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Review
" Wonderful. . . . A brilliant, daring novel. . . . Every voice amazes." -- "Chicago Tribune
"" She may be the last classic American writer, squarely in the tradition of Poe, Melville, Twain and Faulkner." -- "Newsweek
"
" [A] masterpiece. . . . She has moved from strength to strength until she has reached the distinction of being beyond comparison." -- "Entertainment Weekly
"" Thrillingly written . . . seductive. . . . Some of the finest lyric passages ever written in a modern novel." -- "Chicago Sun-Times
"" A compelling blend of heart and language. . . . Resounds with passion." -- "The Boston Globe
"" Marvelous. . . . Morrison is perhaps the finest novelist of our time." -- "Vogue
"" The author conjures up worlds with complete authority and makes no secret of her angst at the injustices dealt to black women." -- Edna O' Brien, "The New York Times Book Review
"" She captures that almost indistinguishable mixture of the anxiety and rapture of expectation-- that state of desire where sin is just another word for appetite." -- "San Francisco Chronicle
"" As rich in themes and poetic images as her Pulitzer Prize- winning "Beloved.," . . Morrison conjures up the hand of slavery on Harlem' s jazz generation. The more you listen, the more you crave to hear." -- "Glamour
"" She is the best writer in America. Jazz, for sure; but also Mozart." -- John Leonard, National Public Radio
" A masterpiece. . . . A sensuous, haunting story of various kinds ofpassion. . . . Mesmerizing." -- "Cosmopolitan
"" Lyrically brooding. . . . One accepts the characters of "Jazz "as generalized figures moving rhythmically in the narrator' s mind." -- "The New York Times
"" Transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious." -- "People
" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"" She may be the last classic American writer, squarely in the tradition of Poe, Melville, Twain and Faulkner." -- "Newsweek
"
" [A] masterpiece. . . . She has moved from strength to strength until she has reached the distinction of being beyond comparison." -- "Entertainment Weekly
"" Thrillingly written . . . seductive. . . . Some of the finest lyric passages ever written in a modern novel." -- "Chicago Sun-Times
"" A compelling blend of heart and language. . . . Resounds with passion." -- "The Boston Globe
"" Marvelous. . . . Morrison is perhaps the finest novelist of our time." -- "Vogue
"" The author conjures up worlds with complete authority and makes no secret of her angst at the injustices dealt to black women." -- Edna O' Brien, "The New York Times Book Review
"" She captures that almost indistinguishable mixture of the anxiety and rapture of expectation-- that state of desire where sin is just another word for appetite." -- "San Francisco Chronicle
"" As rich in themes and poetic images as her Pulitzer Prize- winning "Beloved.," . . Morrison conjures up the hand of slavery on Harlem' s jazz generation. The more you listen, the more you crave to hear." -- "Glamour
"" She is the best writer in America. Jazz, for sure; but also Mozart." -- John Leonard, National Public Radio
" A masterpiece. . . . A sensuous, haunting story of various kinds ofpassion. . . . Mesmerizing." -- "Cosmopolitan
"" Lyrically brooding. . . . One accepts the characters of "Jazz "as generalized figures moving rhythmically in the narrator' s mind." -- "The New York Times
"" Transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious." -- "People
" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
In the afterglow of triumph - her widely celebrated, Pultizer Prize-winning bestseller, Beloved - Toni Morrison moves to even higher ground. Jazz is spellbinding for the haunting passion of its profound love story, and for the bittersweet lyricism and refined sensuality of its powerful and elegant style
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For many African-Americans, the period from 1860 through 1930 was a particularly challenging one. The formal slavery of the South transitioned into a vulnerable rural economic existence, dependent on the weather and the price of crops. The promise of the city lured many to leave their homes, and adopt city life-styles that put new social pressures on them and their relationships. Jazz tells this story through the microcosm of one marriage, that of Joe and Violet Trace.
Unlike many books about marriage, this one is a love story. Although it bears no relationship to any romance novel you have ever read, it reveals the way that the need for love develops from within each of us and allows us to grasp its potential when we respond to the yearnings of those we care about.
Music was important in the lives of many people during those years. Churches and music halls vied for the attention of most people in the cities. Jazz was a new influence, bursting on the scene with a combination of extreme freedom and mutual respect for the other players. In this book, jazz is represented both as a symbol of freedom and as a source of base impulses that can lead people astray. Ms. Morrison also pays homage to jazz by building her narrative around the individual stories of those involved taken in solitary order, much like the solos in a jazz piece. The narratives all weave together, but you have to hear the whole piece to understand how. Be patient with what seem like digressions. They are really transitions into new perspectives, like when a horn does a riff before returning to the theme.
You also get the metaphor of jazz used in the relationship of the two Traces. They were originally in rhythm with each other, then fell out of rhythm, and then regained their ability to improvise together. It's very nicely done!
To me, the best part of the book was that Ms. Morrison does not permit her characters to fall back on misfortune, fate, and heredity as excuses for misbehavior. Clearly, those factors affect us, but we all have the potential to rise above them. We need only open our eyes and start responding to those closest to us. Then, we can build a better life together.
The family background of the two Traces is a rich tapestry as well of the social history of African-Americans during this period. Ms. Morrison's imagination is quite remarkable in the variety and vividness of these characters!
For those who are interested in understanding more about the roots of the Jazz Age, this book will also be very appealing.
After you have finished thinking about the lessons of Jazz, you should consider where you display the good characteristics of a jazz player . . . and where you do not.
Feel the rhythm around you!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
"I'm strong. Alone, yes, but top notch and indestructible, like the city in 1926 when all the wars are over..."
21 April 2008
Format:Paperback
Set primarily in Harlem in 1926, when jazz was bursting forth from the traditions of gospel and blues, this 1992 novel is one of Morrison's most experimental and least accessible. Written from multiple points of view, it uses the patterns of jazz itself for its structure. A series of overarching themes connects the work, but these are seen in individual characterizations and episodes which flash backward and forward, twisting and turning as they connect, misconnect, change, and ultimately create a unique world larger than the sum of its individual parts.
Focusing primarily on middle-aged Violet Trace, her fifty-year-old husband Joseph, and Dorcas Manfred, his teenage lover, whom he believes shares his passion, Morrison explores issues of love and fear, sex and obsession, violence and passivity, and strength and dependence, in addition to her big issues of color and gender. At the outset of the novel, Joseph has murdered Dorcas, fearing that his love for her will never be as great as it is at the moment just before her death. His wife Violet, distraught, has been forcibly removed from Dorcas's wake, and though she believes herself to be strong and indestructible, she shows her own vulnerability, sometimes seeing "that other Violet" who inhabits her soul.
Gradually, the individual stories of Violet, Joe, their families, and Dorcas and her family, some members of whom go back even into the 1800s, flesh out the characterizations upon which this novel depends. For much of the novel, however, the reader must be patient, not sure exactly how all these characters are connected to each other, like the most experimental improvisations in jazz. Gradually, they do connect, and gradually the theme of redemption emerges triumphant.
Brilliant in its construction and thematic development, the novel requires the reader to make many connections which other authors (and Morrison in her other novels) make or suggest as a matter of course. Her complex, spiraling structure (which Faulkner also employs) in Beloved, Song of Solomon, and even an early novel like Sula, for example, seems more effective in these, perhaps because these novels have smaller casts of characters, and the importance of particular episodes and the relationships of many characters are clearer. For me, this was a novel to appreciate, rather than to love. n Mary Whipple
Focusing primarily on middle-aged Violet Trace, her fifty-year-old husband Joseph, and Dorcas Manfred, his teenage lover, whom he believes shares his passion, Morrison explores issues of love and fear, sex and obsession, violence and passivity, and strength and dependence, in addition to her big issues of color and gender. At the outset of the novel, Joseph has murdered Dorcas, fearing that his love for her will never be as great as it is at the moment just before her death. His wife Violet, distraught, has been forcibly removed from Dorcas's wake, and though she believes herself to be strong and indestructible, she shows her own vulnerability, sometimes seeing "that other Violet" who inhabits her soul.
Gradually, the individual stories of Violet, Joe, their families, and Dorcas and her family, some members of whom go back even into the 1800s, flesh out the characterizations upon which this novel depends. For much of the novel, however, the reader must be patient, not sure exactly how all these characters are connected to each other, like the most experimental improvisations in jazz. Gradually, they do connect, and gradually the theme of redemption emerges triumphant.
Brilliant in its construction and thematic development, the novel requires the reader to make many connections which other authors (and Morrison in her other novels) make or suggest as a matter of course. Her complex, spiraling structure (which Faulkner also employs) in Beloved, Song of Solomon, and even an early novel like Sula, for example, seems more effective in these, perhaps because these novels have smaller casts of characters, and the importance of particular episodes and the relationships of many characters are clearer. For me, this was a novel to appreciate, rather than to love. n Mary Whipple
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For those who read Morrison's BELOVED, this book is a must read.JAZZ is about Black culture, though nowhere we are openly told so.Those who know anything about Jazz music, know how much influenced it is by the Black culture.It is their voice, so is the narrative voice in this book,though it is hard in first go to come to any referential similarity between the music and the book.It is a brilliant experiment in post colonial, postmodern fiction.The layers of narrative cutting and underminig each other as the book progresses, the abrupt pauses between unumbered chapters, and the strange very last paragraph where narrator talks to the reader and make the reader conscious about the act of reading-these all points i found really interesting myself.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Flawless
Well it came on time and in perfect condition so i have no complaints. I recommend it - Price wasn't bad either really.
Published 7 months ago by CharlieD
That's the kick
I had to read this for A Level English and at first I found it almost impossible to get into. A lot of it tends to go over your head but as you keep reading and get to the end,... Read more
Published on 3 Oct 2008 by T. Parmar
Stay away from this over-rated stream of consciousness rubbish
I like an original and unique book as much as the next man, but this is just plain awful. I can't stand the way it is written, the characters names, the ridiculously dull story... Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2008 by Mr. D. C. Hayes
A True Masterpiece
My favourite book of all time
I was lucky enough to study this book during 6th form college with a good teacher. Read more
I was lucky enough to study this book during 6th form college with a good teacher. Read more
Published on 19 July 2008 by Ems
Symphonic lyricism
As a child of fine artists and a classical and jazz musician, I had no idea or understanding as to why many of the churches- from the turn of the century to almost the present day... Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2002 by Earl Hazell
great book
The book is rhythmically excellent, its narritive entwining the stories of the characters as effortlessy as Jazz music entwines chords. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2002
Spanning the Transition from Slavery to the Freedom of Jazz
For many African-Americans, the period from 1860 through 1930 was a particularly challenging one. The formal slavery of the South transitioned into a vulnerable rural economic... Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2001 by Donald Mitchell
It's a good tantalising book
I was given the first two chapters to read as an example of AAVE literature, and found myself then looking all over to find a copy of the actual book so that I could get to read it... Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2000
Exceptional
This is an extraordinary book. It raises difficult questions about identity and freedom yet in spite of its moral complexity includes some of the most moving passages I've read. Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2000
Unique and inspiring, should be read to be believed
From the first page of this book you become involved in the lives of these characters. You know them, know their history, their motivation and their thoughts. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 1999
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