Double Book Review: Biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham

 

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (2009)

Four and half Stars out of Five

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (2012)

Four Stars out of Five

Jon Meacham

Under Jon Meacham as editor-in-chief at Newsweek, that once popular but now gone news weekly achieved remarkable heights in terms of news analysis, rivaling even the current standard for such reporting, The Economist. Though Meacham is now a contributing editor at Time magazine, he also has also written four books and acted as the editor on two more, all with a focus on American history. His prose is fluid and agile, and generally provides a point of view towards his subjects that does not ignore their flaws. His greatest appeal to me as a reader is that unlike some other historians that produce books for the general public, Meacham always does a good job of analyzing the historical consequences of his subjects’ actions. Presumably Meacham chose to write books on Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson because of similarities in their impact on the modern presidency; certainly their natures and attitudes regarding most subjects beyond the importance of the presidency and the preservation of the Union could not be further apart. Because of this similarity in impact, this review will combine both books into a single review.

In Meacham’s latest book, “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power”, Jon Meacham reveals much about Jefferson but also delineates two critical aspects of Meacham’s approach to the subject area. In a broad sense, history can be told to the general reading public in a variety of ways: for example, adversarial/muck raking, fawning hack summaries, neutral reporting, or in the case of Meacham a method that has been referred to in the NY Times as the Flawed Giant. That is to say, the subjects are persons of historical importance and while they certainly do not have feet of clay, they do have some flaws that must be investigated and explained as thoroughly as their strengths and successes. Consider for example the presidents under review in these two books:  both held slaves, Jefferson held quite hypocritical views on the topic of slavery, Jackson was equally dismissive of the rights for Native Americans, and both practiced campaign strategies that took little notice of former allegiances or respect for their adversaries’ reputations and true abilities, all in the name of getting themselves elected. Meacham covers all of this territory in the two books referenced above, and while he pays only a moderate amount of time on some of their flaws (e.g. Jefferson’s hypocrisy as regards his slave/mistress Sally Hemmings and their offspring working as his house servants), he goes into great depth in other areas of questionable behavior such as Jackson’s near self-destructive defense of his Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife, Peggy.

The second aspect of Meacham’s approach to politics is suggested in the title on Jefferson; that is to say, the “Art of Power”. Meacham’s view towards leading is that a level of pragmatism along with the more expected traits of decisiveness and strength of will is an essential aspect of running a democracy: this is shown to be the technique of Jefferson, and to stand in stark contrast with Jackson’s firmly held belief in his own vision. Even though some groups within modern America have done their best to demean "compromise" as a trait found only in weaklings, the ability to function as a politician, to find a middle way between two warring viewpoints is in fact according to Meacham’s analysis of Jefferson a key aspect to his success and impact on the office of the modern American presidency. According to Meacham, “…politics is an imperfect means to an altruistic end”; and by politics, he referring to compromise, to pragmatism. How these two presidents employed their own personal skills in politics is a central theme of both books.

In “Art of Power” (one of the 2012’s best according to the NY Times Book Review), Jon Meacham describes in modest detail the early life and influences on Thomas Jefferson, his writings (Declaration of Independence amongst others), his role in the Revolutionary War as the Virginia governor, his political life under George Washington, the endless battles with Alexander Hamilton and “neo-Monarchists” aka the Federalists, his years as president, and post-presidential years leading up to his reconciliation with John Adams and their near simultaneous deaths on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1826. His personal life is described by Meacham and shown how it was fraught with tragedy as his young wife and multiple offspring all met early deaths. Additionally discussed is how his intellectual life was one to be modeled by anyone: architect, scientist, agronomist, and politician. One area in the book I thought could have been enhanced would have been to better link how Jefferson’s personal experiences as son, husband, and father shaped his political thought processes. One could draw a conclusion from Meacham’s exploration of Jefferson that he came to his philosophies almost without influence from his personal life. This is the greatest weakness of the book for me.

Where the book does catches fire, was in Meacham’s summary of the 1790’s. During this era, the two party system starts to take shape and Meacham goes into great detail describing the political polarities of the time as well as the viciousness of the partisan politics (including a series egregious acts by Jefferson himself in his 1796 presidential race against Adams). The party Jefferson came to represent was an agrarian-centered/small government group of republicans, while John Adams (Jefferson’s former best friend and colleague) and Alexander Hamilton led and spoke for the Federalists, a strong central government party. To be certain, there were many leaders and members of each party beyond the three I list here. But I choose to focus (as does Meacham) on Adams due to his Revolutionary War alliances with Jefferson and on Hamilton, who for Jefferson came to represent an icon of political immorality as he (in Jefferson’s view) pushed hard for a movement back to monarchy. Much is made in the book on Jefferson’s near mania over his fears of a return to monarchy and how the average American of the time stood to lose in such a scenario. Were Jefferson’s fears exaggerated or real – this is an area on which I would have liked a two viewpoint discussion by Meacham. We get a clear idea of Jefferson’s view on the subject, but little non-partisan analysis on the Federalist viewpoint.

What we do get and enjoyably so, is several examples of Jefferson’s pragmatism. A good example was an early example of State needs versus those of the Federal government. In the early years following the Revolutionary War, about half the states were suffering from deep debts incurred during the war. Hamilton worked hard to get the Federal government to raise taxes in order to provide relief to the states. Jefferson with his small government mindset was firmly opposed to the taxes as well as to the idea that the Federal government would or should intrude on state issues (it was also opposed by his home state of Virginia, which was not in debt). Despite his strong opposition to the relief act (it had been argued against on Jefferson’s behalf by his longtime friend and political colleague, James Madison), Jefferson was able to reach a compromise with Hamilton and the Federalists. Other examples of Jefferson’s willingness to compromise his beliefs about government versus his great desire to protect and advance the American experiment are given throughout the book. The key was always in Jefferson’s analysis: do what was needed to protect and nurture the new American republic, even if that meant compromising your personal ideals.

In a contrasting manner, Meacham’s Pulitzer-prize winning book on Andrew Jackson, “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” goes into the life and times of our seventh president, by focusing on his approach to the presidency and his unstinting view point that his viewpoint, his vision of populism should guide the American government’s actions. And as with Jefferson, Meacham demonstrates how the nature of political campaigning have changed little in the near hundred and ninety years since Jackson's election in 1828. There were with the Jackson years a number of critical battles that took place (US Bank charter, federal tariff on imports, and the Eaton problem). The dogged manner in which Jackson pursued each of these problems were critical to how he expanded and shaped the office of the presidency; effects that linger into the 21^st century.

Jackson began his professional life as a Nashville lawyer who later evolved into a planter, politician and militia officer. He began his private life by courting a married woman (Rachel Donelson Robards); he later married her, though questions about her legal eligibility for a new marriage were very much up in the air. Her death following his successful presidential campaign in 1828 provide a good view of Andrew Jackson’s approach to life. He fiercely loved and defended her, but felt the brutal attacks on her chastity during the campaign led in Jackson’s view to her early death. How Jackson responded in terms of ferocity and his permanent defense of his loved ones and allies versus his assault on his enemies gives an interesting contrast to Jefferson and his approach to political opponents: there was no mercy or compromise in Jackson; his enemies were enemies alone, and no grey was ever seen by him.

Another example of Jackson’s lack of an approach to compromise was the problems endured by his Secretary of War, John Eaton and his problematic wife, Margaret (Peggy) Timberlake. Peggy was widely despised/disapproved of by the Washington elite due to Eaton and her living together prior to their  marriage. The problem gained serious traction when the wife John Calhoun’s (Jackson’s VP) snubbed Peggy and influenced many others to do so, too. The consequences of this seemingly trivial affair were actually critical and far reaching. Jackson in typical Jacksonian fashion divided Washington into two groups: Friends of Peggy (and thus Jackson) and Enemies. One consequence was that Calhoun would be replaced by the bachelor Martin Van Buren (he had no wife to feud with Peggy; there were philosophical issues, too). Van Buren would succeed Jackson as president in 1836. One can easily wonder at presidential succession had the Eaton affair not occurred: conceivably it would still not have been Calhoun, but Van Buren’s chances would have been considerably dimmed, too had he not had the position of VP. Other consequences were equally profound as Jackson found his policies and alliances within the Washington ruling class to some degree compromised and distracted by this otherwise petty problem. With Peggy as with the case of Jackson’s wife Rachel, the consequences of infelicities of the couples involved always landed the hardest on the female half of the pair. In these cases, Meacham also does a great job of showing just how much a blood sport in early 19^th century America politicking could become and the price innocent bystanders would sometimes suffer.

Two other major examples from the Jacksonian era were his battles over the re-chartering of the US Bank and his decision to “relocate” the Cherokee nation from Georgia to Oklahoma territory. In the first case, Meacham succinctly details the fight by Jackson over this issue, but like the fight between Jefferson and the Federalists, I would have liked more discussion on why the re-chartering might have been good for the US. Jackson derived his decision based on his distaste for the involvement of the Federal government in banking and his conclusion that the bank only met the needs of an elite and wealthy few at the expense of the many – but was there a valid opposing point of view? In the case of the Cherokees, Jackson claimed to be actually doing them a favor as the contrary case of “allowing” them to stay in Georgia on their own property would have caused a situation where their eventual outcome would have been worse than their re-location (i.e. the local white populace would have massacred them). There are so many reasons why this logic is faulty and offensive, I cannot even comment; like for example, how about sending in the cavalry to protect them. Both of these cases demonstrate that with Jackson his views of what was best for the majority would almost always trump the rights of the few. The Eaton affair was an exception to this rule but an example of Jackson’s other rule: his family and allies always came first, logic and evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

What do Meacham’s biographies of Jefferson and Jackson show these two presidents to have in common? Primarily, Meacham deftly shows how each man via his own personal style of politicking and political gamesmanship worked to expand and define the role of the president in the fledgling American government. It is an absolute certainty that George Washington was uniquely gifted in setting the stage for the role of the president, but these two later presidents demonstrated through their actions new and clear presidential responsibilities and latitude as a part of our tripartite system. A second important point was these early years were far more perilous for our young government than most contemporary Americans understand. Meacham not only does a marvelous job of defining that peril as seen by these two men and demonstrating how they helped the United States survive the early years when our survival was not a given, but also to crucially set examples of presidential prerogatives for all presidents to follow. Yes, Washington was great and unique, but Jefferson and Jackson were in many ways, even more so on both points.

Book Review: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness of the West (1985)

Five Stars out of Five

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy’s fifth book, a Western or neo-Western, “Blood Meridian” has been named one of the best American works of fiction over the previous twenty-five years in a 2006 NY Times poll of writers and critics. This book has been compared to “Moby Dick” in terms of scope and language, and has been extensively analyzed by a broad range of critics and academics for its philosophical depths and ambiguities. It is definitely one of the best books I have ever read. And yet for the casual reader, it is very easy to imagine the initial reaction will be revulsion. The book is replete with violence, so much so that by the book’s purposely confused ending, the violence has long shed its shock value and assumes little more effect than a landscape that comes with a particular character. This theme of violence in the character of Man is clearly a central precept of the book: does Man act out violence in a benign manner (i.e. out of an instinct for survival) or in some kind of malignant manner, that is to say out of some twisted nature in his character.

The story spans the era of 1830’s Tennessee to the borderlands between Mexico and the US in the 1840’s – 50’s. By far, the preponderance of the book is focused on the historical scalp-hunting Glanton gang in 1849-1850. The book follows the violent life of “The Kid” from his birth in Tennessee under a meteor shower to his death fifty or so years later under yet another meteor shower. As a fourteen-year old, he meets “The Judge”, an icon of evil not easily surpassed by any other such fictional character. The Kid having not met his fate as a youth at the hands of the Judge eventually finds himself in Nagadoches Texas where he joins up with an inept band of US Army irregulars. This group is bound for Mexico where they intend to take property and land from the Mexicans. However, their plans are demolished by a passing band of Comanches. Most of the Americans are killed, but the Kid ends up after some desert-induced privation in a Mexican prison. While there, he joins a more competent but even more morally bankrupt group. This new group is a band of scalp hunters led by John Glanton. The Glanton gang will eventually include the Judge. This gang will institute a reign of terror on the local Mexican populace, soldiery and Native American bands until they themselves are destroyed with few survivors. Amongst the survivors are the Kid, the ex-priest Tobin, and the Judge. The book concludes with the Kid much older and now referred to as the Man. The Man meets the Judge in an outhouse at the very end of the book. The Judge survives, but the Kid’s outcome is only suggested, never resolved.

The text used in the book is extraordinarily spare. McCarthy does not use quotation marks to note conversational passages or even apostrophes for contractions. Indeed, McCarthy in furtherance of this spareness uses extensive Spanish language passages which are left untranslated. The English language sections are infused with a sense of both the bible and the 19^th century. Like the violence referred to above, this spare language and untranslated Spanish help to create a stage on which the themes and characters live and die on. And such characters, the four that are most significant is the earless Toadvine (a near constant associate of The Kid), the ex-priest Tobin (actually never a priest, ironically only a failed noviate), the violent but still somewhat merciful Kid, and the bald, fatalistic, scientific, pederast and thoroughly satanic Judge. To be honest, a complete critical review of this book could be spent focusing on the hairless, fiddle-playing, dancing Judge.

To comment that these four characters play metaphorical roles in the book is quite an understatement. The two about whom the book revolves are the Judge and the Kid. The Kid proves himself time and again capable of violent exertions that would frighten almost anyone. And yet in contrast with the war-loving Judge he is instead an example of the benignly violent character; whether or not he feels any empathy for his victims is left unclear. The Judge states quite clearly that war is act of the highest moral value. In a final conversation with the Kid, he refers to it as a dance and asserts that only a Man set above the animals is capable of it. The Kid and the ex-priest make various halfhearted arguments to the contrary at various points in the book, but it is clear from each confrontation, and as well from the book’s ending that violence is the conscious decision of Man; it is part of his nature.

Another theme that runs through this book as well as several other McCarthy books is that of borders. It shows up in the title of course as well as the geography in “Blood Meridian” between the United States and Mexico. McCarthy also uses it on several occasions in a more nuanced fashion to make his point. Consider his use of the two Jacksons in the Glanton gang; one black, one white, and both violently opposed to one another. The reference is to Cain and Abel by the death of one Jackson at the hands of the other. But the primary purpose of these various dichotomies is to highlight the difference between Man and beast, between Good and Evil – like the spare language, there are no greys in any of these differences.

Violence and Borderlands are however the secondary themes; they work to support the central theme of this book, and that is a variation on a philosophical argument known as Theodicy. This was a concept introduced by Leibniz in the early 18^th century. There are several versions of it, but the gist is that Theodicy asserts that the presence of evil in the world and why God permits it is an argument for the probability of God; the probability, rather than the possibility. That this book goes to some effort to demonstrate the existence of Evil is without question. McCarthy leaves it to the reader to draws his own conclusions about God’s probability, but he certainly pushes one in the Theodictic direction. Another important aspect is to consider the irony of the Judge’s nature. He spends much of the book analyzing and recording his observations of Nature in his endless quest to own and control the World. As such, he is not only an icon for the devil and evil, but also for the “amoral” pursuit of Science to own and control Nature – which would obviously include God himself, from some perspectives. Quite an indictment of Science and something of an allusion to the Garden of Eden wherein Satan indices Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge.

As mentioned above, the ending is purposely vague (there is great debate on why this is so amongst the academics). To set the scene, consider how many times the reader is told that the Judge is a pederast who abuses and then kills his young victims, and how he missed a chance with the Kid at the beginning of the story. When we reach the book’s conclusion, the Kid, now the Man seems completely aimless and with hardly an argument to counter the Judge’s immoral (to the Kid/Man, certainly not to the Judge) views towards violence and war. The Man makes one last feeble attempt at verbal jousting with the Judge, and then moments later,  The Man enters an outhouse wherein he find the Judge, nude. The suggestion is of murder and humiliation for the Man; his apotheosis at the hands of the Judge. The end result of this meeting is in a manner completely unlike the rest of the vividly portrayed acts of violence in this book; no description, only suggestion.  The only note of explanation is made by one of two cowboys upon later opening the door to the outhouse: “Good God Almighty”. Ignoring the religious reference made by the cowboy, multiple questions are left unanswered: did the Man enter knowingly to death and sexual humiliation, did he make one more fight or only passively submit to his fate, and is his fate emblematic of our own?

My opinion is that McCarthy is indeed saying that Man’s nature is that of the beast, and that we are not in control of our fate, nor even aware of it; and like the beasts, we are doomed to die without any real understanding of the Universe. We make our feeble attempts to explain nature, to control it and ourselves, but like the animals and children we are merely victims waiting for our sentence of death to be carried out by some indifferent Power. This point is made clearer in the Epilogue wherein a line of holes are lit in the desert that passersby wander across. The holes themselves are described as “validation of sequence and causality as if each round and perfect hole owed its existence to the one before”.  Einstein and his theory of General Relativity would not be pleased with this phrase (he proved a lack of causality in Time), but it certainly underscores McCarthy’s pessimistic view of Man and his “understanding”.

“Blood Meridian” is a brilliantly written and conceived work of art. It is most clearly not for every reader. But if you are of a philosophical bent, and can tolerate the violent themes throughout this book, you too will be amazed at its artistry. I could not be further from McCarthy’s view as regards Man and the Universe, but I can still be awed by what he has done with “Blood Meridian” – perhaps, you will be, too.

Book Review: "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex (2002)

Four Stars out of Five

Jeffery Eugenides

Jeffery Eugenides has crafted an amazing/frustrating amalgam of a Pulitzer Prize winning (2003) novel in the form of “Middlesex”. This book like its protagonist Callie/Cal is a pastiche of styles, themes, voices, strengths and weaknesses. It is so much in my opinion a juncture of two separate books, that I would like to give the first half five stars out of five, but consign the second half to a mere two or three stars out of five; I will settle for my own pastiche and give it a mean value of four stars out of five.

Eugenides has commented that “Middlesex” contains many parts that come from his own life, though not the premier characteristic of his hero/heroine Cal/Callie. “Middlesex” tells the story of three generations of the Stephanides family. It begins with their departure from Asia Minor where grandparents Eleutherios (Lefty) and Desdemona must leave their silk worm farm via the burning of Smyrna following WWI for America. Once in America, they join up with cousin Sourmelina (Lina) in Detroit to raise their two children Milton and Zoe. The novel details the Greek immigrants’ experience in Detroit and contrasts it to the African-American experience in the same city by discussing the origins of auto manufacture, the origins of Black Muslims (Nation of Islam), and the race riots in the 60’s. The story leads up to Milton’s own children with his cousin Tessie, Chapter Eleven (yes that his name) and Calliope (later Cal).

The first half of the book is in many ways a brilliant portrait of an immigrant family and the powerful forces that led them to flee their homeland in Bithhynos on the slopes of Mount Olympus in Asia Minor/Turkey. We are introduced to life in a rural, inbred town where the ethnic Greeks are definitely not integrated into the larger Turkish culture that surrounds them. As they leave their home, barely making it out alive, the reader is introduced to the conditions of that that small inbred town, how it permits, if not indeed compels Lefty to marry his sister Desdemona, and how this literal defiance of natural law and metaphorical defiance of the Gods leads to the genetic mutation that lies at the root of Callie’s/Cal’s life two generations later.

Once in America, Lefty and Desdemona conceal their consanguinity from all except their cousin Lina; she who has her own secret (Lesbianism), the newlyweds will hold in secret as a quid pro quo for Lina keeping their secret. As Lefty and Desdemona begin their life in Detroit, the reader is exposed to the history of Detroit, some of the teachings of The Nation of Islam and the race riots in the Detroit of 1967. Those riots lead to an insurance-borne bounty for the Stephanides family and their White flight from Detroit to the enclave of Grosse Point. The Stephanides experience their own exposure to ethnic-based prejudice when they try to buy their new home, but still fail to understand the rage and frustration of the Blacks they just fled. In Grosse Point, the formerly cute Callie (or Calliope, muse of heroic poetry in Greek mythology) begins to feel the effects of the mutation she has inherited. This mutation has placed her into an “intersex” category but has heretofore gone unseen by all around her, doctors and family alike. The problem for Callie is that her mutation is now starting to masculinize her, and right at a most difficult time for Callie as she has just enrolled into a cliquish prep school for girls. Her problems compound as she finds herself irresistibly drawn to another girl. Through a series of misadventures Callie learns of her genetic endowment, decides to live as a male and to flee her home. The story concludes in a somewhat rushed manner with the now middle-aged Cal living in the formerly divided Berlin as a man working for the US government.

There are two themes that dominate this story: rebirth and nature versus nurture. There are also some very interesting thematic elements in the story such as how polar opposites (e.g. male and female) experience the same events and also how the use of Greek mythology is used to expand many of the ideas in the book. The rebirth theme is quite probably the most key theme throughout this story: the Greek immigrants’ rebirth as Americans and Callie’s rebirth as Cal. The contrast between these two transformations is quite clever and helps to knit the first half of the book to the second. How Callie came to be transformed from a girl into a boy is discussed at length as a nature versus nurture argument. While I enjoyed the discussion, I am far from convinced that Science has come to as clear a conclusion as Cal did in terms of his decision to opt for maleness. Most especially disturbing was the weight he (living as a she) placed on his sexual orientation for females – this seems a rank dismissal of gay orientations as being little more than misplaced genitalia; a concept that I do not believe is embraced by modern medicine in any manner.

The polar opposite experiences of male versus female is I think another prime feature of this book. Eugenides worked hard to create a novel first person voice for an adolescent Callie and for the middle-aged Cal. Indeed, the voice he uses for Cal as he describes the thoughts of his ancestors in the first person when clearly he could not have known them is couched in two very interesting ways. On the one hand, Hermaphroditus the Greek from mythology that Cal most clearly aligns himself with had the ability to know and to feel empathy with his ancestors, and then in addition through his use of ironic language, Eugenides lets it be known he is being somewhat facetious and that Cal must be regarded as an unreliable narrator.

The use of Greek mythology is also very cleverly used by Eugenides. Consider how on the night of Callie’s conception, her parents were attending a play called The Minotaur; this half bull, half man is but one example of the divided natures of so many parts of “Middlesex”. Other significant examples of Greek mythology would include the aforementioned Hermaphroditus’ abilities, Calliope as both a Greek muse of heroics and her namesake as the book’s narrator of her own heroics, but I think one of the cleverest is the role played by Callie as Tiresias in her school’s play. This Greek character also displayed in her life dual natures as male and female, but also acted as a seer and fore-teller of things unseen; again a hearkening to Hermaphroditus’ similar abilities.

The problems with the book that I had were that it was almost like two books. Book 1 dealt as a family saga or historical novel on the life and times of Greek immigrants in mid-20^th century America, while Book two dealt in far less a compelling way with the Callie’s transformation. This latter book was done as Bildungsroman type of story and was done in a far too wordy manner. And yet despite being too verbose, one could easily complain that it was not as easy to follow Callie’s transformation let alone Cal’s final denouement as easily as it was to follow his/her family’s adventures in part 1. Another criticism is the one already leveled in terms of Callie’s decision to live as Cal. This aspect of the book is particularly ironic as Eugenides has stated publicly that his primary motivation in writing of Callie’s intersex nature was his own dissatisfaction with a memoir written by an actual intersex individual in the 19^th century (“Herculin Barbin”).

Those comments aside, “Middlesex” is a brilliant book that brings a unique voice to the narrator, speaks compelling of the immigrant experience and helps to shed some light on the lives of one group of American still struggling to gain acceptance and understanding from the wider community around them; that is to say those not fitting neatly into strictly defined sexual categories, those of an intersex category. This book is not for everyone, but for those of you interested in the immigrant experience or in unique narrative styles, this book might well be of some interest.

Book Review: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Song of Solomon (1977)

Five Stars out of Five

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison uses one of the most distinctive and beautiful writing styles of any author from the 20^th century as she explores the African-American and female experience in racially divided America. She tells through the poetry of her language the story of African-Americans’ search for their own identity and place in the world, a world that has robbed them of their culture, their language, even their names. In her 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Song of Solomon”, she has achieved a pinnacle of story-telling that places this book according to some in the publishing industry in the Top Twenty-five list for best English language books.

“Song of Solomon” tells the story of Macon Dead III (aka Milkman) from his birth in 1930’s Michigan to his ambiguous ending/transformation in 1960’s Virginia. Milkman is the descendant of a legendary slave named Solomon, Milkman’s great-grandfather. Working forward in time, we are introduced to Macon Dead I, Solomon’s 21^st child and Milkman’s grandfather. Macon Dead’s name came to him and his descendants via a clerical error following their emancipation from slavery. Macon I is assassinated by a family of former slave owners (ironically named the "Butlers"), but not before fathering Macon II and his sister, Pilate (named from the Bible like all of Macon I descendants, except from the Macon’s). Macon II and his wife Ruth are the parents of Macon III, more generally known as Milkman.

Besides the wonderfully poetic language used by Morrison in “Song of Solomon”, she tells a story steeped in biblical allusions. The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon or Canticles) occurs in the latter part of the Old Testament (or Ketuvim in the Hebrew bible). Like Morrison’s book, the biblical book uses poetic language to tell a story; a story that celebrates sexual love; a love that could be compared to death in that it is relentless and jealous, one that cannot be refused. In the biblical story, an unnamed woman, self-described as black from the sun, is a powerful, guiding force whose passion will not be denied. The parallels in Morrison’s story to Pilate’s dominating presence and Hagar’s all-consuming and eventual self-destructive obsession over Milkman are hard to ignore.

Another aspect of Morrison’s novel that helps place this book in the top tier of fiction is her use of a narration style that is a variation of the omniscient viewpoint. This allows Morrison to give the internal dialog for the various characters within the book, thus helping to elucidate their motivations and thoughts. Such clarity is essential to give the reader, especially the White-reader such as myself some degree of insight to the African-American perspective to life in 20^th century America. I also was intrigued by Morrison’s occasional use (in my opinion) of the magical realism motif made famous by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. In Morrison’s case she actually foreshadows it use with the opening attempt by the frustrated (confused/demented?) insurance salesman, Robert Smith and his attempt to fly from a church steeple. Much later in the book, we see a more successful use of flight by Solomon and at the very end a more metaphorical use by Milkman as he makes his final confrontation with former friend, now enemy Guitar.

The complexity of “Song of Solomon” is further enhanced by Morrison’s use of allusion and symbolism via her naming of the various characters. A good example is Circe, the former slave of the Butlers who helps Macon II and Pilate escape the Butlers after their murder of Macon I. Consider Circe’s use of magic in Greek mythology and her “association” with animals versus Morrison’s Circe’s extreme age and her care-taking of the Butlers and later after the last Butler death, of a pack of dogs (surely metaphors for Butlers). Another example is the case of Macon II and his life-long struggle to live up to his father’s successes through his own pursuit of money; it is an easy interpretation to link his surname of “Dead” to his own spiritual death. But my favorite example is Ruth. Ruth is a very clever a reference to the Ruth of the bible (yet another book from the Ketuvim). The biblical Ruth was the model for loving kindness; one who also accepted a lower social status by working in the fields. Morrison’s Ruth not only accepted the “step-down” from being daughter of the most respected man in town (the only Black doctor) to being the wife of a rent collector (Macon II), she also personified her loving nature via her too-close relationship to Macon III (at least in part demonstrated by nursing him to age four or five, and of course leading to his nick name of Milkman). And Ruth helps Morrison further define the color consciousness of the African-American community as she is considered “high yellow” in color and in status, and like the biblical Ruth makes the “your people shall be my people” transition, in this case by joining the darker-skinned Macon Dead family and community.

The “Song of Solomon” is a terrifically complex novel. It is a story about race, family, and women. The women in the story range from the mystical Pilate, to the inhibited Reba, to the obsessive Hagar, and ultimately to the disconsolate and self-sacrificing Ruth. Like the biblical books Song of Solomon and Ruth, the reader will gain not only an appreciation of African-American life, but also of the particular effects that life has on its female members. This book can be read for the beauty of its language and construction, for its biblical allusions, for its insight into the condition and reaction of the African-American community, or even for the surface story of Milkman’s life story and his transition from a self-centered permanent adolescent to an actualized adult. For any or all of these reasons, “Song of Solomon” is a book well worth reading by all adult Americans.