Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth With Toni Morrison 20240712

Pleased to have with us Toni Morrison for indepth conversation about her lifes work. Toni morrison, as he began, ive seen several citations that you told people that its easiest best most apt to describe you as a black woman novelist. Is that correct . Absolutely. What are we the public to take away from your choice of those three words . I think it was an attempt on my part to choose to be given the status of honorary white male writer. Generally speaking, womens work has been reduced to regional or merely or people complement ethnic writers by saying or implying that they are as good as mainstream writers and whereas i understand the complement, i thought it would be better for me to, at least in the late 60s early 70s to establish once and for all that all three of those things play, and black, i am a woman, and im a writer and they go together. Youve also always been a teacher. Yes. Why is that important to who you are and what you do . Edit quite know what else to do when i graduated because my first love was books so i thought i would choose a position or job where i talked them and had to read them and had to explain them to others and University Teaching was the thing i love the most and i still do. After all these years and all these other kinds of jobs that had ive always talked since i was 26 years old. Who instilled in you the love of reading . Im not quite sure. I know that i dont remember myself unable to read. I dont remember being a person abi know i read sometime before i went to the first grade and im assuming that came from my sister who was a year and and a half older but i sort of always knew how to do that activity and i remember very clearly being the only student in the First Grade Class that could read. I thought it was because the others werent interested. I lived in a very loving, chaotic, noisy full of music and argument comings and goings house. In that environment the only privacy there was was a books. So i developed this obsession i think with that form of escape. For those of you new to our indepth series, it is really that, we will have the opportunity to spend three full hours of Toni Morrison and tell you about how the process will work. We will talk here for about the next 15 minutes then our phone lines and email will be open for you to send in comments and questions. Thats really the beauty of the processes that we hear your questions and what thoughts you have on your mind. As we converse here, a way to phone in an email will be the bottom of our Television Screen and we welcome your participation. I know youve done this hundreds of times but tell me the story of lorraine ohio. Lorraine ohio is, was, not quite sure what it is now, working class town on lake erie, my parents appeared there around world war i, shortly after, you had mills, shipyards, steel mills, it was home to immigrants, east european, mexican, black people from the south, and board in the 30s so i remember the depression time. Then later during world war ii it was a booming town. But my formative opinion of it was this incredible place, with all the best parts of what ohio had to offer those people who were in the modes of abolition. Universities just up the road a little bit which was the First College to have women and blacks attended. So it was a melting pot really and truly because it was so few schools. One high school, for junior high schools i never lived on a block in which there was not white people. Other churches and social lives were separate. I thought thats the way most people lived but i learned later it was certainly not the case. Fascinating place to be, for all i have to tell you. How much connection you have with it today . Quite a bit, my sister and her family have nieces and nephews who still live there and my mother hasnt been dead that long, she was there all her life. So i have very Strong Family connections. When one looks at your family story, your biography, it struck me, at least, that almost the entire story of black experience in america grandfather, slave to sharecropper, the Great Migrations to the north and yourself, First Generation College and great success. That sounds formulaic in a way but i guess youre right. For me it seems enormously a long long time from my grandfather being born, he was five years old when the emancipation proclamation was a ahe was born in 1860. He was crying he was frightened. He kept hearing the adults say, its coming, its coming. The emancipation proclamation coming. He thought it was a monster. He crawled under the bed and they had to pull him out and explained to him it was a good thing. Im very keenly aware of the lifethreatening circumstances under which they live. The difficulty of my parents had as a young couple. And the miraculous thing i suppose in my generation. I knew i really want to go to college. My mother was not interested in my getting married. She didnt think that was necessarily the ultimate goal of a womans life. Rather, she thought it shouldnt come too soon. She and my father were very supportive and they told me, we dont have enough for you to get a full College Education but we do have enough for one year. I said, thats all i wanted just one year. Thats the way i went off convinced that i could survive financially for one year. In 1949, 50. Of course i was able to work and do the rest myself. But thats how iffy it was in those days about getting a College Education. Not just for africanamericans but for women. Yes. How did you finance the rest of your education . I had temporary jobs while i was in washington, Howard University where i was an undergraduate and actually my mother got a job, she was so happy i was here in college. She took a job at night as a woman in a ladies room collecting tips and she made 15 a week, five dollars a night and she sent it to me. In ohio . Yes. How did Chloe Crawford come your birth name, become Toni Morrison . A little bit of literacy i think and some vanity. My name is chloe, i love the name, children couldnt pronounce it, some adults would refuse to pronounce it and they called me cello or clo or other things that were not chloe. My family because my sister and i were so close in age we were always together they called us lois and chloe. I didnt have supple syllables for myself. To make a long story short. When i gone away to howard i use the name toni which was short form of my saints name anthony. You married and became a mother and were you writing at this point in your life cannot. I think i was but i certainly didnt call myself a writer, i was a teacher. I was interested in the work of some local people here in washington, some faculty members, some artists, they had a group of writers and i was invited to attend i brought with me some frail Little Things i worked on as a very young person. One of them was a little story that i had to write fresh because they wouldnt let me come if i didnt bring anything new. So i wrote a story and brought it to that meeting. I used it much later as the heart of the first novel i wrote. That was called . a id like to show it to the audience. As i do, would you explain how this book actually made it to print from that beginning . I wrote the story for the club, i remember my baby, my oldest son was hanging on my shoulder, pulling my earrings while i was writing and i remember him spitting up on some orange juice and i always tell the story, it must be important because i didnt wipe it up around the way. I will grow around it. Before somebody was interested to take it. Alan kinsler Holt Rinehart and winston. To remember the letter or the phone call but said yes we will take this. It was a phone call. There were so many phone calls about, i wish i could take this book but i dont think they will. Is important to me and ought to have a style immediately not to have to develop one. I had to learn how to write better. How to seduce the reader faster. How to challenge a reader. How to open up the world. How to manipulate but what i am pleased about and i didnt know it until i wrote the second book was that they really truly do have a recognizable style if i took one page out of those books and read it i think i would know it was me and not somebody else. I think thats true of readers who know my work. For people who know you who havent yet read your work, can you put words to that style and the stories are trying to tell . This style is inevitable at the moment but its kind of welcoming style. The voices welcoming and doesnt blink and tells you very difficult things but a voice that makes it all right to hear. This is not to be an easy trip, the journey is gonna be bumpy but im going to tell you the truth and you can hear it because ive already been there and im holding your hand and you can go with me and its gonna be all right. Thats the comfort level. The stories are funny, sad, odd combinations that reveal the complexity and the profundity and the size of human life. Sometimes we live is so small in our imagination i mean small frightened lives and sometimes people in the books do but generally speaking the most important thing that happens is that their lives are larger and that they learn something at the end of the book that but for the book they wouldve never learned. Let me take a minute to give people the telephone number so they can join the conversation, if you live in the eastern half of the United States the number to reach Toni Morrisons 2027370001. The western half the mountain or pacific time zones right now 2027370002. Will begin taking telephone calls in about five minutes. If you would indulge me, i shouldve asked you this before we were on camera but i thought maybe we could hear your voice through a little bit of your work. I was struggling with what to choose and i decided upon really the operative moment within beloved. Please give us a quick synopsis of beloved. Its a story based on the historical figure of a black woman who killed her children, or tried to, when she was a fugitive and didnt want to return to slavery. Beloved is about her life as imagined by me significantly altered by the return of what she believed to be the daughter she killed. We pick it up when the fugitive slave is about to be enforced abfugitive slave act is about to be enforced picking up by the group of people. The sheriff turned . The sheriff turned and said to the others, he better go on looks like your business is over. Mine started now. Schoolteacher beat his head against his thigh and spit before leaving the wood chips. They didnt look at the woman in the pepper plants at the flower in her head and they didnt look at the abfaces that had edged closer in spite of the catches rifle warnings enough for now, little neighbor boy eyes open and saw us come a little nigbor grow eyes staring between the wet fingers that held her face so her head wouldnt fall off. Little nigbor baby eyes crinkling up to cry in the arms of the old and the arms of the old nigbor whose own eyes were nothing but slivers looking down at his feet but the worst ones were those of the nigbor woman who looked like she didnt have any. Except for whites and disappeared and as black as the skin she looked blind. They unhitched from School Teachers course the mule that was to carry the fugitive woman back to where she belonged and tied her to the fence. Then with the sun straight up over their heads they trotted off leaving the sheriff behind among the damnedest bunch of cones theyd ever seen. All testimony to the results of a little socalled freedom imposed on people who needed every care and indulgence in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred. You chose an interesting one. My efforts to think the way committed slaveholders think. The naturalness of their content. The effortlessness of their belief in their superiority to people coming in the book at a moment after the reader has been in the lives of these people that is categorized as nigger woman, nigger man, nigger baby, nigger boy, because the characters are so familiar and intimate to the for trade come of this house hoping the section i read comes with a chill, not just because of the events of the slaughter but the way in which at this point youre being looked at. How you get inside the psyche of these people . Its difficult but i used when i think our methods may be actors and actresses use when you have a big character or try to make it specific so realized and you want to be in that persons head if youre on stage to wear the clothes, where the shoes, behave the way that person would so you have to enter or project and know where they parked their hair, what kind of soap they would wear, what food they dont like, whether or not it appears in the book, try to imagine all those things. That works for me. I can suspend, i dont judge my characters that way, whether i want to have lunch with them or not, something quite different. You have to love them for the moment of their portrayal, whether they are men, women, old, young, children, what have you. And they sprung from your pen fully formed, or develop as you write cannot. As the book comes up do you already know the story you tell . I know the questions the story is supposed to answer, or unprovoked as i was by margaret garner, what must it feel like . Or paradise to hear about the people who walked all that distance to get to free black towns that were turned away by black people who had also been slaves like them and they were not welcome. I thought, what that must feel like . I know what the stories about, i sort of know the journey. Now i have to find out whos in work that out for me . Margaret garner i didnt want to know too much about her, what she looked like etc. , i wanted to inventor so i only need just a few strokes to start and then i sort of put them together. So there never fully realized immediately. They always take currying and coddling and stroking and personal introductions anything i can do to get them to do to speak and trust me. As you can see, our lines are lighted up. Our first telephone call from Richmond Virginia welcome to our conversation you are on the air. First of all, i want to thank you for writing the book song of solomon, its been one of those momentous occasions for me in my life. I had an opportunity to be at your First Reading for paradise at the abcouple years ago. I wanted to know, he made a statement at that particular time that you thought that book should remain books and someone asks you about your excitement about putting all your books into movies and plays and since that time you had one your books, beloved, produced into a major Motion Picture which in particular i was disappointed in but i still enjoyed the book and still had to go back to the book. I wanted to know, with you in the future hold more artistic control over your books being put into another generation . Thank you. No i wont. I dont want artistic control over other genres being developed in my books. I believe books are singular, maybe they dont have to remain books but they certainly are books. If there made subsequently into movies, good movies, great movies. The book has to stand on the shelf by itself. Its a special kind of pleasure in it. I am a very controlling person when i work. If emma can make the movie, produce it, choose it, fund it, i dont want to be involved in it as a kind of consultant without power. And without knowledge because i dont know how to make movies. I dont know how to write screenplays and i dont want to learn how to do that either. I respect the people who do and i give them whatever information they solicit from me but i dont want final cut on these things unless i own the whole shop. Our next question is an email comes from abwho is a teacher at Seabreeze High School is about beloved. She writes your novel beloved abmy questions are related to its text and interested in knowing the significance of the parallel structure you implemented in the final chapter but it was not a story to pass on, it was not a story to pass on and this is not a story to pass on additionally, my students often inquire whether beloved is physically pregnant. They seem to conclude shes actually carrying paul dees baby. Personally i tried them that they watched one too many so purpose. Your students are ahead of you this time. In a way, i wanted beloved to be all things, i wanted her to be the returned child that set the loan for and the daughter denver long for. They need her to come back and say let them work out their at the same time, the buried scene concerns a little passage maybe this girl is a survivor of the Middle Passage, traumatized by it, kept lockup somewhere, but only the memories of what that mustve been like and for me the two things came together. Resurrections from the dead in order to demand love, which could be the dead baby. Resurrections from slave ship journeys in order to demand love. Those two stories seem to me to be parallel. I never came down on one side or the other but there is a clear indication that beloved is a historical figure rather then the ghostlike figure. Next telephone call from hampton virginia. This question is about song of solomon. How did you come up with the great strategy of the water stain on the table to be a physicality of milkmans mother memory for her for her past life . The other thing is, it seems to be the first book where there is a male protagonist and wanted to know what was that shift for you from going to a female protagonist to a male protagonist . I searched around a little bit for something quiet and unobtrusive, persistent, a bit of amar to explain something about the characterization of milkmans mother and the water stain. If your housekeeper you know its impossible to remove there not an overwhelmingly dramatic mark but one that you keep working at. It seemed good and domestic for her. The shift to writing about men was a mighty shift i thought it would be not so, i had written cameos with men in them before but to have the book engine driven by men was far more completed than i thought it would be. I had to rely, for entrance into the advantages of world on my father or my uncles and men i knew, in trying to see a render, how they saw the world. I think also i was unprepared for the impact that women have on their lives. It wasnt just male bonding, but i can assure you, it was a very powerful and different imaginative process that i had to go through to center that book on male protagonists. And it sold more than it had even though it was a very successful publication. Host what do you think the work she is doing with the book club . Even when i was in publishing over 20 years that is what we were always hoping would happe happen, not just the bestsellers which takes a certain amount of books, but just have reading ever every day and interesting books profound habits but the every day work. To take the time to read a book and be able to argue about it and debate it and disagree with that. That is why Oprahs Book Club has introduced. I feel that even here on cspan the whole notion just even having this conversation with authors about books on television is novel and people enjoying it. People do it. I dont give her full credit for all of that but i have to give her a large portion of it. To go and celebrate and read a new book. Host the caller reference the protagonist of the unusual lesson. How does that come about . So when this sleeve tries to give him information. The man was a little drunk and put all of this information in the wrong place. His parents become his last name and where he was born et cetera. Host next color from san diego. Caller i listen to your discussion and cut. Howard university . Yes. I was at columbia at the time. You were doing black female voices and i had an essay in there. And you regretted how you obtained a celebrity status you are a symbol of her we had at the time. And to be a part of that and just yesterday there still another person from the program has made his transition. But that program was so important to us and now the irony and see others times in your office and with those offerings. We will. Its really wonderful to hear from you. Thank you. Its nice to see you again. And we wish you health and those to a company to have no idea what slavery was like. So to take that into a larger audience. I think i was overconfident and arrogant when i became to be known or wellknown at all. I didnt publish until 39 years old and had a fulltime job. I felt my work was extremely valuable we had nothing to do with that person. So i was mindful of expectations and changes and then i see to be not successful. But suddenly and very recently its not really that but just a couple of times on the Oprah Winfrey show. So the advantages are overwhelming and publish in 28 languages and people really know my work. They call about it and it is ideal. But on the other hand i dismiss them all and now i have to do Something Else. I have to guard myself or prepare myself from other people. Never had to do that my life. Based on something was going on. It just sounds whiny to go on about that. So when i get one begins to be meddled with then we get in trouble but then i feel threatened. It is something that no one should deal with. This is me. And im disappointed in myself responding to the celebrity hood. Host other line of inquiry is the question that we will come back to but now taking a call from omaha. Caller so i am so fascinated that there are some things in our lives that are quite similar. Born in the thirties, and one of seven girls. We all love books and go to the Railroad Tracks my place to read was under the bed. [laughter] went to see beloved with my daughter who teaches black history one of the things i want to talk about with beloved is to tell her how moving it was and i was just fascinated with her deep spiritual gift so we were absolutely in awe in really deep from your soul can you just comment on the . Im not sure if shes asking about one or oprah but i will tell you the former i was thinking the ways in which women their children and husbands was so found in order to make greater choices and that argument in a narcissistic woman thats very difficult to appreciate that that i was thinking about and then as a choice and then i thought and then to be responsible for the children whose children they did not own. And at any age. So to actually have your child and then to cast a long shadow about this womans that im not doing that. Of course it was a crime that so i began to do research on that. Spirit this could be an interesting book to walk in this book somebody asked me if i had any Children Stories and i said no but i had a story my son and i in disciplinary and said to him you have no idea and that all these years later i submitted to hyperion and they liked it. So its a little sly as you can tell its in six different languages now and how personal that is. And the parents and the story gave their kids up to another authority. Pictures of the sky and the children are begging. And with that opportunity to be free whatever that meant in their own way. How would you talk to them about the issues inside the boo book . I would read it. Its like a song. We test them. They dont understand language they have to find out there are all sorts of ways what you really mean. Children know when they are being bossed by their parents or bullies were given no freedom whatsoever under the guise of freedom. They understand and if you dont think so all you have to do is remember what you knew at that age. You knew if the smiles were fake or people walked in the room you left and to very much a survival instinct. Host california go ahead. Caller good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. Coming up on my 73rd birthday and then have a Systems Consultant for many years. And generally not considered literature to say the least. That you are a personal person of considerable talent so im interested in the wellspring of this talent. It may age i have a theory of almost everything and certainly need to have us down on a talent for storytelling. And used to say im just a storyteller and a facility with language. But there seems to be the x factor to complete the puzzle. So what is that x factor in the case of talent . And if you have a different way of structuring are thinking about talent, please convey that. The move from talent to success and to move from that were is no question of inspiration versus perspiration and i wonder how you word way those factors. I will hang up and listen. Thank you. Its different for different people i teach creative writing and im always trying to get students to recognize under what circumstances. For me come its not discipline but the inability to not do it i cannot think that way and it is an extension almost of what i did all my life still but i am absolutely happiest it is difficult and with the his mom dash with the fiction writing. Everything i have ever read to come to gather that is useful in the construction. Host we have over two hours to go with Toni Morrison with her work of fiction and nonfiction. We will take a break and continue our conversation. Our indepth conversation with Toni Morrison continues we have two hours to talk about her work here in washington dc. So far it has focused on your fiction work want to show your nonfiction. What is the essential difference between your work of fiction and nonfiction . The works of nonfiction for the most part except for the ceremonial speeches others are academic or political arguments that i am advancing in which i am absolutely correct as opposed to fiction that i can experiment impose several questions and be more ambiguous and i have to prove anything. But sometimes there are Current Events that are overwhelming that seem to require a thoughtful essay to respond to sometimes directly the subject but more often in the context of which it is discussed and debated. Host are you political . Where does your politics fall on a continuum from conservative to liberal . Definitions have changed so radically. I just call myself an independent. But generally i am appalled by the profoundly conservative ideas. Host what is an idea of her profoundly conservative idea . That would be the imposition over religious on the whole of society and the position of the religion precept. I am a catholic and the Catholic Churchs position on abortion. And all of humanity is moving towards more freedom and its moving that way. And conservation in the political sense has taken on a meaning that is retro. Caller yes i want to discuss and it pertains to what you are just saying. So first of all and they mean more to me each time i read them. I find that i cannot read them but there is great wisdom and at the same time i find that in my own journey how struck i am in your novels that sometimes is very very clear. So by the time you finish the journey it doesnt seem like the end so i am wondering what you would say about the ambiguity of the beloved and the song of solomon. Im glad to hear you describe of the ambiguity in the questions im much more interested in questions and intelligent questions and providing the reader with the answer and close the book. The originality and the mistry and the power of posing as questions. And beloved for example and met its own criteria of difficulty or falling in love and that possibility of a happy ending. And that girl beloved in that Middle Passage and whoever made it. And then to forget. You cannot let the past wrangle you for going to go forward but nevertheless the past isnt going anywhere. The consequences of our action not the right final thing to do and then to have the opposite consequences and that negotiation how do we respond to it and that she had every intention to take her child to another place or a better place. In the face of the horror it was the right thing to do except she had no right to do it. That is the conundrum and the paradox which makes life interesting and original and in a class by itself. Host where do you write . After all these years any place i can find but i have a study in my house. I live near the caller just down the road. Its right on the hudson so i can look at the water all the time. Host is the process of writing a challenging one some say its the most exhausting work that they do in their lives. Its great delicious work. It is hard and for me it is slow. To reselect and reshape so much but it is so rewarding when it is close and once in a while it goes along and then it rests and even survives. In the final book that way and then to happen that way much but the process for me is totally engaging and mesmerizing i get very vague about Everything Else and the lights are right on im doing and when not im thinking about a book that im in the process of writing now and strangers say that they remind me of characters or activities that i remember talk about liberty magazine and the person who sold it was called the liberty boy. So the liberty boys were somebody and it occurred to me that is exactly what the character had done so they had we organized for the book so the process now is always there. Host Santa Barbara california. Caller hi. First i will take my hat off to you i will take i have respect for you as a writer and a person. Its more of a personal question im a young aspiring writer myself. With any and having learned as a teacher that was diplomatic enough and to experience that type of criticism so it was about the work and i also knew that to be a much more fastidious reader than i thought i knew in a much more fastidious critic it was more severe than anybody else and also not so severe that you cant send it out or waiting to be sublime so there is that element of risk so they send that out even though its not the perfect thing you want it to be. But criticism the first listen to see if it is helpful and then dismiss it because it may not be. Here is an email that says happy birthday i am teaching a seminar we are supposed to be watching the show today can you comment on baldwins impact on literary production . He was important to me in a very specific way. I obviously admire him then and number of ways his courage and intellect and philosophy. Mostly his clarity. And language and those situations of race and violence in love with those extraordinary feats with that truth telling manner and wasnt posing or calling names are not even vengeful that there was an arrogance it was about race but not racist. Host philadelphia. Caller i love all of your books and i go back in your books and i find so much poetry do acknowledge you are a poet and those men are satisfied they do not love your neck and that whole episode you are a poet i want to take all of your poetry from your books and compile them into one place if i do that and send it to your publishers would you do that in one book . [laughter] i have thought about that myself. I suggested that to an editor who thought it was hilarious. But no i am not a poet. But i do think now poetry is something other than its many forms. Some of the best poetry. And to really good sentences i try to write prose that is clear and as simple as possible and as logistic as possible and we write them so often nothing that interferes in that i dont have that education but im glad that you think they are first rate and with meaning. The 1992 publication set in harlem in the 19 twenties and other generational work and some have even suggested its part two of a trilogy. s there are just variations and i told my editor im sorry but he thought i had written a book so therefore would publish it. Which we did then the next story which was also based on a historical anecdote really about a young girl who let herself die to let her lover get away who shot her and i thought that was the most romantic and that is silly but to do something romeo and juliet like that and it struck me that was the situation i was looking for. So that is a trilogy never affected it to have the threat of these righties. I really like your writing it is fabulous. It is a language but as a gay white man i didnt feel like i heard about the slavery in beloved. You took me into it. That was something new so that is the magic of your writing. My question is i do some writing and i read Something Like what you have written and you have a beautiful language it doesnt seem flowery but is that hard for you . And i use my own experience and what i a dream about and never forget. But those that are overdrawn and forgettable i cannot cooperate with the writer so frequently with Broad Strokes and a few small strokes and one woman i had to turn it off with those colorful descriptions and the impact she had another people. But it was an open character to add the details and to watch other people around her. And its technique and for the purposes of writing and is working at the same time building that character understanding it to justify and then to hear about a story that is tragic this is something that you and i share along with the characters. Host delaware go ahead. Caller hello. I have a question about your characters across your books fascinated by the way you name your characters. They are so unusually integral to their character and it seems that naming his intra goal to the Creative Process so how do you name your characters . There are two reasons to be unnecessarily elaborate process i go through to name the characters. That i have to know their names. In order to write about them. And its my job to find that they are. Sometimes i call them by name and nothing happens. I called her the running for years and then i realized it was eva and then i developed a characteristic for her some names are odd and strange not for any reasons but part of that is because i have to know their names. The other the reaction to the process of dating. We were given other names and those from various continents and foundations in africa. And you may remember the seventies with malcolm x. Was a reaction to that. And now those african like names this is a serious cultural orphanage that africanamericans are dealing with in a special and unique way to deny their masters name and identify ourselves to claim names that will show ones vulnerability and nicknames have a very special place in the africanamerican communities because and they would say get used to it so then you find those names which is embarrassing and also i remember my fathers friends and their names and then in the twenties and thirties they had nicknames and they were unattractive names that they were known by. Is claiming an agency to make up your own name or to give a name to somebody else its very complicated but if you mix that whole process in with my own inventions and then to be entangled in the process. My editor who added most of my books Robert Gottlieb did beloved and then after he began to edit the new yorker and then he did any subsequent projects that i had. Host your start in the process was as an editor to i dont know many writers who havent but its just the way that they right. But i know a first rate editor is like a firstrate anything someone who does not correct you so much and to make the best decisions and then the reading of the text and what i tried to give. And in publishing its much more rapid for those with skills other than those and then to narrow considerably so i was very likely and the fact that i knew how to edit and also knowing the first rate editor, a superb editor who complimented and i valued it. Host los angeles go ahead. Caller thank you for your books. They mean a great deal to me. What im wondering about is some of the writings you had with the writing process and the history looking at africanamericans or american africanism in history. What i want to know more about do you feel your presence with one of the Major Writers in america is helping young writers find a new voice to a certain degree . Is the new culture is something that inhibits them from good writing . Or reaching that place of reality beyond race or age or whatever . Do you feel . What do you feel the culture is doing to inhibit the writer to get to that place that you seem to be able to get to that using those associations people and appropriately make about race or gender . I am delighted there are so many kinds of writers from so many backgrounds and ethnicities it is a delight. We are encouraged to believe there is something about writing that is perfect and flawless and doesnt involve race. It is confusing because every excellent classical book we have ever read is all about race even if it is the white race. It is still about that young men shouldnt be afraid or even discouraged from including specifically racial matters in their text it doesnt have to move race in order to be valuable. That is a trick you have to transcend race with a pantheon of literature its ridiculous on its face because you know its applicable only to black people because nobody else has to transcend race other than black people that you dont have to use it as a crutch as a fingerpointing but also its a ploy its not good literature just because books are not good if its about polish lifer i wish life that you use whatever is important to the story and currently i think there is some debate about the uses to which the culture functions in literature and i would advise any young writer that if youre not going to be free in that area to make your own choices then can you be free . You can write detective stories and never mentioned race of the people who are involved in less it is important i read a lot of detective stories and i am aware there are so many written by africanamericans or by white people that are about race. So what im trying to suggest to you the choices are wider what is an embarrassment young writers should take advantage but that it is necessarily a plus. Host Miami Florida says my question is about finding your voice. You said you can pick up any part of your book you know it was written by you im young and struggling to find my voice im hoping you would have advice how you found yours. I dont think i can tell you how. The point is to recognize it. When you write it i would recommend that you experiment opening passages for example some are firstperson some could be he or she or you. To take the voice that speaks directly. Play. And then at some point you will find a voice you think is appropriate for the narrative that you are writing and then youll learn later thats part of your own voice but you do have to play. Dont expect to get it the first time. You may. But if you dont if you dont like the revision and rewriting as a writer then you should stop right now. Because thats what it is. Doing it over and over and over until you get it right. Host joplin missouri go ahea ahead. Caller my question is i am a master student and i have been working on a paper so i have a question on that realm i notice on all of your novels you have cycles of abuse are those that have parents that dont show them love because her own parents have failed to teach them how to love so if its an overall theme so talk about tha that. Learning how to love somebody learning to love yourself and your children its almost like learning how to think if you are serious and exposed to it. I just described three books of how to love a child in love yourself how to love a lover and how to love god. Those that are not embarrassing to us and then to open that up its not automatic caring for children may be or worrying about children maybe, affecting children may be but thats not the same thing when they grow up, they are. These are complicated problems to me this is what undergirds or supports so much human activity where does that selfesteem come from . What about that self loathing and why are we so driven in this direction . And it surrounds this question to be deprived and bereft are never knowing quite how to express it at the same time and to love so powerful and so desperate you destroy what you love most in the world . That you love god and are transported by it . The world is so complete and absolute you cannot bear other people who have another idea about it . And therefore you expel or kill them to have your whole life broken apart with that romantic love you can see as im rambling on and on than somebody not having love so even for ideal and the most threatening family in the world it will never be that flat so it seems to me theres nothing more interesting and mysterious. Going back to the point in your own life how you found out you won the nobel prize. I was just coming out of the shower in the phone rang a friend of mine was on the phone. She was on the phone and said you one and i said one what . She said the nobel prize for literature and i instantly she couldnt know anything that i didnt know about something as important as that and she said she just heard it on television. Than i knew it wasnt true. [laughter] why would the today show crack so i told her call me back later. [laughter] it never crossed my mind nothing that i ever thought about. So telling me that seemed odd and also i saw the media rush to see those prizes only to be told a couple of times and to be totally unimpressed so i got dressed and went to work in a campus was full of reporters and telephone calls. And i thought i guess its true but it was out there it wasnt really in my head and then also i heard from the swedish academy. They didnt say i had one. So maybe all these people were misled so when they finally called at 1 00 oclock that afternoon, i asked them to send me a fax. [laughter] i want to see it in writing. That had to be something almost unexplainable to a kind of lecture they want the literary winners to do like the scientific lots scientific papers. I thought i would try very hard to give a speech that did enact what the subject was, which was the value of narrative that it is the major form in which we acquired knowledge. We set it up as a narrative. There are other forms symbolical and musical but narrative is the major way we absorb knowledge and remain intelligent and the stories we tell come of the invention of them is a learning process and intellectual process. Thats why wanted to say how valuable literature was but i didnt want to just say that i wanted to theatrical eyes it. I made up a story once upon a time and i used an old story that every culture has about the blind woman or man presented with a bird and asked to say whether the bird is living or dead. The old person says i dont know the young Person Holding the bird . But its in your hands and its pregnant also with meaning. I wanted to use the situation of that encounter between the old, wise, blind and young and give the young agency to really talk back to the old person and say, were you tricking us . And have the two debate, argue, and come through the thirdplace what was it like standing in front of the academy and all the people in that room accepting that price . All i was the only woman. I told them they have to give me more time, give women more time of thickening give that prize up to women because as long as you have directed speech thats worthy, youll find something to wear. The men just come and talk a come in a tux. Very representational. I felt female. I felt american i felt writerly, i felt like an ohioan. I took all these responsibilities of representation on and i felt like the first black woman. It was protection so i wouldnt have to shoulder it all as me. I could redistribute myself out there little bit. For me living in the moment happens after the moment. Its only upon reflection much later that i knew what i felt and what i felt was so happy. Unabashedly thrilled, joyous, liked, there was no false modesty. I didnt say, aw shucks. I really enjoyed it. It was the most Glorious Party with the most generous people in the world. So it was as good as it gets. San diego, your next question for Toni Morrison. My name is Russell Jackson and there are three authors that really speak to me, you of course, dorothy allison, and a as a writer of course when i reach each one of your works everything means so much to me. Its funny because every time i read something from the three of you its like i start writing. When i read one of your book i know im going to get inspired for you dont want to write. You almost seem to have a very Spiritual Connection to your work and the problem for me when im writing as i write something and i just feel like i cant touch it again like its there and i have a real big problem with the technical end of things because i feel like the moment i wrote it it was very spiritual peace but they also have problems making it into more than what it is. Thats a big problem for novice writers as well as writers have written a long time you cant love it to too much. I learned that more with my second book then anything else. The technical is the expression of the spiritual. Eudora weltys work is radiant because of her Technical Expertise and the way she works it you cannot rely on simply this inspirational connection. Its like talking to a character, they talk of the time they want you to do this, you have to suddenly realize, they dont write that book, i am, this is my book. I write over and over again im not afraid to write badly anymore because i can write it over. I used to get so discouraged after writing something an hour or two hours it was just awful and i thought i could never, its ridiculous. Towed away. You dont love it because you did it. The first rule is you probably love it a little too much its probably not very good. So you just work it in your process to be one that is fulfilled, dont hesitate to write that sentence another way, a second way. Another adjective. That is how one works and it isnt because you failed, its because you are in the process of shaping something thats beautiful and meaningful by using these very tiny stitches, little hammers, tools, they go together. You are a jeweler so you are creating a document, or a gardener, painter, all those things require technique, practice. Washington dc is next. Hello . Go ahead. Professor morrison, im a student here at Georgetown University and i was wondering what your top novels classical and modern are besides the ones you yourself have written . Im not going to list any five particular because ive been reading a long long time and im going to leave out somebody whos been a major education for me and because also i read books five and six years later, some that i thought were mediocre and turn out to be absolutely fantastic or things that i thought were flawless and later turned out not to be but more often things that have just stayed and taught more and more and more each time i go back. Revisiting them in the book seem to change although in fact, i may have. So the classical books i have affinities for. I cant explain. I remember a long time i spent years and then George Meredith and then it was inexplicable. Then i suddenly went back to check off and then all of a sudden i couldnt get enough of tomorrow i and recently ive been reading after many abyou read for Different Reasons at different times and you fall in love over and over again but it is a little dismissive for me to rank those authors because they are constantly loves. You were asked the question in a more general way that maybe this will help, this is Deborah Masterson who asks, what does miss morrison like to read in her spare time. What are you reading right now . Couple days ago i was reading a biography of colette by somebody whose name i forgot already. Quite recent, which is to say i do read a lot of biography. Less autobiography come a great deal of biography. I read him when im traveling a lot of astories. I read a lot of literary theory. Im reading a book on abread a lot of economic things. You have several going at one time it sounds like. I do. I just read white teeth by this girl zoe smith that was quite good. People send me books and am able to get to them and i finished peter carries book recently which i loved a lot of the contemporary fiction which i look for and sometimes am delighted of finding something right off the shelf so to speak. Is probably a good time to go back to that question we had at the beginning about the curriculum and the College Classroom today, the classics. I dont know why there is a debate. I cannot bear these socalled debates that just dont exist anywhere except in a headline, whether to teach a or b . Its ridiculous. Academics, pundits, setting up false arguments about choices that really dont exist. You have to be forced into making that choice. The whole point is to read more, not less. You dont compete with William Shakespeare or compete with milton. Just add to it. All these things came into being via somebodys forceful concession. There wasnt any chaucer club for hundreds of years after chaucer. English literature, what we know of as English Literature was never read by anybody who had a real education until frb this began to figure out what to teach workingclass people. The aristocrats didnt view English Literature. They read latin stop they read the greeks. So then you have English Literature. It came to graduate school during a time when nobody taught american literature. At all. You think i study that stuff when i was in high school . We had poets, irving, longfellow, i could not get a masters degree in what was understood by the universities to be inferior. Anybody who had an ounce of sense that English Literature, those classics, there were no american classics, none. Then of course they began to be twain, etc. , look how long it took for Anthony Dickinson to get in. Its a silly argument. We know that scholars push whom they are working on and student study. There is nothing immutable about that. Luckily the best of us tend to survive because its good enough to produce lots of scholarship and also its rewarding to authors and readers. But this is a powerfully political and cultural battle and always has been. Theres nothing new about it. Theres nothing permanent about it. If that were the case, why are we studying cicero in the first grade like everybody else . Why did we suddenly change our reader . And begin to study Something Else. Why do we suddenly not bold arrives hamlet. When i first read hamlet, half of it was chopped up. I had to wait until i went to university to read the whole thing. Is whitman there . Scarlet letter . Moby dick . These things we take for granted as american classics. They were not always done. Now new kinds of books are being written, very important, very powerful, new voices are being heard. They dont have to compete with the classics, they just simply have to stand on their own and have some intelligent people review them. As far as im concerned there is no debate. Sacramento, good morning miss morrison, my name is diana im in sacramento. I love your work and i read beloved a couple times. Frankly, i had to put it down and have a Recovery Period because it was it became a very emotional read for me. Im wondering, that happened also and i went to see the film i felt exhausted after the film was over. Although i enjoyed it so much at the same time, it was physically draining and emotionally. My question then is, do you have a certain Recovery Period after he put together a piece like that . How do you do that . How do you come back to reality or how do you keep your perspective after writing Something Like that . Thank you. It was difficult for me because it was writing about things that were unpleasant and imagining things i really didnt want to imagine. And knowing most people didnt either. Thats why thats why the theme is forgetting. Everybody in the book is trying to forget, not saying anything about it. The same way that africanamericans did try to forget and not say anything about, in order to go forward in the same way that i as the writer was trying to manage, i did want to talk about it i didnt want to think about it. It became odd for all of us, what you do with memory . Or what i call the book rememory because its hard because its not happy but my feeling was, too, if i didnt have to live it, all i had to do was write about it that i should stop whining and stop feeling the pressures and just do it. Also i felt as true in every life if you dont know your history, your personal history, you dont have a future, all you do is tread water, you cant get beyond that. Takes a little courage, you feel bad, reliving or encountering but it has to be worth it. I tried in beloved to say, everybody in here is unhappy about this ghost that they are dealing with it. And you can too and because i know slavery is very hard for black people to try to remember or recreate calmly, its impossible, for white people to do the same thing its difficult for them. Instead of ignoring that, i would distract them a little bit and have them concentrate on this ghost is the most important thing. Why i fed them little sips of slavery. So they didnt have to look at straight in the eye and swallow it whole. They could look as askance as it were and concentrate on Something Else. While they were being inundated with this other horror story. The point being people said, why ghost in the book about slavery . There is good technical reasons and logistic reasons but in addition to those it was clear to me that nothing, the ghost stories is the least amazing of those tales. The most amazing and the most outrageous and unbelievable is the slave story. If you can believe in the slave story, believing in the ghost takes nothing. It was a kind of sleightofhand that i decided upon in order to make those two ideas palatable so that the reader would be willing to go there. The movie is a different thing. So much external images and the nature of the movie is to be blatant. Its right up there in your face, frontal. For me as a writer i dont have to be blatant. The scene of the actual slaughter of the baby is buried in the text. I cant even find it i dont know where to go but you know what happened, you think it happened come you want to know why it happened but the actual description of it very short scene from different points of view. Its the consequences of it, the preparation for it. It takes up more of the book. We are two thirds of the way through a three hour conversation with Toni Morrison. This is cspan booktv indepth series and would welcome your telephone calls for guests for the next hour. Speaking of recovering, from an observers point of view it looks like you are always working to my teaching, writing. I know. I have this sense that im not doing anything. Maybe its being a depression child where everybody had to have four jobs, i dont know what it is. When i stop and think and im looking at these books piled on your table, it looks like so much. I do work and i do lecture and i do write things other than novels. I write lyrics, beautiful, i mean, some of them are beautiful. Its something i like a lot. Ive always under the impression that theres something im not doing, something extremely important that i forgot and if i dont hurry up i will have a chance to do it. Everything seems simple too because as i said, i dont remember myself before i could read and thats what i do. I publish books, i teach books, i read books, i write books. It seems that its very simple and uncluttered because i dont know how to ski and i dont know how to grow boats and i dont know how to abyou know. What do you do to just kick back . The times when you allow yourself to do it . I read. More reading. I dont go on vacation and i live in a nice place, i love the place. I like the way it looks. I never want to leave it and my idea is, in addition to, friends, dinner, gardening and reading, thats about it. Call from maryland. First i would like to thank you for your work, its been an inspiration to me. When reading beloved i found astory most interesting. I remember specifically him looking up at a starry night and talking about how beautiful the night was and how beautiful land was but feeling afraid to love them because they werent his. I was wondering if you think that this feeling of not owning something will change . I dont mean race specific but now looking back at that passage if you feel that there will be a feeling of ownership . Its a conundrum for me with racially and just as a person for him obviously he is seduced by this wide spirited love of this beautiful country hes a fugitive and. He doesnt have the security to settle or just love it and his solution is to level little bit so that you have a little left over the next time. My feeling is, we belong here. We meeting all of us. We belong here. There isnt, as far as we know, any other place. We cannot tolerate the abuse of this place we belong in and we cannot tolerate other people dictating how we shall relate to it. In that sense i had been feeling fairly optimistic that there is more likely to be people who dont feel the way polly did in that situation but who feel they were on the shore, the river is theirs, to love and enjoy and inhabit all thats necessary. Of course some garden and maybe very active resistance to those who believe that its not ours. Aminah rumi asked this question, having been intimidated but the challenge of reading of one of your books, which one of your works would you recommend as a first read . I think sometimes song of solomon looks like the one that people could get into rather quickly. I think sula probably also. Many people have read awhen they were very young. I dont quite understand that because its not a Childrens Book at all. Its about children and told from a childs point of view but its very adult subject and i know there are young people, particularly young girls, who read the story when they are 12 and 13 and are terrified by it. It just doesnt sit well with them. Until much later. I always ask them, how did you feel . The subject matter was a little outrageous for them. We havent discussed sula at all commits a story of a friendship between two women, betrayal, and friendship that extends beyond the grave. Was a revolutionary topic at that time in 1972, 73. Not that there havent been stories about women before but when women were friends, close friends, and most classical literature in europe and england there point, the point of the friendship was about men, how to get married, advice on marriage, its never about the friendship itself. The friendship we knew was just a means to another and which is the husband or the lover or what have you. I was interested in women who friendship with about that, not about the other little bit about that relationship. I chose two people that were very close but very much unlike each other abwhether it could withstand the sexual betrayal, which is outrageous. That form of betrayal is profound. I wanted to test the friendship. Minneapolis, you are next with Toni Morrison. My name is mary and ive been reading and giving as a gift your book paradise for the last couple years to everybody i know. Ive got a group of people that im going to be discussing it with, about 13 of us, we got a strong religious background, catholic, my question has to do with the theology involved in that book in particular, the whole tradition versus spontaneous response. The women who respond to the needs that are there and what happens in the people they are presented with versus the town and there is strong need to preserve their tradition and values and im thinking of george w and his whole discussion of bringing back tradition versus community and the community thats represented by the women and their ability to respond from the heart. That whole conflict i know you dont want to resolve conflicts i would love to know if this model of the women loving is when you are leading us to . She wants to go to the book club with answers from the source. [laughter] its interesting the value, as you describe it, are conventional traditional way. Theres a lot of value in that. In the catholicism of the and theres a spirit team which is a remnant of condomabreligious catholicism as practice in places like brazil. To mix them together in a way in which to say, i suppose, which is not terribly original is that the worst thing you can say about religion, other people who practice it who use it and have other agenda of power, of empower, of control, which is usually not the kernel of the religion itself. The institutionalization these absolutely beautiful generous wonderful ideas. Which is spirituality. Those of the good things. And of course you have people such as the men in the town unlike their wives and paradise to use the religion in order to expand their empire or you have a woman like aa very devout catholic but abandoned by catholicism. She had to invent a certain thing its not so much which of these things is right its just that we lose the love and the mystery and the generosity of religion. If its not generous and if its only based on the hierarchy of exclusion that seems to me there in lies the ride when the problem because not the traditional or the new it becomes in the hearts of people when the people arent good enough for the religion that they espouse. A professor at Hiram College the wants to know the origin of your mothers name it says means mercy in the original arabic and notes the popular female name in their country of origin the sudan. Thats good to know what it means because my mother was annoyed because her name was chosen by somebody opening the bible and putting their finger down, very much the way it happened in the book i wrote called song of solomon where pilate got her name that way. I think in the passage that was identified she said it was a village in a never searched further to see if the village had a meeting. It wouldve been nice had she been alive to know that it means mercy. She is the dedication along with a group of other women of your book crybaby, who is the other women . Caroline smith, millie mcteer. Oughts, their mothers, my sister, the women i thought were fierce, powerful, lovely women. The process of choosing dedications probably a dicey one. Berry. Its a skippy part is the one nobody is supposed to be but me. I sometimes disguise them and sometimes been forthright about them but its all very subjective. Do you have, this is perhaps choosing among children do have a favorite among the books . No, they are very different for me, different obstacles i sent myself, different kinds of success that i think of achievements or things i was not able to do, some of the ones that get the most attention are not the ones that were most satisfying to me as an artist. Sometimes the stories overwhelm in the publics mind the arts im interested in the story for me when i say process and in the art of doing it. Sometimes its just so hard to do it and make it appear effortless that when im able to do it well that becomes Something Special even though the book itself may not be as wellregarded as some of the others. Orange park florida, your next. Professor morrison, i just wanted tell you im in complete awe of you and your work and i want to thank you. I read and reread your text and i seem to notice a theme of forgiveness and empathy specifically in the bluest eye when you show cali breedlove, who does these despicable things yet you take us to this place and show his back railed and all of a sudden i feel for him and im shocked that i do. Is that when your goals to show people that do things, hurt people, oppress people and show them in a way of compassion and empathy . 2d demonize them. These are human beings. Its not that youre required to approve at all. You simply dont understand how this human being to be that kind of human being. Which means its a possibility that for that human being to be Something Else. No one is contrary to what we may think. Theres other things going on. Thats what perception is about is perceiving, understanding, and knowing another person, how you judge that person ultimately is your business but judge them based on knowing all you can about the character, not just that one act. Toms river new jersey. Seems like we miss that, im sorry i know it wasnt easy to get there. We talked earlier about big box. aba red big box the first day of school and they totally got it. Seventh graders feel like they are put in boxes every day. She goes on to ask if we could share a little more of the book but we have talked about it. The second question is, do you have an opinion on emphasis being put on standardized test scores to thickest taking way of helping kids develop a love of literature and language cannot. Im not sure that i would be i would be afraid of it of heavily emphasized test scores. I think its just good for the people who record the progress to know what the test scores are. For me its a little frightening. I know children who do extremely well on tests, copperheads of reading tests, go vocabulary test, structure tests and make excellent grades but they cant see, they cant visualize, literally a story when you say can you see it . They understand it they can remember it but they cant visualize it. That seems to be more and more the case when young people want to visualize something they go to the cinema or they go to a screen and if thats not helpful to them, then there is sort of a blank. In other words, theyre not going to literature for that part of the imaginative process. That will never be talked, never be learned, never be relished simply by emphasizing national tests. And wanted to show the audience something you and i were looking at before we began our conversation here today and thats just some of the books of criticism of your work. Im going to go through very quickly without even spending time because its really the volume of this. Its amazing. Its amazing to you . Ive never seen all those books. What is it suggest, you are talking about books working their way and what use a its very much there that i know people study at it in a variety of courses, not just english department. And they lend themselves to a number of arguments and essays. They lend themselves, my books do, to investigation mike mayfield. Its true in germany, is true in italy, its true in japan is true in france, its true in england. Im delighted to know that it means many of my books have worked their way in to the academy and into the discourse. In the literary discourse. To be there. One viewer asks whether or not you consider yourself to be a particular Critical School of american literature. I probably am and invented a little bit my graduate school was new criticism where everything was only the art and language and certainly not the autobiography and certainly not the aby which it came. It took me a little while to withdraw from that. I understand the value of the purely new criticism reading particularly when it came in the 50s but i got very much enchanted by deconstruction because it opened up the literature for me in a way in which elected, its true, and not supported of the very specialized jargon and i think like most schools of thought opens itself up for mistreating more importantly, for fakes. But any good idea opens us up for fakes. That kind of postmodernist criticism is very interesting to me. It was a way for all sorts of things to happen in literature that the new criticism made intolerable. Cambridge. Hello. I am so happy to be on with you today and i need to think booktv, this is a wonderful wonderful program. I watched others of your authors also. I have a comment to make and question to ask of ms. Morrison, a caller called in earlier and mentioned his three favorite writers, my three favorite are ms. Morrison, James Baldwin, and charles dickens. I wondered what the three had in common . What you all have in common is that you have the uncanny ability of pulling the reader into your world. And often i hate when i come to the end of one of your novels or a dickens novel or something James Baldwin has written because then i have to leave that beautiful world that you opened up. My question has to do with your self and James Baldwin, both of you write fiction and nonfiction. I was wondering if the process of writing fiction is different from the process of writing nonfiction and if so, how do they differ . Thank you. I dont know what it was like for him, James Baldwin wrote plays and novels and poetry and did really marvelous essays. I think i explained earlier for another question that for me the difference is i cant write when i teach because teaching is very analytical youre taking something apart, shaping it, trying to persuade or at least open up something in an essay where you can bet somebody that this is probably abfiction writing for me is open to surprise, i want to be available for wilderness in a way that im not what i do an essay. Its looser. Its freer. I can range wider. The actual writing of it i have to pull all those things together and make it work like a watch. Secretly, behind the face so to speak. The process of thinking for me is different and certain topics just im not abare not fiction topics for me. They require im interested in something happening or may be interested in the whole school of things but they dont suggest narrative, they suggest nonfiction to me that happened with some of the books that are collected here they just seem to require a certain kind of essay, not just mine but other peoples in order to address. Speaking of nonfiction, nadine preneed Indiana University bloomington says although many people rightly acknowledge the significance of your fiction, nonfiction such as playing in the dark has made an considerable contribution abshe asked specifically, how would you define the moral imagination and what role has your religious sensibility played in your literature . Well b being good at doing good is having a moral sensibility. Ive always been more interesting to me, more complicated an idea then evil, evil seems to make its more play, theatrics, people are attracted to it. Speaks the loudest. But its really boring fundamentally because it can sort of define new ways to do the same thing. In a sense its a sham screaming all the time like a petulant child. And we fall for it, the press falls work. Its just numbing and boring. On the other hand, artistically we have treated good as boring. Dantes purity co is like, who reads it . Every reason for now and maybe a Little Purgatory were much more interested in garriss faust one faust was seduced. By the time we get to paradise its like, everybody begins to yon. It always seems to be the opposite. I understand people had to be chased away from living a corrupt life by knowing how horrible it was and be for them if they ended up in hell and paradise was always like, no work and lots of food and you dont have to do much. I think we inherited a concept that is destructive. Thats a long speech to tell you that for me whats interesting is that the negotiation of moral position. Do no harm, love somebody and respect yourself. All that is reduced, simplified notions, the philosophers have spent their lifetime trying to imagine what its like to live a moral life, what morality is, what existence is, what responsibility is. It depends a little bit on some of the simplistic things are said and some of the more complicated and more subtle things are revealed in large philosophical schools of thought of him could certainly all over the world people who thought about this problem it is the problem. Maybe the world needs us to think about it since nobody else seems to be. Cabbages are not thinking about it, somebody needs to think about it. We are human beings come a little bit of time people are to be born later, some people have already been born. What you gonna do . They can do something you respect . Try to find out whats going on and try not to contribute to other peoples grief. I can understand causing pain if i dont know what it feels like. But if i know what it feels like, if i know what physical pain feels like, if i know what rejection feels like, if i know what humiliation, shame, contempt and hatred feels like, i cant give that back to you because i know that hurts. There might be something i can do out of victor acts that might cause you pain but not that. That seems to me to be figuring that out as small and as narrow as that concept is, much more interesting than trying to figure out how to take something away, how to make people believe exactly the way i do, how to strangle somebody how to express myself violently. It seems more interesting to me. In that sense, larger than religious sense, that has it formed a great deal about what ive been working on quick less than a halfhour to go in our three hour with Toni Morrison. Seattle is next. Hello . You are on the air. I just wanted to say to ms. Morrison, your sturdy moving brilliance in another philosophy theology, therefore psychology is such that you are prophetic in your call to integrate the three. I will be due for certain i have not read anything abjust working it, as you said, is what living is and this gives you a great logistics in your techniques that you use, you have for good and evil such perspectives and drama in that marvelous thing you said, negotiation of a moral position rather than polarization and indication of peoples perspectives, thank you so much. My pleasure. This is another question about influences, brandon park wants to know how is being a mother informed and influence your work and, i dont know if you can answer this, what would your work be without that role in your life . I can imagine myself not being a mother, you know a good part of my life i wasnt. In a funny way, being a mother was extremely liberating for me i know that people think of it as an added responsibility, narrowing perhaps a choices you could never leave i have a brother who had a farm, cant leave the stock. So he could go anywhere. It has that feeling but in another sense, it just freed me up, it freed me up and i didnt have to conform to certain other roles, expectations because paying attention to my children im actually listening to them recognizing who they were was hard for me at the same time it was a delight for me. It was the only thing that was of more importance to me than writing. It took precedence over everything i did. And their demands of me were entirely different from what other people demanded of me. The things that other people care about they didnt. And what they demanded of me, the reason it was so liberating was because i did it deliberately wanted me competent and they wanted me to have a sense of humor and they wanted me to be able to deal with emergencies and not collapse and to be able to reproduce these things in a safeway so they could do it. They asked these things of me and they were, as we were discussing earlier, i could see in their face when i was not delivering it. When i was faking pretending, they knew it instantly. So it freed me up to be this complicated person i always was. You mentioned sense of humor several times in our conversation. Do you like to laugh . I like to laugh, i do laugh, its agency, its control, its healthy. My mother had a stroke and she hadnt been a laugher she wouldve lost control of her left side. The doctors told us since because she was this person who was deep, like her father, grandfather, tears streaming down your face and it was infectious and it was marvelous. I know culturally, we been described, everett americans, as silly people, not taking life too seriously, happy slaves. Because laughter was part of it. How he behaved. Laughter is a very complicated process. Not only do you return agency to yourself, sometimes its selfmockery, sometimes its a mocking of other person. But you see irony, you see paradox you see the outrageousness of it all and it gives you the ability to, theres a moment in karen 10 after atries to kill everybody and runs amok and people find out about it in these two men are talking about her and what has happened is so awful they just began to laugh. It doesnt mean that they are silly or simpleminded, it just means they understood the complicated erotic who will dark excessive lunatic aspect of life and that they begin to manipulate it the moment they began to laugh at it. And also, as i said, it is not the little big social laughter but the stress management and i think if you have that streak of humor the more stress you are under, the more likely you are to just burst out laughing. Huntsville alabama. My name is amy patel and i Teach High School english and theater it in my english class we always read song of solomon i find the students are drawn in by it like no other novel has that effect on them. , they are especially interested in pilots and the theme of flight. The one thing i wanted to ask you is about at the end of the novel when milt is finally able to fly he says the pilot was able to fly without ever leaving ground and i wanted to ask you about, what is flight and why can milt mann fly finally and why could the pilot fly all along . Flight for me was part of an african myth about black people before they were enslaved were able to fly and when they came to this country they couldnt do it. But there were these exceptions that are in the midst of georgia see island people example. In trying to locate what slave stories were like, people always asked that question come you ever hear about anybody you could fly people said, nowhere they said yes but they never said, what are you talking about . They had all heard. Its universal theme, everybody wants to fly. I took what i thought was very specific and very general. The notion of flights as a kind of high point in the spiritual intellectual development of human being. So he goes to various things in the ground he goes on the ground come he goes in water in the baptism and then he leaps into this element which is the most unreliable element there is as opposed to water and ground but he goes there in this moment of complete generosity and confidence and risk so that his flight. On the other hand theres the woman, flight is a male thing. Women are presumably athey stay on the ground. Pilots imagination, or clarity her inner beauty, she had already acquired that. He felt, and i felt too. She didnt need the theatrics of flight she was already there. He and his moment when he is this close to her as hes ever been a new life realizes that she had already achieved the goal of flight without ever having left the ground. San jose. My name is phyllis jensens number therapist is an aspiring writer. I was very touched by your works your words about finding your voice and recognizing your style welcoming the reader and reassuring and holding their hand while you were telling them hard truths. I was struck and touched by those words because in a sense thats what i do. The mentors and teachers marion polster and worldrenowned for the work in therapy also offers irving read a book called every persons life is worth the novel and miriam wrote a book called eves daughters the forbidden heroism of women. Among many other books. I was first inspired by irving perhaps i could tell my mother story. For my children. Probably for myself. Took a writing course last summer and discovered i could paint pictures with words. But that is not the craft i studied for the past 20 years and yet i feel like im in time in my life where like to go forward with that. Are you having trouble . Think its the confidence that i could do it and where do i go. You have to ask her, you know . Asked who . Well she just passed away last year. That doesnt mean you cant ask her. You really have to ask her. Say more about that. You have to talk to her coming up to ask her. Shell tell you. You know she will. Only you could interpret the signs and hear her voice. But theres nobody better in a better position to tell you whether to do it, when to do it, how to do it and to give you the information. What i was really struck with with your words in all the discussions of your book and reading her book is this idea of depression and overcoming obstacles. The heroism of women in that process anyone who suffered oppression and although im not black, i went there watching my mothers oppression oppression by a small town, conventional attitudes, in some ways squash turbid in other ways she was able to maintain her sense of humor and rise above that. Because our lives are so busy, thank you and we wish you good luck. Good luck with that. Albany california. Am a 10yearold boy and my question is as a 10yearold African American boy, my question is, what encouraged you to write the bluest sky and you think i should read it . I will answer the second question first. Wait a little bit before you read it. Dont read it if your 10, wait until later. Ask your parents. And what made me write it is my heart was breaking when i thought about that little girl not being worthy of a book in the world. We got 15 minutes more with Toni Morrison and lots of emails. I had an initial hostility to the notion and then i got a sample of an ebook. And then i realized something. Of the narrative is the thing. Whether its on the screen on a book. The second thing is i dont think theyre competitive. I think there will always be people leads book and someone who looks at it on screen. I talked to youngpeople and they simply would love that better , i say all of that answer your question in saying i have no problem with my books being on screen. My only problem is to share the process, the profits. Questions dealing with issues of race. Sam asks what do you think it says about us when we who are of african ancestry still use the n word to identify ourselves. Every group has a contemptible or contemptuous word for itself. Its a kind of survival strategy. But that word seems to be going rapidly out of favor in certain groups of africanamericans itself. I heard it a lot when i was very young among africanamericans as akind of word of endearment. Affection namecalling. You know, kind of toughness about. But i hear that less and less and i suspect eventually it will be weird. Its like words get these auras, pick in any. These sort of old racist terms that fall out of favor. Where it seems to still have currency is in, among the very young male perhaps wrath style, lyrical qualities. Because it has a force to them. Its almost like a curse word. And curse words can only work if they are illegal and if they have force. Once you take the force out and that illegality out they dont work anymore. There are a lot of words that used to be curse words that are in the language and nobody bats an eye. I say all that to say i think what is happening with the socalled nword, i wouldnt worry about it so much now. Of you were asks how have you been able to balance the role of the spokesperson on racial issues on the one hand and artist on the other. Those two go together for me. I dont find in different at all. I think art should be political, representative and ever absolutely your revocable he beautiful at the same time. Seems a little complicated. Pearl from new york. I remember the question from a reporter and your answer why you dont feature white characters more prominently in your work, africanamericans will be able to use dna to trace their ancestors to africa and not only will africanamericans discover their ancestors but they will discover ancestors as specific people from specific nations. I wonder how africanamerican writers will respond to these answers. Its technology informing who we are. The reporters question was so inept about that. It was the routine, predictable question about why doesnt black writer write about white people. I thought it was really an ridiculous. Nobody ever asks a white writer why they dont write about black people because its a nonliterary question and its fundamentally a stupid one so i was responding what i do was the encouragement of a reporter to make a comment on the sociological aspect of being an artist, not the art itself but as you just suggested, people should be able towrite about anything they want. Anything, anybody. All you have to do is know its. I should be able to write about Chinese People and what is to prevent me fromdoing it is i dont know anything about it. I havent respected their history enough to do the research on. I have only listened to superficial, that kind of thing would prevent me. The same kind of thing i would expect of white writers who writeabout black people. All you have to do is respect the people youre writing about, not use it as a harangue and its entirely open. This is not a ghetto world thatour lives in. This one from julian nova and it says im in 1999 i had the pleasure of hearing you read an excerpt of Ralph Ellisons june keith concerning a white youth had been nurtured by a black woman who raised him as an adult trades the maternal connection because of their blackness and you read so beautifully and with such feeling i sense that the white the trail of black women had loved them as children struck a nerve in you. Would you please comment. It does and still i think there are several references to it in some of my books. Because its such an unnatural thing. I could say the same thing about not black white relations but wet nurses that work for common in england or france where people of a certain class said children were to be nurse and my children thought back when they were house broken so to speak so that past along into the culture with black and white relations being the focal point because the wet nurses were slavewomen. So youre thinking as a writer how much that feel . Think about yourself, so close it i were in a position where one of my jobs was in addition to my own children i had to feed other children . It wouldnt be a problem for me or anyone in but if that child that i breastfed at 12 or 13 was given the power to be, great or sell me , thats different. Because you have nurtured, fed and kept alive this person and loved it. Its hard to nurse the child and not love it or the feel like it so to have that human being on this other thing. Its a very incredible stories and connect collections of narrativeabout what slave women did when that happened. Theres a story of a woman who spilled milk in a bar and her mistress sent the sun into beat her because she wasted the milk and maybe some other things have happened but for her was the last straw and she looked at him she remember what shed been to him and she took the stick away from him that he was going to be with she just beat him. She had to leave so she had to run away she lived in a cave for months with her young daughter bringing her food. And theres these incredible stories where you know youre taking your life into your own hands and when he respond that way if you are that story think of it as not a slave but as you doing it, how does it make you feel . Not her, not that mother but you or your mother, your mother did that. Maybe you get the sense of what people are made and what their while to do and how distorted kind of oppression is when it distorts you and your behavior so wildly and so violently. We have about seven minutes and will try to get as many questions in in as weekend, tori morrison. Burkle to just think your creators both spiritual and material for your existence, thank you very much and id like you to please address two issues. In what ways do the traditional africana rituals, symbols and concepts enhance or affect your anesthetic, your class and im thinking of the ancestor reference in which you were speaking with a collar recently about conferring with her mother for guidance and also the mother as well in beloved and the shape shifting into the antelope, flight of africans but most specifically the paradoxical figures of pilate as the spiritually grounded and extremely complex women that you people would call witchcraft but having tremendous ritual and material power and utilizing it and even being called the owner of the bird. The bird that is immaculately white but also bears a blood the red beak for both protection and destruction. If you were to ask asecond question could you make it brief . Id like you to discuss the origin of the day in song of solomon. The origin of seven days was based on rumor. Ive always heard there was an organization of black men who were like avengers and they were anonymous and they ran around doing what seven days did and it was very popular, a very popular rumor so i used that as an example of this radical anarchic revolutionary man in song of solomon and the other part of your question interestingly because sometimes once in a while the connections are delivered when im trying to feed into a concept that is older than the one that blacks cobbled together in this country in the diaspora but what is amazing to me is how many times i use cultures that i take for granted because it was my mothers, my grandmothers, her grandmothers, and aunts, its the culture ive grown up in only to learn as you have indicated from africans, from all parts of the continent they ritual sayings, beliefs , and my work that are there so you can tell theres some movement in b its own stuff. All those ive ever known appear, the ghost who comes out of the water, the incarnation. The looking at ones self in water. And what happens when you break it and all these things are all part of the mythologies that i grew up in an apparently real living life in other african cultures that have been redistributed among us and i would just love to see the history of some of those things taken from my book, it would be fascinating to me. Barbara from atlanta wants to know how Much Research goes into your writing. A lot, i have to know particularly if books and supernatural elements in it i have to be sure all the facts are facts. I just dont like to do the research before i have the story under my belt. Because i like to do the research and it would keep me going to the library forever. Everything leads to Something Else so i tried to control it. The book im writing now takes place at a place ive never been to in an industry i dont know anything about so i have to know exactly what that is now but the narrative is sort of don, thought through, not written through. So now i have to know everything. I have to know how far things are, i have to know the color of green that is. I have to know whats the name of the railroad was. Its all detailed and can contribute to the authenticity and credibility of this period. Los angeles, go ahead. I Toni Morrison and it seventh grade english, i need a schoolteacher and i work with students of color and im always attempting to empower them and make them appreciate and love literature and writing and literacy and i always talk about you and your essays and i always talkabout your characters in your novels and how they are , how they have agency. My question is this. You briefly talked earlier about postmodern theorists where you use jargon a stick phrases in your work and i want your opinion on feminists bell hooks who i admire deeply but i feel that i cannot, i feel i cannot use them in the classroom as much because i feel that they can be very dangerous. When we talk about notions of theoretical paradigms such as talking back to the master, home place, this is how blacksthey were before integration and this is how we should be. You know, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. All of those code phrases, all those phrases i feel romanticized blackness, romanticize objectivity and i find that to be particularly dangerous because they dont move beyond sociological analysis. Thank you, i think we have enough of the question. Take the words that you find dangerous or misleading or generalizing and romanticize, put them on the board and defined them for your students and tell them why you think they are dangerous and then you get a nice discussion about the danger of language, not just bell hooks language or mine or anybodys but what the power of language is, how it can indeed hurt or mislead and the students may argue withyou about that. And that would be very good for your class but i wouldnt prevent it from coming into the class. I wouldnt prevent your students from reading bell hooks. I would just give them tools to analyze it and understand it. About a minute and a half left, youve given us hints about your next book, can you tell us more . I cant. Why not . Im afraid. This is mine, eventually it will be yours. When can we expect it . The publisher expected in 2002 so maybe indeed i might finish it by then. Happy birthday that the viewer wished you a while back, this is what some people might consider a milestone for you. 50 is supposed to be the milestone, after that is great. Ill be 70 in a couple weeks. Does it surprise you . It absolutely surprises me because you just end up a certain age inside. 32, 26, a different age but Everybody Knows what it is. How old you are on the inside and what happens after that is just like somebody else is doing. So its sort of a strange physical age. Which i happen to like a lot i think, some of my friends dont like it so much because theyre backing up a little bit. Constantly telling people how old i am and theres not a year that i have lived that i want to say is my own. Do you still learn . Yes, youre open and if you know how you came to these sort of inveterate conclusions you had before then youre fighting to say i know this is the way and this is the answer. Particularly at this age where a friend of mine was saying you know, all the irrevocable mistakes theyve already made us read all the things we didnt know, thats all there. Now youre free. You change your mind, you can make a mistake. You can learn something new. And do you feel free . Absolutely, totally. Thank you for helping us learn by spending a few hours with us. Toni morrisons whose book will be out in 2002 and i hope wevegiven you a taste of it some of it today. My pleasure. Youre watching book tv on cspan2 and were spending the evening with the late awardwinning bestselling novelist Toni Morrison. Born outside Cleveland Ohio she attended howard and cornelluniversities before she became a fiction editor at the book publisher random house. Up next from 2004 she talks about her book remember that recounts school desegregation. [applause] thank you. Thank you. My instruction is not to lean close to themicrophone. So if i happen not to do that at any point and you lose my voice, just raise