imnotsusan
4/30/2022
Like all of Toni Morrison's works, this book is beautifully written, with fully-imagined characters and striking imagery. Although I haven't researched this to learn more about Morrison's intent, I nevertheless found the echoes/reimagining of Hamlet really lovely. The only reason I didn't rate this book higher is that I found the pacing strange, if not a little jarring. The apparent McGuffin that sends the hero on his quest felt like it was introduced almost out of the blue nearly 2/3 of the way through the novel. While the main character's journey to find his family history was clearly important, it also felt a little rushed and disconnected from what had been building up until that point. It gave me more the feeling that I'd read several novellas set within the same unversse rather than a single coherent novel. But still well worth reading.