Understanding Beloved
Contrary to the title of this post, I don't really understand Beloved. Now I wouldn't call myself the most careful of readers, but I'm still really confused by this book. The book quickly plunges you into 124, a haunted house right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. The main story is literally haunted by another story that happened 18 years ago, coinciding with the birth of one of the main characters. The most challenging part of reading the book for me is piecing the individual tidbits of information that we are given and shaping that into a coherent and concrete narrative. Somehow it reminds me of Invisible Man , in which reading it felt like a nightmare, in some ways. Reading Beloved is very surreal, and terrifying. For starters, there's a freaking ghost baby! At the same time, it also feels like the main characters are the ones waking up from the nightmare, as Sethe and Paul D learn more about their past and Denver learns it. One thing that I have been thinking about i