Morrison’s truth
Writer examined history with clear eyes
It’s never too late to honor the dead,” Toni Morrison once said, and, “It’s never too late to applaud the living who do them honor.”
She was speaking specifically of African Americans brought here as slaves, but the thought applies to her life and her work, which were, of course, one.
Ms. Morrison, who died Monday at the age of 88, was an incredibly brave writer. When she began publishing her fiction there were few telling the truth about those human beings — enslaved by other human beings. James Baldwin was. But not many people wanted to look at the American stain.
It’s not hard to do that now. It was then.
Ms. Morrison believed unreservedly in two things: the power of language and the necessity to record and remember history, personal and political, with unflinching honesty.
Of the latter quality, her critics said she overdid it; she overindulged. Her answer was that it is not possible to overindulge in truth.
Mark Twain, for one, agreed. For 50 years in the late half of the
last century, the American right shut its eyes to the depraved corners of our history. They didn’t want to know or have their children know. They called honesty unpatriotic.
Now it is the left that covers statues and paints over murals because of the inconvenient truths of our past.
Toni Morrison never shut her eyes.
And all of her books are upsetting. As for language, Ms. Morrison wrote and spoke often about how words are always inadequate to the task before the writer: to chronicle and attempt to understand the human condition. But there is nobility in the attempt and sometimes beauty in our failure. Lincoln, she said, taught us that.
For Toni Morrison, our stories — the honesty with which we tell them and the artistry with which we tell them — are our measure.
By their stories, their truth and their power shall we judge the man, the woman and the nation.
And by her own story, and her fiction, shall Toni Morrison be judged by the ages. She seems to us now a lioness — of both literature and life.