Inevitably (perhaps unfortunately), Beloved will be compared to The Color Purple, and it's easy to see why - both novels are historical fiction written by black women, with a focus on the struggles of black women in a country that is hostile to the notion of coming to terms with the legacy of slavery.

But I think Beloved is the far more mature work of the two. In formal and expressive terms, it bears much more resemblance to Faulkner's Light in August than The Color Purple. In my opinion, Sethe and Denver are far more satisfying characters than Celie and her sister - Morrison's characters appear to have far more agency.

I had an interesting time with the literary references in this - the character of Paul D appears to be a veiled reference to Joyce's Ulysses (I am thinking primarily of the punning on the name Paul De Kock). I believe, however, that I would need a fine pair of tweezers and vaster quantities of alcohol than are presently available in order to attempt to parse the meaning out of this reference.

Morrison's talent for ever so gently dislocating the real in her prose shines in particular during the quasi stream of consciousness section, which flows and distorts so carefully. I loved the wonderful romantic phrase:

'She is the laugh; I am the laughter'
During this section - it seems to recall W.B. Yeats' Among School Children:
'How can we know the dancer from the dance?'

Fantastic! :)