Toni Morrison

"Love" is incredible. I finished it a few days ago and it's been rattling around in my head since. It's the best book of hers i have read (though perhaps not my favourite, if that makes any sense - I'll take the crazy, magnificent but flawed "Paradise" over it) and that definately makes it one of my favourite books ever. The depth and intricacy of the stories in here would take most other novellists a good 800 pages to spin out yet she contains it all in exactly 200 pages that never feels rushed. When the word "love" is uttered once (and only once in the whole book) it feels like the preceeding pages of the book have caved in on you: the effect is almost unbearably moving. Morrison herself has described the book as "perfect"... and she's right.

Of the other books of hers i have read i would say that "Beloved" is my least favourite -though it's the one that most people know and which gets most praise. "Paradise" is the one (along with "Love") that i feel the urge to re-read - such a beautiful baffling thing. "Song of Solomon" is more conventional but probably just as good and "Jazz" is the one where she took her obsession with the beauty of the language itself as far as she could (perhaps too far - i can remember almost nothing of the book beyond some incredible imagery and descriptive passages).