Do you now know what it's like to risk your one and only self?

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, first published in 1977

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary

Song of Solomon is a story about exploration, redemption, love, fear, hate, and identity. It chronicles the life of Milkman Dead, only son of Ruth Foster and Macon Dead, brother to Magdalena (Lena) and First Corinthians Dead. Milkman gets his nickname from nursing his mother long into his toddler years, and can't shake the nickname as an adult. The Deads are so named because of a series of mishaps/name modification due to exiting enslavement, and their children are named by picking words from a Bible.

Milkman is raised in a town in the Midwest, a kind of 'anywhere' town in Michigan. His father, Macon, traveled to Michigan from his original hometown in Shalimar, Virginia, with his sister, Pilate, after their father was brutally murdered for his land/farm. Though the siblings are estranged at the novel's beginning, both are living in the same town, and Pilate has a daughter, Reba, who also has a daughter, Hagar, who is about the same age as Milkman. 

Milkman's closest friend is named Guitar, and it becomes clear throughout the course of the novel that Guitar is involved in a kind of secret society, the Seven Days, who are attempting to 'even the racial score' after racially motivated murders take place. Milkman doesn't wholly understand this work, but doesn't expose his friend. The novel climaxes in a trip to Shalimar, VA, where Milkman attempts to hunt down some supposedly long-lost gold treasure, but he finds nothing but his own origin story. Guitar thinks Milkman is trying to steal the gold for himself, as they had originally planned to get it together, and refuses to believe Milkman when he protests that there was no gold to be had. Guitar decides that Milkman's "day has come", as he was interfering with Guitar's work, and makes it his sole focus to murder Milkman. In the end, the two run at each other off a cliff, still at odds.

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Hello, dear blobbists!

As a write this particular entry, I have a tortie Twix on my legs and I'm listening to the mockingbird in my backyard say 'pretty-bird, pretty-bird, pretty-bird'. The ice cream truck has also descended, because it's never too cold for ice cream (apparently). 

I can't believe that of Toni Morrison's eleven novels, I've only read three as part of this project -Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and now this one. I don't have many authors whose entire oeuvre I've read (in fact, I'm wondering if there are any? I mean, some of the one-book authors, sure, but multiples...?) but Toni Morrison is definitely someone whose whole canon I'd like to be acquainted with. Song of Solomon was a soulful kind of read; definitely dark in parts, but also witty, and wonderful in its world-building aspect. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It'll make you think about what has and hasn't changed in America since Morrison wrote it, and it will take you on a wild journey. Without further ado, here are my thoughts.

Introducing the Cast of Characters

Macon Dead, the Dead family patriarch, not a very good brother, kind of an awful human

The note I write to myself about Macon Dead was: "these lines read more familiarly than I'd like."

Solid, rumbling, likely to erupt without prior notice, Macon kept each member of his family awkward with fear. The disappointment he felt in his daughters sifted down on them like ash, dulling their buttery complexions and choking the lilt out of what should have been girlish voices. I won't go into this further, but it definitely resonated.

Here's another exchange, when Macon finds out that Milkman met his aunt/Macon's sister. 

Macon: 'What she look like to you? Somebody nice? Somebody normal?'

Milkman: 'Well, she...'

Macon: 'Or somebody cut your throat?'

Milkman: 'She didn't look like that, Daddy.'

Macon: 'Well, she is like that.'

Milkman: 'What'd she do?'

Macon: 'It ain't what she did; it's what she is.'

Milkman: 'What is she?'

Macon: 'A snake, I told you.' Macon has some reasons to be mistrustful of his sister, it turns out, but in the end Pilate is a much better human being than Macon, despite their vastly different lifestyles.

Reba, daughter of Pilate, mother to Hagar, trying to get admitted any way she can

After a scuffle takes place at Pilate's house, she asks if Reba wants to go to the hospital, and though she is barely injured, here's her response: Reba said she wanted to go to the hospital. (It was her dream to be a patient in a hospital; she was forever trying to get admitted, since in her picture-show imagination, it was a nice hotel. She gave blood there as often as they would let her, and stopped only when the blood bank was moved to an office-type clinic some distance away from Mercy.) There's so much tenderness and earnestness in this, especially since we learn throughout the book that Black folk are not seen at the main hospital/are just beginning to be admitted.

Hagar, daughter of Reba, cousin to and lover of Milkman, a woman on a mission

So I neglected to mention in the plot summary that Hagar and Milkman end up seeing each other, and also that he breaks up with her and she gets hyper-fixated on murdering him once a month. 

• She could not get his love (and the possibility that he didn't think of her at all was intolerable) so she settled for his fear. I can't imagine what it would be like to be so entangled with a person that you are desperate for any emotion or notice of theirs, but Hagar was such a tragic and lovable character for me. 

• Luckily for Milkman, she had proved, so far, to be the world's most inept killer. lol.

Pilate, sister to Macon, aunt to Milkman, mother to Reba, grandmother to Hagar

I don't have any particular lines from the novel that I underlined about Pilate, but I can't leave her out of the group, as she's such a pivotal and remarkable character. While Macon is an upright citizen, one of the wealthiest Black people in town, Pilate makes her money by bootlegging, which makes Macon deeply resentful and ashamed. Milkman spends much of the novel getting to know Pilate, and coming to understand his father and aunt's history makes him feel eminently more connected to Pilate. One of my favorite scenes in the novel takes place when Milkman and Guitar come to Pilate's house, and she offers them a soft-boiled egg. As she makes the eggs, she describes her method, and how once you have the egg boiling, you "put a folded newspaper over the pot and do one small obligation (like answering the door)". It makes sense that not everyone had timers/that they're a newish invention, so I loved the idea of timing the egg off of how long it took to do a small activity, a small obligation. It also reminded me of eating soft-boiled eggs as a child, as I have vivid memories of this. I don't know the last time I had a soft-boiled egg, but I very much associate the moment of cracking open a soft-boiled egg to dip my toast in it with youth and a kind of innocence.

Corinthians, sister to Macon and Lena; not quite the right kind of desirable wife

Corinthians and Lena were really interesting characters, particularly because they go from being the most eligible Black women bachelorettes to being 'spinsters' living at home with Ruth and Macon well into their adulthood. Here is a description of why:

• Corinthians was a little too elegant. Bryn Mawr in 1940. France in 1939. That was a bit much. In the novel, the author makes it clear that the most eligible Black bachelors want a woman who can grow and rise with them, and in a way, Corinthians and Lena are "over-aristocratized" and therefore no longer desirable. This really felt resonant in the narrative of 'Lemonade' to me, the idea that Black women are held to such impossible standards and still can't win. I did love the Bryn Mawr reference, though.

Corinthians gets a bit more character exploration in the later parts of the novel as she dates a man, Porter, who it turns out is also a member of the Seven Days with Guitar. I love this scene when Corinthians gets home from Porter's house:

Corinthians blinked. She had just come from a house in which men sat in a lit kitchen talking in loud excited voices, only to meet an identical scene at home. She wondered if this part of the night, a part she was unfamiliar with, belonged, had always belonged, to men. If perhaps it was a secret hour in which men rose like giants from dragon's teeth and, while the women slept, clustered in their kitchens. This is such an incredible image.

Guitar, best friend of Milkman, man about town, soldier of the Seven Days

Guitar is such a fascinating and beautifully drawn character. The Seven Days construct is complex and yet basic - they kill white people in the same way and same numbers as racially motivated killings that take place against Black people, attempting to right the injustice/lack of action on the part of the legal system and even out the impact of the generations of lives lost with each murder. There are seven men, each of whom is assigned a day of the week, and Guitar has this to say when Milkman asks for an explanation:

Guitar: 'I had to do something. And the only thing left to do is balance it; keep things on an even keel. I help keep the numbers the same.'

Milkman: 'And if it isn't done? If it just goes on the way it has?'

Guitar: 'Then the world's a zoo, and I can't live in it.'

Guitar goes on to tell Milkman: Everybody wants the life of a black man. 

And when Milkman points out that the white people being killed aren't directly the perpetrators, Guitar describes their collective accountability for the crimes, saying this: What I'm saying is, under certain conditions, they (white people) would all do it. And under the same circumstances we would not.

This is obviously heavy, but I'm honestly surprised there aren't more stories or narratives about a society like this. Maybe it's the influence of white power and privilege, and there are more that are suppressed, or maybe these exist. I'm not saying that violence, in my personal opinion, is a universal response, but I think this fictional exploration of one way that a community might choose to take action is an interesting thought experiment. 

Milkman, son of Macon and Ruth, nephew to Pilate, uncomfortable in his own skin

I love this description of Milkman: By the time Milkman was fourteen he had noticed that one of his legs was shorter than the other. When he stood barefoot and straight as a pole, his left foot was about half an inch off the floor. So he never stood straight; he slouched or leaned or stood with a hip thrown out, and he never told anybody about it - ever. When Lena said, 'Mama, what is he walking like that for?' he said, 'I'll walk any way I want to, including over your ugly face.' It's such a hilarious example of siblings interacting without filters, but also such an apt physical representation of the way that Milkman is off kilter, out of step with life's rhythms.

Milkman really struggles with other people's expectations: My family's driving me crazy. Daddy wants me to be like him and hate my mother. My mother wants me to think like her and hate my father. Corinthians won't speak to me; Lena wants me out. And Hagar wants me chained to her bed or dead. Everybody wants something from me, you know what I mean? Something they think they can't get anywhere else. Something they think I got.

A few general reflections...

On the many kinds of black

I love this line from Pilate: There're five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don't stay still. It moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.

When Guitar tells Milkman he doesn't like sweets

So it turns out there's a dark and deeply disturbing reason for this, but I loved this interaction between Guitar and Milkman. 

Guitar: 'Fruit, but nothing with sugar. Candy, cake, stuff like that. I don't even like to smell it. Makes me want to throw up.'

Milkman: Milkman searched for a a physical cause. He wasn't sure he trusted anybody who didn't like sweets. 'You must have sugar diabetes.'

Guitar: 'You don't get sugar diabetes from not eating sugar. You get it from eating too much sugar.'

It turns out Guitar hates sweets because he associates it with the owner of the sawmill's wife giving him divinity candy when his father is brutally killed in the sawmill. But I like that Milkman doesn't trust someone who doesn't like sweets, as I'm the same way. ;)

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same)

Perhaps the most resonant and also most profoundly sad part of reading this book in 2024 was thinking about how much of the narrative is still unchanged. Here's a conversation at the barbershop about the killing of Emmett Till, who was murdered for whistling at a white woman on a trip down South.

'But everybody knows about it now. It's all over. Everywhere. The law is the law.'

'You wanna bet? This is sure money!'

'You stupid, man. Real stupid. Ain't no law for no colored man except the one sends him to the chair,' said Guitar. 

'They say Till had a knife,' Freddie said.

'They always say that. He could of had a wad of bubble gum, they'd swear it was a hand grenade.

All I could think of in reading this line was the number of Black men, women, and people who have been slaughtered by white people, by police, by 'keepers of the law/peace', and the constant attempt to justify these murders with claims they had weapons that turn out to be things like a bag of chips, or a bottle of Gatorade. It's unspeakably painful to think that so little has changed in 50 years, or a hundred. What will it take for this to stop? For white people to see? 

And speaking of things that resonated in painful ways, I was also struck by this exchange around Flint, Michigan, in thinking of its symbolism for racial discrimination and negligence after its water crisis: 

"What kind a place is it, Flint? 

Jive. No place you'd want to go to." 

Phrases I plan to start sprinkling into my everyday vernacular

Here are some lines that I really enjoyed, and I would like to start finding ways to include.

• Well, there is a difference between a woman and a lady, and I know you know which one I am. Yes!

• I'm on the thin side of evil and trying not to break through. I love this line so much.

• Your ear is on your head, but it's not connected to your brain. hagh.

Referents and Reverberations

• Fahrenheit-451, Ray Bradbury

This line, from the beginning of the book: 

When the dead doctor's daughter saw Mr. Smith emerge as promptly as he had promised from behind the cupola, his wide blue silk wings curved forward around his chest, she dropped her covered peck basket, spilling red velvet rose petals. The wind blew them about, up, down, and into small mounds of snow.

Reminded me of this scene from Fahrenheit-451, when Montag meets Clarisse: The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. Her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered.

And this line: The house was more prison than palace. Also reminded me of Fahrenheit-451, in describing silence - She made the empty rooms roar with accusation and shake down a fine dust of guilt that was sucked in their nostrils as they plunged about. It was neither cricket nor correct." 

• Candide, by Voltaire

This line, from Macon: Let me tell you right now the one important thing you'll ever need to know: Own things. And let the things you own own other things. Reminded me of the fundamental finding at the end of Candide, which suggests that we must find and cultivate our gardens in life. Granted, the meaning of ownership is vastly more layered in this racial context, but I felt an echo of the sentiment just the same.

Things that were new to me

divi-divi trees - a small tropical American tree (Caesalpinia coriaria) of the legume family with twisted astringent pods that contain a large proportion of tannin

four-in-hand - a necktie tied in a loose knot with two hanging ends, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

galloping disease - an illness progressing rapidly toward a fatal outcome (ok, so I know this is a bad thing, but it sounds kind of fun, right?)

sunshine cake - the internet seems to have a variety of opinions on this one, but generally: sunshine cake is a moist yellow cake, often infused with flavors of citrus fruits

tetter spots - blisters or pimples; any of various skin eruptions, such as eczema

Lines I Particularly Liked

• She did not try to make her meals nauseating; she simply didn't know how not to. lololol.

• She had the distinct impression that his lips were pulling from a thread of light. I love this line!

• Totally taken over by her anaconda lover, she had no self left, no fears, no wants, no intelligence that was her own. This one cuts so deep.

• Deep down in that pocket where his heart hid, he felt used.

I'll leave you with this passage about the sweet smell of autumn, as I'm enjoying pretending that this transitional weather we're experiencing in Philadelphia is the onset of fall, rather than the beginning whispers of summer. 

On autumn nights, in some parts of the city, the wind from the lake brings a sweetish smell to shore. An odor like crystallized ginger, or sweet iced tea with a dark clove floating in it. Yet there was this heavy spice-sweet smell that made you think of the East and striped tents and the sha-sha-sha of leg bracelets. The people who lived near the lake hadn't noticed the smell for a long time now because when air conditioners came, they shut their windows and slept a light surface sleep under the motor's drone. 

So the ginger sugar blew unnoticed through the streets, around the trees, over roofs, until, thinned out and weakened a little, it reached Southside. There, where some houses didn't even have screens, let alone air conditioners, the windows were thrown wide open to whatever the night had to offer. And there the ginger smell was sharp, sharp enough to distort dreams and make the sleeper believe the things he hungered for were right at hand. To the Southside residents who were awake on such nights, it gave all their thoughts and activity a quality of being both intimate and far away.

May your thoughts and activities feel both intimate and far away this evening, carried to you on a sweet ginger breeze. I'm off to the final four books on my list, starting with a spiritual road trip. Keep safe! Good night!