Review Song of
Solomon
From Sacred
Fire
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison's lyrical third
novel, begins with an arresting scene -- a man on a roof threatening to jump, a woman
standing on the ground, singing, and another woman entering labor. The child born of that
labor is Macon "Milkman" Dead III; Song of Solomon is the epic story of
his life-time journey toward an understanding of his own identity and ancestry. Milkman is
born burdened with the materialistic values of his father and the weight of a racist
society; over the course of his odyssey he reconnects to his deeper family values and
history, rids himself of the burden of his father's expectations and society's
limitations, and literally learns to fly.
When the novel opens, Milkman is clearly a man with little or no concern for others. Like his father, he is driven only by his immediate sensual needs; he is spoiled and self-centered and pursues money and sexual gratification at all costs. The novel centers around his search for a lost bag of gold that was allegedly taken from a man involved in his grandfather's murder and then abandoned by his Aunt Pilate. The search for gold takes Milkman and his friend Guitar, a young black militant, to Shalimar, a town named for his great-grandfather Solomon, who according to local legend escaped slavery by taking flight back to Africa on the wind. On his journey, under the influence of his Aunt Pilate, a strong, fearless, natural woman whose values are the opposite of Milkman's father's, Milkman begins to come to terms with his family history, his role as a man, and the possibilities of his life apart from a cycle of physical lust and satisfaction.
In telling the story of Milkman's quest to discover the hidden history of the Deads, Morrison expertly weaves together elements of myth, magic, and folklore. She grapples with fundamental issues of class and race, ancestry and identity, while never losing sight of Milkman's compelling story. The language in Song of Solomon, Morrison's only novel with a male protagonist, is earthy and poetic, the characters eccentric, and the detail vivid and convincing. The result is a novel that is at once emotionally intense, provocative, and inspiring in its description of how one man rediscovered the latent power within him.
Song of Solomon is considered to be Toni Morrison's masterpiece and is in the top echelon of literary works produced by any American writer. It is also her breakthrough novel in both critical and commercial success: It was the first African American novel since Native Son to be a main selection of the Book of the Month club and it won the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award among others. The book received a second life, and best-seller status, twenty years after its initial publication when talk show host Oprah Winfrey announced it as a selection for her on-air book club.