The novel opens, the ghost is in full possession of the house, having driven away Sethe's two young sons. ''Who would have thought that a little old baby could harbor so much rage?,'' Sethe thinks, but it does breaking mirrors, making tiny handprints in cake icing, smashing dishes and manifesting itself in pools of blood-red light. Recounted early in the novel, is a keynote for the whole book: in the world of slavery and poverty, where human beings are merchandise, everything has its price, and price is tyrannical. Payment was 10 minutes of sex with the tombstone engraver. Sethe wanted ''Dearly Beloved,'' from the funeral service, but had only enough strength to pay for one word. We never know this child's full name, but we - and Sethe - think of her as Beloved, because that is The spirit of Sethe's baby daughter, who had her throat cut under appalling circumstances 18 years before, when she was 2. ''Beloved'' is suchĪ unified novel that it's difficult to discuss it without giving away the plot, but it must be said at the outset that it is, among other things, a ghost story, for the farmhouse is also home to a sad, malicious and angry ghost, There are many stories and voices in this novel, but the central one belongs to Sethe, a woman in her mid-30's, who is living in an Ohio farmhouse with her daughter, Denver, and her mother-in-law Baby Suggs. In Kentucky, ironically named Sweet Home, from which they fled 18 years before the novel opens. The setting is similarly divided: the countryside near Cincinnati, where the central characters have ended up, and a slave-holding plantation In the South and the seeds for the bizarre and calamitous events of the novel were sown. But there are flashbacks to a more distant period, when slavery was still a going concern Violence was let loose upon blacks, both the slaves freed by Emancipation and others who had been given or had bought their freedom earlier. This new novel is set after the end of the Civil War, during the period of so-called Reconstruction, when a great deal of random Morrison turns away from the contemporary scene that has been her concern of late. In three words or less, it's a hair-raiser. Novelist, of her own or any other generation, ''Beloved'' will put them to rest. If there were any doubts about her stature as a pre-eminent American Morrison's versatility and technical and emotional range appear to know no bounds. ''BELOVED'' is Toni Morrison's fifth novel, and another triumph. Section 7, Column 3 Book Review Deskīy MARGARET ATWOOD Margaret Atwood is the author of ''The Handmaid's Tale,'' ''Bluebeard's Egg'' and the forthcoming ''Selected Poems II.'' September 13, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
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