The Challenges of Reading

        Song of Solomon, written by Toni Morrison, is a challenging book in multiple ways. Not only is the content disturbing, but it is also hard to follow some of the events because of the lack of backstory, and jumping around in time. Out of those two challenging things with this book, the most challenging has probably the content itself. It has been hard for me to read some of the instances that refer to incest, violence, alcohol, and sex. When I come across a passage that has those topics included, I remember that this is usually only one person’s perspective, and that it could have not happened at all. In the passage below from chapter 3, it made me slightly uneasy that not only did Macon hit his wife, but Milkman hit his own dad. It made me think about the many possible consequences from the “fights”, which overwhelmed me, so I thought about something else (in this case it was that Milkman was maturing, and finding out what his purpose in life was). There are also other instances of abuse and sex, and at first, I skipped over them, but then I missed some key details. Now I think about how the event could have not even happened, or that some of the information is wrong. In general, Song of Solomon can be challenging due to the shifting timeline, vocabulary, and the substance.