About this title: Toni Morrison writes about a group of African Americans who found a community in Oklahoma called Ruby. When the outside world threatens the peace of the community, five women whose lives are particularly troubled take refuge in an abandoned convent, which alienates the men of the town. In this novel, which pits men against women and presents women ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Edition: 1ST,
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 12/1997
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 318 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: A.A. Knopf, New York
Date Published: 1/1998
ISBN-13:9780679433743ISBN:0679433740
Description: Fine in Very Good dust jacket. Book itself is as new; dust jacket, which is a deep green, shows a little scuffing from shelf wear, and one ding on the back near the spine. An excellent buy. Unknown printing. Illustrated by. 318 p. ; 25 cm. read more
"The part of the book concerning the town of Ruby, Oklahoma, a small black town founded in 1890 was very interesting and made me wonder if there were many towns similar to that. The people inhabiting that town were very dark skinned and very nice looking. On there way there to find a place to start over from another area many miles away they went to other black towns but were turned away because the lighter skinned blacks did not want intergration with the dark familes.
The part of the book concerning the Convent, which was no longer a convent but was still called that, and the run away girls that found their way to the large house 20 miles from Ruby, OK was not something I cared about, although there probably are places like it in a country as large as ours."
"This is the first Toni Morrison book that I really disliked. She is of course an amazing writer (and my favorite) but I just couldn't get into this book. I read 200 pages and just had to give up.
Kind of like in the Bluest Eye when I thought she diverted from the most interesting character Pecola to talk about Pecola's mother and father and their entire lives. I Know it was important to the story but it was hard to read because I wanted to know more about Pecola and her struggle.
In Paradise it happens again because the most interesting characters are the women of the Convent and you read little about them, for large parts of the novel focus on the others who live in Ruby. Again I know how important the back story of the town of Ruby is essential to the entire work...but I didn't really care about any of it. I just wanted to read about the how and why the Convent was hated so much.
Although I didn't like it I do believe it has the most stunning opening line for a book...ever! "They shoot the white girl first." I wish the rest of the book held my attention like that first line."
"Paradise explores issues of intolerance, trauma, and social convention in a way that left me compassionate but unsure. Character development seemed thorough but then many of the characters got confused in my mind. I couldn't help but think that was intentional. The basic plot is the interface and conflict that happens between the the members of small town and a group of women that live (unconventionally) just outside. The town was founded by a group of very dark-skinned blacks who experienced rejection and intolerance from lighter-skinned blacks and from whites. They in turn become intolerant of anything/anyone outside of their community. Morrison is expert at weaving in personal stories and family history."
"Paradise is the final book of Morrison's trilogy examining blackness in America, though her trilogy could just as easily be about love. Beloved we see a mother's love, in Jazz we understand another all-consuming romantic love, and in Paradise we examine the love of God and use of religion. A town called Haven, later named, Ruby, run by men, who decide to kill women who have been victims of their own lives, ruining one paradise with intention of saving another. There is inherent irony in Toni Morrison's novel Paradise, but the irony is not resultant from the play of fates, but evolution. The town of Haven is founded to escape victimization and found a new life where, "freedom was not entertainment, like a carnival or a hoedown that you can count on once a year. Nor was it the table droppings from the entitled. Here freedom was a test administered by the natural world that a man had to take for himself everyday. And if he passed enough tests long enough, he was king." Haven, a town which was founded to house those who were turned away or run-out everywhere else, festers from within from fear and the security of money, a system of power, and order to maintain both. This results in the murder of women, who like those who founded the town, were also escaping lives without hope. As Connie tells one of the first new strangers to Ruby, "scary things not always outside. Most scary things inside." Morrison forces us to examine ourselves, every fear, hope, misguided action, unspoken word, all our judgments and preoccupations are held up to the light and under this scrutiny we find redemption in darkness and often evil where we thought there could only be good or God. She has a way of reinventing the world by breaking with easily held generalities and delving deep into characters, seeking out humanity as it is and as it manifests. We are spared no glory or shame, no hypocrisy or heroism, people in all their rich, complex existence are playing out in tense, personal, ideological battles in everyday ways to violent outrage."
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