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The Bluest Eye ペーパーバック – 1999/3/4
購入オプションとあわせ買い
Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio.
Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines the present. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterised her writing.
‘She revealed the sins of her nation, while profoundly elevating its canon. She suffused the telling of blackness with beauty, whilst steering us away from the perils of the white gaze. That’s why she told her stories. And why we will never, ever stop reading them’ Afua Hirsch
‘Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is rarest of pleasures’ Washington Post
‘When she arrived, with her first novel, The Bluest Eye, she immediately re-ordered the American literary landscape’ Ben Okri
Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction
- 本の長さ240ページ
- 言語英語
- 出版社Vintage
- 発売日1999/3/4
- 寸法19.7 x 12.9 x 1.37 cm
- ISBN-100099759918
- ISBN-13978-0099759911
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So charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry ― New York Times
I imagine if our greatest American novelist, William Faulkner, were alive today he would herald Toni Morrison's emergence as a kindred spirit... Discovering a writer like Toni Morrison is the rarest of pleasures ― Washington Post
The Bluest Eye is a fine book, a lament for all starved and stunted children everywhere ― Daily Telegraph
Morrison's style rivets the reader...her synaesthetic, often rhythmic, even chanting prose recalls both Faulkner and Emily Dickinson ― The Times Literary Supplement
著者について
登録情報
- 出版社 : Vintage (1999/3/4)
- 発売日 : 1999/3/4
- 言語 : 英語
- ペーパーバック : 240ページ
- ISBN-10 : 0099759918
- ISBN-13 : 978-0099759911
- 寸法 : 19.7 x 12.9 x 1.37 cm
- Amazon 売れ筋ランキング: - 6,814位洋書 (洋書の売れ筋ランキングを見る)
- - 39位Classic American Literature
- - 295位Literary Fiction
- カスタマーレビュー:
著者について
著者の本をもっと発見したり、よく似た著者を見つけたり、著者のブログを読んだりしましょう
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トップレビュー
上位レビュー、対象国: 日本
レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。
この女の子達と同世代の子供達にこそ読んでもらいたい1冊です。
・・・
物語の筋は、貧しい黒人家庭で育つ女の子(Pecola)が実の父親にレイプされる、というものです。
その父親・母親の出会いの話やそれぞれの過去だったり、その女の子を一時預かることになった家庭の子供たち(クラウディアとフリーダ)からの視点だったり、Pecola自身の視点であったり、彼女に「青い目を授けた」と神に告白するSoaphead氏の視点であったり、とにかく話が飛ぶ。
この縦横無尽な構成が難しさの一つだとは思いますが、それにもまして単語や表現が非常に難解。その難解さに純文学の香りを強く感じましたが、英語ネイティブではない人には特に難しかろうと思いました。
で筆者の事を調べてみると、英文学の修士を取得しており、果てはピュリッツァー賞やノーベル賞も獲得したというから、表現の流麗さに関してはお墨付きでありましょう。
で、残念ながら、私はこの本の趣旨がいまいち理解できませんでした。黒人の境遇を描くものであるのは明白ですが、近親レイプというモチーフが作品のクライマックスにあるように思える一方、タイトルにある「The Bluest Eye」、これがどうむ結びつかない。タイトルは、白人への一種の憧憬と受け取れると思いますが、作中で白人は殆ど出てきません。白人?といえばPolandと呼ばれる移民と思しき売春婦と、せいぜい近くて?白黒ハーフの女の子だけ。
あるいはこうした混沌こそが、筆者の描きたかった1960年代の黒人社会なのかもしれません。有色人種が隔離され、黒人は常に貧しく、そして娘はしばしば恵まれない境遇の犠牲になる。そしてそんな世界の隙間から垣間見える白人社会だけが煌びやかに見える。そう考えるならば、作品の筆致は黒人社会の閉塞感や陰鬱さを鮮明に描いていると言えると思います。
・・・
Wikipediaで調べてみると、筆者トニ・モリスンに関する入門書や解説書が沢山あるようでした。私のように素手で味わうのも良いのかもしれませんが、補助本で地ならしをしてから本書を読めばより理解ができたのかなあと感じております。
米国社会や黒人文化などに興味がある方は是非チャレンジしてみてはいかがでしょうか。
こんなに悲惨な毎日じゃ生きていてもあんまり良いことはないんじゃないか、と一瞬考えてしまったのは私のとんでもない思いあがりで、こういった人々が黒人文化を必死に支えてきたおかげで現在の繁栄があるのでしょう。完全な平等への道のりはまだまだ遠いようですが。
さすがノーベル文学賞をとった作家だけあって、ナレーションも結末をにおわせる様なスタイルをとったり、時代設定を支える周りの描写のし方も凝りに凝ってます。
他の国からのトップレビュー
Amazing when you read about what type of background she came from.
I read the book many years ago and re-reading it made me enjoy it even more.
Morrison’s legendary reputation is well earned. Her writing is superb and original. If someone gave me an excerpt written by Morrison, likely I could guess the author. Her writing is rich in description and raw truth. She does not placate or sugar coat. Morrison instead shocks and assaults the reader by shining a spotlight on the harsh truth. The Bluest Eye is uncomfortable, thought provoking and powerful.
If you are considering reading The Bluest Eye, be aware there are some potentially triggering themes, including: incest, child molestation, one of the characters is a child predator, and some of the characters are sex workers.
The major theme throughout the novel are the effects of pressure on women and young girls to conform to cultural and societal standards of beauty. Using a multi-generational storyline and a cast of female characters, Morrison challenges readers to think about where women get their sense of value and worth, and how that is impacted by the standards of beauty that are programmed into all of society. Morrison assumes the bitter truth that meeting societal standards of beauty results in better treatment and a higher social status. The story tackles how women’s lives are negatively affected if they cannot meet the beauty standard (such as having blue eyes, hence the novel’s title). In short, this novel offer rich social commentary about how we value people. I understand and agree wholeheartedly with the social commentary being made by Morrison.
In summary, the story is about Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old black girl. Her mother, who she calls Mrs. Breedlove, works as a housekeeper and nanny for a wealthy white family. Her father, Cholly, is a drunk and does not work. The story begins and ends with Pecola, but Morrison gives extensive background on Pecola’s parents.
Mrs. Breedlove was born and raised in the south and comes from a large family of origin. As a young woman, Mrs. Breedlove is a hard worker who cares for her family of origin despite it not being easy for her because she is born with a deformed foot. When she marries Pecola’s father and starts her own family, they move north. In her new community, Mrs. Breedlove feels isolated and alone. She is not accepted by the northern women who have different accents, clothes, and behavior expectations than where she came from in the south.
When Mrs. Breedlove becomes pregnant with Sam, Pecola’s brother, during her pregnancy she loses two of her teeth. Once she loses her teeth, all hope of fitting in and belonging is lost to Mrs. Breedlove. In this pivotal event, she becomes resigned to the idea that she will never have friends.
Mrs. Breedlove escapes into her work. Her only sense of belonging is with the family that pays her to clean their home and care for their daughter. There Mrs. Breedlove feels she has acceptance, appreciation, and control. In her own chaotic and unstable home, she feels out of control. In her employer’s home, she can adequately provide a safe, comfortable, organized, and orderly life. As a result, she comes to feel her own family and home are a nuisance to be endured, rather than a blessing. She sees her family as a burden and prefers caring for the white wealthy family’s home and daughter over her own home and children.
Pecola’s father, Cholly Breedlove, had a traumatic childhood. His mother abandoned him on a trash heap when he was nine days old and likely was mentally ill. His father likely never knew about his existence, until Cholly seeks him out later when he’s a young adult, but his father summarily dismisses him with cursing. Spoiler alert - Cholly commits incest with Pecola while drunk and impregnates Pecola.
With Pecola’s mother and father largely absent from her life and abusive when they are present, Pecola befriends and regularly visits sex workers that live nearby. They treat her to outings and food. The sex workers and some of her peers are her friends through whom she temporarily finds some comfort. However, through a mixture of media, friends, family, and cultural messaging Pecola is programmed to believe that she is “ugly.” She absorbs the cultural messaging that blue eyes are the prettiest eyes, and that hers do not meet the beauty standards. She learns to hate the way she looks.
Woven throughout the story it is indicated how desperately Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola desire to possess the societal standard for physical beauty. Each are convinced it would change their lives if they could achieve having blue eyes and perfect teeth, for example. At one point, Pecola even approaches a former “Reverend “who is rumored to have a special connection with God, to request that she be given blue eyes. In what is arguably the weirdest scene in the book, the “Reverend” instead gives Pecola some poison, and tells her to feed it to a dog. When Pecola does this, the dog dies causing her even further trauma.
Morrison does not spare Pecola and drives her point into readers until the end. Pecola eventually becomes unhinged and disengages from reality. Pecola’s former friends abandon her. She can no longer tell what is real and she creates a pretend friend who eventually abandons her too.
Morrison is relentless in making her point and the tone of this novel is sad, hopeless, and desperate. She does not show her characters mercy in her pursuit to illustrate how the standards of beauty effect women and young girls. There are few redeeming characters, and no characters are spared the impact of the damage of not meeting societal beauty standards. Some characters that start out with some redeeming qualities are stripped of them by the end of the novel. This is not a light read but it is a literary wonder and may expose readers to new ways of seeing the world if they are brave enough to consider the raw perspectives of the characters.