Morrison In Community | Part One: Beloved

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:01]I am doing a reading group with my favorite independent bookstore in Brooklyn, the Center for Fiction. And guess what? We're reading Tony Morrison. I'm so excited. I'm so excited about this.

[00:00:22]Okay, I had to take a little snack break.

[00:00:26]Anyway, this is not my first time reading Beloved.

[00:00:32]It's actually time like four or five.

[00:00:36]What I will say is from the perspective of someone that has read majority of Tony Morrison's work, her forwards in combination with the new introductions are absolutely perfect.

[00:00:49]Tony Morrison in her forward talks about how she came up with the premise for Beloved, which is phenomenal information, but then Honor Jeffers goes into some of that knowledge, but also her own personal struggles with getting through Beloved because it is heavier work. And I feel like it just gives us this perfect road map of how to navigate this book and how to do it with ease. So, my plan is to check back in around like the 100 page mark and yeah. Oh, I will be immersive reading it. For those at the back of the church, that means I'm going to listen to the audio book and read it at the same time. So, yeah, I'll check back.

[00:01:34]So, I'm only in chapter one and uh page six to be specific. I'm like very much procrastinating. Anyway, um, just Baby Sigs and Setha. So, Setha says we could move, she suggested once to her mother-in-law. What be the point? Asked baby Sugs. Not a house in the country ain't packed to the rafters with some dead negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby. My husband's spirit was to come back in here or yours. Don't talk to me. You lucky you got three left.

[00:02:04]Three pulling at your skirts and just one raising hell from the other side. Be thankful. Why don't you? I had eight.

[00:02:11]Every one of them gone away from me.

[00:02:13]Four taken, four chased, and all I expecting in somebody's house and evil.

[00:02:21]Wow.

[00:02:23]Like so much being said in just a few sentences.

[00:02:29]And I think what what really is coming up for me in that particular conversation is our elders ability to acknowledge but also dismiss how we handle our grief because they were never able to handle ours or ours or their own. They were never able to handle their own. So, how do we expect them to handle ours and how we're deciding to manage it?

[00:03:04]All right, I am about 15 minutes before the discussion for this. Um, I did not finish it, but I am super excited um to go to the discussion. I have a lot of thoughts um and I will finish this before the end of the month. So, there's that. I'm not pressed because I this is my fourth or fifth time reading Beloved, which I think I said to you guys already. Um, I resonate a lot with Denver.

[00:03:43]Um, the loneliness of which, did y'all hear that? My light. Um, but the loneliness of which comes with watching the evolution of your mother um being the being your mother's only surviving child in a lot of ways um and what all comes with that I resonate a lot with that this go round something that I'm very unserious about if you guys have ever watched the movie when beloved says uh I want you to touch me on the inside part So bald deep.

[00:04:36]It's not funny.

[00:04:38]But the actress makes a very very crazy face. So when I read it, all I could see in my head was her face.

[00:04:48]I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name.

[00:04:58]It's not. It's not funny. It's not funny.

[00:05:07]That was absolutely amazing.

[00:05:11]We had an amazing discussion. My Butler had so much to offer. Um, everyone had so much to offer with their different perspectives and their thoughts and their feels and what it brought up for them. I thought it was super super cool.

[00:05:23]I'm super excited for part two. I finished Beloved and although I wanted to finish it before the book discussion, I'm glad that I finished it after because it definitely changed my thought process and like the trajectory of my thinking.

[00:05:46]I think because I've read Belove It before and I have such a high regard for it, I often go into it already knowing that I love it. Whereas this time around, it was very interesting having other people's perspectives in my head and seeing things a little bit differently. Right. I think something that is great about Tony Morrison is that the reading is going to meet you where you are, right? And I think that's intentional on Tony Morrison's part that she wants the literature to, yes, change your perspective, but also for the reader to be aware that what you get from it is because of where you are as the reader, not necessarily where Tony Morrison was as the writer. Um, so I'm super excited to read Jazz with the group and yeah, I'll see you guys for part two. Bye, friends.