Toni Morrison : A mercy (Un don)

To say I'm a fan of this author, this is an understatement. Also when I happen to stop by chance at Fnac (a book superstore in France), when I saw the last issue of Toni Morrison, I violently pulled a copy of it from the shelves and urgently ranked it at the top of my stack of books to read. Life is so made of constant injustices that we perpetrate with relish. My apologies anyway to all these good whose reading I have pushed back to the Greek calendar.

Copyright © 2008 Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center

Naturally, starting this book I wondered if it would give me the same satisfaction as my previous readings of Toni Morrison. Immediately I found a few trademarks of the American author; Polyphony for example. The need to bring a fresh perspective on an event and thus to express oneself through several voices. That of Florens, a young black slave taken from (or rather sold) by her mother through a deal, that Jakob Vaark, a Dutch settler who emigrated to America, that of Lina, a servant with American Indian ancestry, that of Rebekka the wife of Jakob, a young woman virtually sold to the latter, that of Sorrow, a servant in the Vaark household, slightly schizophrenic, or that of Scully and Willard, whom are White and slaves.

What is the story about? We are in 1690. The English colonies in America are still a wilderness where smallpox decimates indigenous populations, where waves of immigrants arrive, fleeing intolerance they experienced in Europe to only do the same but worst in America. A time when the dregs of European society have a choice between incarceration on the old continent and live a form of slavery in North America. A time when rigorous laws of management of slavery are gradually introduced to reduce the uprisings. A wild land to tame, where everything is possible. The American dream. Finally, it depends to whom.

The action takes place around and with the Vaarks. Under an agreement with a debt collector farmer, Florens a little girl 5/6 years old is sold to Jakob Vaark without his full agreement of this transaction. It is the plea of ​​the mother of the little girl which leads him to decide to accept the deal. A dozen of years later, after Vaark developed his farm and almost completed the construction of his big house, he is struck by smallpox, without enjoying his dream. The disappearance of Jakob Vaark, who left no offspring, will upset the fragile balance and the family atmosphere that united the Vaarks and their servants.

The end is very interesting. I have here a linear presentation. But the construction of Morrison is much more elaborate than that. Between the monologues of some characters and the description of the actions of others, the writing is often introspective and the look back to the past seems to be a need to explain the violence of an act, the change in attitude of a character. What interests Morrison is the mechanism that binds the different characters of her novel, the secret expectations of everyone, complex silence. We perceive that the way immigrants arrived determines their actions. The casual reader will be surprised to find the slavery of Whites in this roughing of the United States, religious intolerance of the new settlers, and he will feel the barbarity of American soil.

Love is at the heart of this novel. The love of Florens. A violent, wild, passionate love for a blacksmith, black and free. A love born of misunderstanding and non resolution of the equation so dear to Toni Morrison: namely the one that can produce a maternal love in the most extreme situations.

I have long felt that I was reading a good novel, but when reviwing the last 30 pages, this text takes on another dimension. This is my opinion. The best novel by Toni Morrison since Beloved.

Let Florens talk about her passion:

“My hunger is acute, but my happiness is even greater. I cannot eat much. We talk about many different things and I'm not saying what I think. That I'll stay forever. Never, never without you. Here I'm not the one that is being removed. Nobody steals my warmth and my shoes because I am small. Nobody cares of my posterior. Nobody bleats like a sheep because I fall from fear or fatigue. Nobody screams by seeing me. Nobody studies my body looking for weird things. With you my body is fun and safe and it has a place. I will never support that you would not have me with you.”

Page 163 Edition Christian Bourgois

Toni Morrison, A Mercy