As an aspiring jazz musician, I love your comparison of learning to appreciate the music with being able to understand this book. I finished Jazz this morning and I've been pondering it all day. If there's one thing Toni does, she absolutely makes you work for it. She always leaves me with something that continues to unravel its meaning to me. I've read reviews that say that this book is poorly written because it's hard to follow, but I think they've missed the point entirely. Like the music, jazz is beautiful and painful and lovely and all over the place, while maintaining a rhythm through the end.
Nice video! I just finished reading it this morning and am two reviews deep right now. I was so amazed at this book, having read Beloved, I didn’t think Toni Morrison’s writing could be anymore rich and beautiful. Man was I wrong, the more I read her work the more I understand why she is who she is in American literature and literature in general. This will definitely be a reread for me.
I love this review! I just recently brought this book up in a discussion with a few friends so I wanted to hear another person talk about it and I'm glad I found this video. I think your gymnastics analogy was spot on when talking about 1. Listening to jazz 2. Reading this book (it took me months because I got disheartened). As someone who enjoys jazz music, I enjoyed how the voices soloed like instruments in a jazz composition would. And then the era would shift bringing different complexities to each character. Joe, Dorcas, and Violet's narrative being the chorus to return to. I like that since the plot of the narrative is so simple, Toni doesn't give us the fullest picture right away and instead, we get to meander through the lives of these main and auxiliary characters bouncing all over history and plot. I enjoy the way Toni shows the generational experiences of these people almost like they're oral histories. They are experiences of members of the black community through history and you can better understand why a certain character in the Harlem Ren would act based on not only their previous experiences but their ancestors' experiences also. Again, thanks a bunch! I'll keep an eye out for more of your videos!
