Toni Morrison has never disappointed. This is a deep, rich experience. Ms. Morrison writes in beautifully overlapping, intertwining layers and vines, like a French braid from head to floor, the strands only coming together inches above the plush carpeting. It is not possible to completely crack and embrace this gem encrusted geode in one read. About every ten years I discover something new to appreciate when I treat myself to another swim in Song of Solomon.

I'm no prude, but some of the actions described in this book go beyond crude to disgusting and repulsive. Who needs to waste time reading about such behavior? Don't we see enough of the depths of human depravity on the news? I would have expected a huge protest from families of middle class black people, who are portayed with every variety of perversion and obsession...the only ones who are shown as decent human beings are strange in their own ways, nonformist to the extreme.

I thought this book was amazing. The author gives you a lot of random information during the beginning half of the novel, but once
you have reached towards the end of the book all of this information falls into place. I loved the ending. It was terrific. The last sentence of the novel even somes up the whole book, and really connects to the very beginning of the novel. I loved this book so much that if I was introduced to it out of my english class
I would still have read it.

Song of Solomon is a great tale about a young man who struggles through life until he finally is able to find his roots. I would call it an initiation story-Milkman, the hero, is the son of a wealthy and prominent black man. He has it relatively easy-he works alongside his father and never wants for anything-and gets into trouble frequently in "Southside," the poor side of town. He struggles with his familial problems-his father tried to have him aborted before birth, his mother has issues both with him and with her own deceased father, his sisters never talk to him-and is able to find refuge only in the house of his aunt, Pilate, who his father forbids him to see.

Milkman (whose real name is Macon Dead) ultimately gets caught up in a scheme to find hidden gold, and leaves his home in search of it. The trail of the gold leads him to his family's roots, and in learning of his heritage he is transformed from a man of the world into a man who has great pride in his origins. The climax of the story finds him reconciling his family's past to the present.

The characterization in this novel is great, and the narrative riveting. There are racial issues here, of course, but the moral of the story seems to be in discovering (and staying true) to one's heritage, which is exactly what Milkman eventually does. This novel is both entertaining and thought provoking, certainly worthwhile.

"Song of Solomon" is considered one of Toni Morrison's best book. It is not easy to select a single novel from the whole oeuvre of a writer so important and magnificent as this one. Recently, her novel "Beloved" was picked as the best book published in the past 25 years in the United States. And it is not a fluke. She certainly is one of the best and most important female writers alive and working. With books like these two and all she wrote, Morrison could place her name side by side with male (most of them white) writers when dealing with serious racial issues - just like William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Ralph Ellison.

The fact that she is an African-descendent places her in a singular position. She is just one of those few who can write about the racial question with an insider output. So much so that that in her "Song of Solomon" Morrison uses some of her family legends in the narrative. As it usually happens in her books, plot is not the main concern here. The main point here is the main character's quest for his identity. Dealing with one man's identity, Morrison is dealing with the roots of all African-descendents.

Her prose is poetic and her characters are unforgettable. She is able to create a very believable world populated with strange people, but who never seem to be freaks. The narrative is compound of many plots that crosses one another sometimes, creating a web of relationships.

"Song of Solomon" is a universal music that is able to communicate with the whole world. A book that has become an important classic and will certainly be read for many years to come.