challenging easy notions of identity. Even as technology has narrowed geographic distances, the global movement of populations of people has provoked fear and freighted perceptions of boundaries and frontiers. In a meditation on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Morrison examines the complex history of race relations in the U.S. and how it has inexorably tied criminality and stigma to black bodies and created a legacy of racism that has outlived slavery. Finally, starting with a touching eulogy of James Baldwin, Morrison takes a close look at her own work and that of writers and artists, including Baldwin, Achebe, Faulkner, and Bearden, and the profound impact of the arts. Morrison turns a critical eye on race, social politics, money, feminism, culture, and the press, with the essential mandate that each of us bears the responsibility for reaching beyond our superficial identifies and circumstances for a closer look at what it means to be human. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Every book by Nobel laureate Morrison is a magnet for readers, and this is a particularly timely, involving, and provocative gathering of though-pieces and inquiries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Morrison (Beloved; Song of Solomon) presents a rich collection of essays from 1976 to 2013, primarily speeches given at college convocations, lectures series, conferences, commencement addresses, and symposiums, among other occasions. Topics vary, reflecting the intellectual curiosity and pursuits of the author. As in any collection of this sort, not every selection is outstanding; there are repetitions that call upon readers to skim those pieces less memorable. But for every instance of sameness in topic there are many entries that are educational, revelatory, and enlightening. Morrison is a master of the luminous thought, of the sense of outrage or compassion that makes readers feel as if they are in the presence of an author who deeply cares about literature and the themes that engage her. Topics include the author developing the openings of her novels and deciding what tone or turn of phrase was the perfect vehicle to convey her insights about humanity. Other themes address racism and fascism, the importance of advocacy for the arts, the heritage of slavery, and especially Morrison's tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., writers James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, and William Faulkner, and artist Romare Bearden. VERDICT Essential for Morrison readers who wish to supplement their appreciation of her achievements with her thoughts on American life and literature. Highly recommended.--Morris Hounion, New York City Coll. of Technology, Brooklyn

Starred review from December 1, 2018
Brilliantly incisive essays, speeches, and meditations considering race, power, identity, and art.A prominent public intellectual even before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, novelist Morrison (Emerita, Humanities/Princeton Univ.; The Origin of Others, 2017, etc.) has lectured and written about urgent social and cultural matters for more than four decades. Her latest collection gathers more than 40 pieces (including her Nobel lecture), revealing the passion, compassion, and profound humanity that distinguish her writing. Freedom, dignity, and responsibility recur as salient issues. Speaking to the Sarah Lawrence graduating class in 1988, Morrison urges her listeners to go beyond "an intelligent encounter with problem-solving" to engage in dreaming. "Not the activity of the sleeping brain, but rather the activity of a wakened, alert one" that can foster empathy--a sense of intimacy that "should precede our decision-making, our cause-mongering, our action." To graduates of Barnard in 1979 she recasts the fairy tale of "Cinderella," focusing on the women who exploit and oppress the heroine, to urge her audience to "pay as much attention to our nurturing sensibilities as to our ambition." "In wielding the power that is deservedly yours," she adds, "don't permit it to enslave your stepsisters." In an adroit--and chillingly prescient--political critique published in the Nation in 1995, she warns of the complicity between racism and fascism, perceiving a culture where fear, denial, and complacency prevail and where "our intelligence [is] sloganized, our strength downsized, our privacy auctioned." "Fascism talks ideology," she writes, "but it is really just marketing--marketing for power." Speaking at Princeton in 1998, she considers the linguistic and moral challenges she faced in writing Paradise, one of many pieces offering insights into her fiction. Aiming to produce "race-specific race-free prose," she confronted the problem of writing about personal identity "in a language in which the codes of racial hierarchy and disdain are deeply embedded"--as well as the problem of writing about the intellectually complex idea of paradise "in an age of theme parks."Powerful, highly compelling pieces from one of our greatest writers.

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