How to Read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Introductory Lecture) (Patreon)

It’s time to begin our appreciation of Toni Morrison's intensely lyrical postmodern masterpiece: Song of Solomon

Our reading will prompt us to think about mythology and folklore, the supernatural, race, identity, prejudice, civil rights, men and women, visions of America, family, the idea of flight, memory and the past, love, and much more.

We will meet some incredible characters during this exploration of the human condition and, in doing so, ultimately meet ourselves. I'm staying away from spoilers or significant plot details in this discussion because the experience of the narrative unfolding for the first time is a special one.

Today we’re discussing how best to break into this beautifully profound work and bring ourselves fully Song of Solomon.

Video Timestamps:

0:00 why read Song of Solomon?

2:00 Toni Morrison’s cultural tapestry

2:50 why Morrison won the Nobel Prize

3:20 Toni Morrison in Oprah’s Bookclub

4:30 Song of Solomon lecture series

5:00 how to read Song of Solomon

5:30 this novel is a lyrical soap opera

6:30 welcome to the Southern Gothic

7:00 origins and markers of the gothic

9:00 the Southern Gothic difference

10:30 the Faulknerian in Toni Morrison

11:00 O’Connor, McCullers, Williams

12:30 Beloved vs Song of Solomon

13:00 characters in the Southern Gothic

14:00 when is Morrison’s novel set?

14:30 Harlem Renaissance influence

15:00 Civil Rights history of the US

16:30 Toni Morrison’s magical realism

17:20 what is magical realism?

20:30 the influence of slave narratives

22:00 Toni Morrison vs Ralph Ellison

23:00 movement in Song of Solomon

24:30 Toni Morrison on slave narratives

25:30 the mythology of Flying Africans

27:30 metaphor/allegory vs literal belief

28:30 motif of flight in Song of Solomon

29:30 mythological origin at Igbo Landing

31:30 Toni Morrison on myth’s reality

33:00 on the names in Song of Solomon

34:00 names have the power to tell stories

36:00 on language influencing thought

36:30 read this novel for the characters

37:30 the characters in Song of Solomon

38:30 choosing names from the Bible

39:00 biblical allusion in the novel’s title

39:30 meaning of Milkman Dead’s name

40:20 reading some exquisite passages

43:30 how to break into Song of Solomon

44:30 the character of Pilate in the novel

45:30 the novel’s discourses on social justice

46:00 readers finding a kindred spirit

47:00 ‘when will you stop writing about race?’

50:00 Morrison on Shakespeare and critics

51:00 is Toni Morrison a feminist writer?

52:30 ‘I don’t subscribe to patriarchy’

53:00 Toni Morrison’s intersectionality

54:00 is Toni Morrison a marxist writer?

55:00 Morrison on writing Black Literature

57:00 the social value of great literature

58:00 the conversation of canon revision

59:00 should art have a social message?

1:00:00 Morrison’s readership as village

1:01:00 Toni Morrison’s political aim

1:02:00 appreciating her beautiful foreword

1:04:00 make your reading joyfully communal

1:05:00 Hardcore Literature book club lectures

Resources:

• Recommended Edition: Vintage have a superb paperback edition of Song of Solomon, which I will be personally working from. Although please feel free to use any edition that comes most easily to hand.  

• Audiobook Recommendation: Toni Morrison herself narrated Song of Solomon for the audiobook version, creating an experience that is simply magical.

• Meet Toni Morrison: There are so many wonderful interviews with Morrison to enjoy. Here she is talking about song, storytelling, and the myth of Flying Africans. Here she talks about writing about race, and here she is talking about Song of Solomon in the year it was published. You can also see Oprah's interview with Morrison here.

• Short Stories: The short short mentioned throughout the discussion were 'Recitatif' by Toni Morrison, 'A Rose for Emily' by William Faulkner, 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' by Flannery O'Connor, and 'Flying Home' by Ralph Ellison.

• Essays: If you would like to read an excellent selection of essays, speeches, and meditations from Toni Morrison, then I highly recommend this volume. It includes her Nobel Prize speech on the power of language, her poem for those who died on 9/11, her eulogy for James Baldwin, her thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr., meditations on African-American Literature, and much more.

• Author Interview: The Paris Review has an excellent archive of interviews with the greatest writers of modern times. One of my personal favourites is the interview with Toni Morrison on the art of fiction here.

• Personal News: I have just moved home today, so we'll have a new change of scene in our videos. But, more exciting than that, we have a new member of the Hardcore Literature Book Club family who may pop up in videos to see what we're reading. She is a beautiful German Shepherd called Sasha and I'll be introducing her to you soon!

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion will take us through chapters 1-4  in part one, which covers the first 112 pages of the novel in the Vintage edition. So start making your way into the work, meeting the characters, and noting down any themes, ideas, or passages that personally resonate with you.

Questions for You:

1) What is your current relationship with Toni Morrison? Is this your first reading or a rereading of this great book?

2) What are you hoping to get out of your deep reading of Song of Solomon?

3) What themes from your wider reading, and your life, would you like to pull into this work?

Happy reading, everybody!