Dear Carla
Thanks for your last letter. I'm glad that you're getting better and hope you will soon leave the hospital. I think that the best you can do to kill time is reading books. I've recently read a very good novel by Toni Morrison-"Sula". I'm sure you've heard about the book and if you haven't read it yet, you definitely should do it because the novel is fascinating.
Have you heard anything about Toni Morrison? She is nowadays one of the most celebrated American authors. She published her first novel in 1970 but became really popular 18 years later. Morisson was then awarded the Pulitzer Price for her another novel "Beloved" and in 1993 she received the Nobel Prize. In fact, she received all the most important literary prizes. Apart from the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, she also received the National Book Award and the Chianti Ruffino Antico Fattore International Award in Literature. Her writing is analyzed from two perspectives- from the Black perspective and the feminist perspective. I know that you are interested in feminist writing therefore I think that you will find "Sula" a piece of good reading.
The novel is set in the early 1900s in a small Ohio town called Medallion. This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines-Sula Peace and Nel Wright, from their growing up together through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation.
The protagonists of the novel live in the Bottom-mostly Black community situated in the hills above the mostly white, wealthier community of Medallion. Their families are contrasted; Nel comes from the family that believes deeply in social conventions. Her home is rigid but stable. The only unconventional member of Nel's family is her grandmother who used to be a prostitute. Sula, by contrast, comes from a family line that does not follow social norms. She lives with her mother, Helena and her grandmother, Eva who informally adopted three boys.
Sula and Nel, despite all the differences, become close friends in their adolescence. Their relationship changes when an accident takes place. One day, they play by the river and meet a neighbourhood boy called Chicken Little. Sula swings him around by him hands but the slips out of her hands, falls into river and drowns. Though it is an accident and they did not want to harm Chicken, Nel and Sula never tell anyone about it. However, the event makes them drift apart.
After they graduate from high school, Nel decides to follow her mother footsteps and gets married, accepting conventional roles of mother and wife. Sula chooses completely different style of life. She leaves Medallion ans becomes independent woman. Disregarding all social norms, she lives wild life and has many love affairs, also with white men. However, she does not find happiness or fulfilment in the arms of successive lovers and returns to her home town after few years. She is ostracized by the local community which perceives her as the embodiment of evil, especially after she has an affair with Nel's husband, Jude. Sula's cruelty and her lack of consideration for others' feelings inspire positive reactions and behaviour of the inhabitants of Medallion. They become better to one another. After Nel sees her husband and Sula making love, Jude leaves her and Nel breaks off her friendship with Sula.
Having lost her only friend, Sula is absolutely lonely and alienated from the society of Medalion for whom she becomes a scapegoat. She is blamed for anything bad that happens to anyone in the town; if someone chokes it is because Sula looked at him. If a child stumbles and falls down, it is because Sula pushed him.
In her terrible loneliness, Sula has love affair with a man called Ajax. She falls in love with him-something that has never happened to her before. She becomes attached to him and begins to long for a normal, long-lasting relationship. However, when Ajax discovers Sula's feeling towards him, he is scared of her attachment and emotions. He leaves her broken-hearted and she misses him very much.
Sula lives alone for many years. Nel reconciles with her only when Sula is on her deathbed. She dies in 1940 and 25 years later, in 1965, Nel visits Sula grandmother in the nursing home. Eva accuses her of being guilty of Chicken death and it is then that Nel realizes she has always blamed Sula for the accident and considered herself as the "good".
Toni Morrison's novel not only deals with the problem of what it means and costs to be a black woman in America but also questions the notions of good and evil. It turns out that it is hard to distinguish between right and wrong as the two resembles each other. The question of right and wrong, good and bad is the main theme of the novel. These are very ambiguous issues; throughout the novel, Sula is judged to be bad by the society of Medalion; Nel is considered to be good. In consequence, Nel sees herself as a picture of goodness while Sula believes to be an embodiment of evil.
I think that you will like the novel and Morrison's imagery, characterization and poetic prose. "Sula" shows a very interesting and honest depiction of life of Black communities after the Civil War and it is really worth reading. If you wanted to read the novel in English, as I did, you would probably have one problem; as Toni Morrison uses specific language spoken by Black people, sometimes it can be a bit difficult to understand dialogues. But it is not a serious problem and I am sure that you will enjoy reading "Sula". I hope I have managed to encouraged you to familiarize yourself with Toni Morrison's writing.
That's all from me. Let me know whether you like the novel. You know I am a bookworm-maybe you could recommend to me some interesting book?
Take care.
Lots of love
Ania
