Song of Solomon - written at a 5th grade reading level


Morrison, Toni


AP Communication Arts III


The novel begins and ends with suicide. The main character, Macon Dead, nicknamed, “Milkman,” is the youngest child and only son of a failing marriage. He learns his family history from his father, mother, and aunt, which leads him on a search for gold. His friend, Guitar, needs gold to fund his band of assassins who get revenge on a white person each time a black person is killed. Guitar follows Milkman to Virginia, where Milkman discovers his great grandfather’s name, Solomon.

The novel contains an enormous amount of profanity, sexually explicit discussions, vulgarity, violence (murder), and racial slurs. In addition, the plot is disingenuous and the characters are far-fetched. The overall tone of the book promotes a depressing, animalistic view of the nature of man.

Types of sex include:
- Breast feeding a boy (not a baby, not a toddler) for pleasure
- sex with dead people
- oral sex
- discussions of sexual relations between a daughter and father
- descriptions of foreplay and undressing
- teen sex at 16 with multiple partners
- fantasies of sex between a mother and her son
- sex with whores
- sex between cousins
- anal sex
- oral sex between men
- sex using objects forced into each other
- discussions of sex with various animals and plants

We feel so sorry for the kids that this book is forced on. They are led to believe that...

1) this is how all adults conduct their sex lives and/or

2) this is how real black people conduct their lives and/or

3) all this is considered normal in society, because it has been assigned by an adult of power, who our kids have been taught from the beginning is to be trusted, respected and obeyed -- their teacher.

In addition Blue Valley states that this book is "necessary for success on the (English AP) test". This is not true! Click here to read more about why this type of book would NEVER be "necessary" for success on an AP English test!

Morrison’s other infamous books include Beloved and The Bluest Eye. Beloved is a district-wide approved textbook for Blue Valley AP IV classes, and The Bluest Eye has been promoted as recommended reading.
EXCERPTS:

• How Milkman gets his nickname: “It was one of [Ruth’s] two secret indulgences...pleasure it gave her...his legs dangling almost to the floor..before her husband.. came home.. she called her son to her... unbuttoned her blouse... too young to be dazzled by her nipples.. old enough to be bored by the flat taste of mother’s milk.. came reluctantly as to a chore.. tried to pull the milk from her chest.. without hurting her with his teeth... pleasure she hated to give up..” She is observed in this. “..terror.. sprang.. to [her] eyes... realization she was about to lose.. half of what made her.. life bearable... jumped up...covered her breast.. dropping her son on the floor...confirming for him that these afternoons were strange and wrong..” Janitor says:” knew a family--the mother wasn’t too quick.. nursed.. till the boy.. was 13.. bit much, ain’t it?.. gave a long low chuckle.. A milkman.. A natural milkman.. Look out womens. Here he come.”

• Father telling Milkman about his grandfather (Ruth’s father): “..was biggest Negro in this city.. he sniffed ether.. Negroes in this town worshiped him. He didn’t give a damn about them, though. Called them cannibals.. delivered both your sisters... nothing nastier than a father delivering his own daughter’s baby... She had her legs wide open and he was there.. was a man before he was a doctor. ..he took sick.. he died... In the bed. That’s where she was when I opened the door. Laying next to him. Naked.. kissing him. Him dead and white and puffy.. she had his fingers in her mouth.. I had a terrible time after that.. thinking all sorts of things. If [your sisters] were my children. I come to know pretty quick they were.. that bastard couldn’t fuck nothing. Ether took care of whatever he had in that area...But there’s lots of things a man can do to please a woman, even if he can’t fuck..

• “[Ruth] was in that bed sucking [her father’s] fingers, and if she do that when he was dead, what’d she do when she was alive? Nothing to do but kill a woman like that.. regret she talked me out of killing her... Was it true.. had his mother made it with her own father?.. Goddam. What the fuck did he tell me all that shit for?... Strange motherfuckers.. whole family was a bunch of crazies... what did he let you marry his daughter for? So he could screw her without the neighbors knowing it?.. If he had given you [that money].. he could have had her all he liked., right?.. could have come in your bed.. 3 of you could have had a ball. He’d get one tit and you’d get.. picture developing, of 2 men in.. bed with his mother, each nibbling on a breast..”

• “Each eye of her corset he toyed with.. top of her bodice he unlaced.. teasing her and him with the sounds of the snaps.. never spoke during these undressings.. as when children play ‘doctor’ undressing of course was the best part. When Ruth was naked and lying there.. unlace[d] her shoes.. entered her and ejaculated quickly. She liked it that way. So did he...”

• “...a nigger in business is a terrible thing to see.”

• Suicidal drunk on roof with shotgun yelling to crowd below: “ I want to fuck! Send me up somebody to fuck!.. or.. [I’ll] blow my brains out!.. [crowd yells] kill yourself first and then we’ll send you somebody. Do it have to be a woman?.. Do it got to be human?.. Do it got to be alive?.. Can it be a piece of liver?...Put that [gun] down and throw me my goddam money!.. Float those dollars down here, nigger, then blow yourself up!.. better not miss...cause.. I’m gonna shoot your balls up in your throat.. get the hell outta that window...pulled out his penis and in a high arc peed over the heads of the women, making them scream and run...What in the fuckin world am I gonna dooooo?... Come down outta there, nigger!” “And you, you baby-dicked baboon—you need killin”

• (About the birth of Macon’s sister): “(Macon) was there and he saw the eyes of the midwife as his mother’s legs collapsed (and she dies)...baby...inched its way headfirst out of a still, silent, and indifferent cave of flesh, dragging her own cord and her own afterbirth behind her.”

• “General Lee [a pig] was all right by me.. Even his balls were tasty... White people...kill a nigger and comb their hair at the same time.”

• “He ain’t old enough to have wet dreams...fucking it up.... What goddam children?...Let’s get us some weed.”

• “..was 22 then.. been fucking for 6 years, some of the time with the same woman, he’d begun to see his mother in a new light.”

• “My mother nursed me when I was old enough to talk, stand up, and wear knickers.. if she did that to me when there was no reason for it... maybe she did other things with her father.. his mother had been portrayed.. as an obscene child playing dirty games with whatever male was near--be it her father or her son.”

• “What the fuck.. kid is stomped.. some cracker put it in the paper.. stomped.. Cause he whistled at some Scarlett O’Hara cunt. ..Tell that nigger something.. ought to be enough colored blood on the streets. ..Spill the crackers blood that bashed his face in.... out of your fuckin mind? They’ll catch’ em.. give ’em a big party and a medal.”

• “..daddy got his balls busted off... Shit... Whores worked her bar in safety... cruisers found chickens or hawks—whichever they preferred, even jailbait... How the fuck.. Cut the shit... fuckin radiator... shit... talking shit.. who cares if he fucks a white girl?.. fuck.. Niggers... No shit? No shit.... Like a fuckin sheep.”

• ..Pilate whipped her right arm around his neck and positioned the knife at his... heart... man felt the knife point.. jabbed it skillfully,.. through his shirt into the skin.. holding his neck.. could feel the blood making his shirt sticky.. if I stick it in any deeper, it’ll go straight through your heart...

• “[His cousin Hagar] was [Milkman’s] own private honey pot...[She said]: Watch the lump grow in the little boy’s pants. ..jumped up to grab her, but she ran into the bedroom...ease with which he had gotten and stayed between her legs... annoyance at her refusal to make him hustle for it, work for it,.. didn’t even have to pay for it.... no excitement.. She was the 3rd beer.. the one you drink because it’s there.. because what difference does it make?.. it was she who called him into the bedroom and stood there smiling.. unbuttoning her blouse. Then he saw her breasts.”

• (Hagar, pining for Milkman after he breaks up with her): “She toyed, sometimes, with her unsucked breasts...”

• “The knife struck his collarbone and angled off to his shoulder.. began to bleed.. Hagar. raised the knife again.. [Macon said] keep your hands that way.. bring them down straight, straight and fast.. drive that knife right smack in your cunt. Why don’t you do that?.. your problems will be over. He patted her cheek..”

• “..freaky shit, freaky fucked-up world... bullshit lecture.. fuckin bullshit lecture.. some secret shit... spend 50% of your brainpower thinking about a piece of ass. You got that red-headed bitch and.. Southside bitch... Fuck... nigger heaven...”

• “..witch’s tit..” “...getting high... Pussy and…parties...Jesus...Oh, Christ.”

• “fuckin leaves.. give a shit.. shit.. nigger.. nigger.. nigger.. Shit.. fuckin glaciers ice your ass.. nigger.. move your ass.. bitch..”

• (Milkman’s mother Ruth): “..I was 20 years old when your father stopped sleeping in bed with me..” (She tells about putting an aphrodisiac in his father’s food): “Macon came to me for four days...came out of his few days of sexual hypnosis in a rage.. later.. discovered her pregnancy, tried to get her to abort.. made her drink [castor oil].. soapy enema.. knitting needle (..she inserted only the tip, squatting in the bathroom..).. punched her in the stomach.. [Pilate said] ‘don’t take no more mess off [him] and don’t ram another thing up in your womb..”

• “..married a white girl in France.. lived with her for 6 years.. came home to find her with another man. Another black man. ..his white wife not only loved him, not only this other black man, but the whole race..”

• “..keeping her father alive even past the point where he wanted to be alive, past pain and on into disgust and horror at having to smell himself.. lingering in absolute hatred of this woman who would not grant him peace..”

• “..wouldn’t give a pile of swan shit..”

• “..then the preacher started pattin on me.. didn’t know enough to stop him.. his wife caught him at it, thumbin my breasts, and put me out.”

• “..although men fucked armless women, one-legged women, hunchbacks and blind women,.. midgets, small children, convicts, boys, sheep, dogs, goats,.. each other, and even certain species of plants, they were terrified of fucking her.... became limp even..”

• “..she paid close attention to her mentor--the [dead] father who appeared before her sometimes and told her things..” “After we buried him…we both seen him. I see him still. He’s helpful to me, real helpful. Tells me things I need to know.

• “..After Reba grew up and began to live from one orgasm to another, taking time out to produce one child..”

• (About a secret society of black men who kill white people): “..was killed after his balls were cut off.. You’re going to kill people? Not people. White people…it’s got to be done to keep the ratio the same.. no innocent white people.. every one.. potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one.. Hitler’s the most natural white man in the world.. killed Jews and Gypsies because he didn’t have us... But people who lynch and slice off people’s balls-they’re crazy,.. how come Negroes, the craziest, most ignorant people.. don’t get that crazy.. White people are unnatural.. as a race they are unnatural...The disease they have is in their blood, in.. their chromosomes..”

• “..when a cracker kills a Negro.. don’t give a shit what white people know or even think...none of that shit... Shit”

• “Goddamn!... raggedy-ass.. Son of a bitch.. nobody can fly with that shit.. Faggot... White faggot.”

• “..best news I’ve had since pussy... some shit... Fuck you.” - “..gonna-fuck-you-up..” - “..nigger.. Jesus God..”

• “..motherfuckin life..” “..nigger..” “..yellowed-eyed nigger..” “..nigger.. bitch.. bitch.. shit.. crazy shit.. Nigger bitch..” “Fucks up your mind.. fucks it up..”

• “..[threw] him out of the.. party because he had peed in the kitchen sink.. stayed.. from light buzz to stoned, for 2 days and a night..”

• “dreams...of the witch who chased him.. would wake with a scream and an erection. Now he had only the erection.”

• “Watching their women and rubbing his fly.. Pussy different up North?.. Pussy the same everywhere. Smell like the ocean; taste like the sea... Maybe the pricks is different.. Wee little.. Wee. wee little... That true?.. wouldn’t know.. never spent much time smacking my lips over another man’s dick... What about his asshole? Ever smack your lips over that?.. little young nigger made me mad and I had to jam a Coke bottle up his ass... use a bottle..? Your cock wouldn’t fill it? It did. After I took the.. bottle out. Filled his mouth too. Prefer mouth, do you? If it’s big.. and ugly.. belongs to an ignorant motherfucker who is about to get the living shit whipped out of him. The knife glittered.. motherfucker.. did the best he could with a broken bottle.. stick that cocksucker...”

• “White women want us tame, except in bed. They like a little racial loincloth in the bed.”

• “..toothless motherfucker.. Fuck ‘em.. nigger.. black Neanderthals.. Fuck ‘em.. meanest unhung niggers in the world.”

• “Son of a fuckin bitch!” “..this here nigger was the problem.. country niggers..” “..nigger..”

• “… when the lovemaking came, he decide he would crawl.. He gave her 50 dollars.. She said please come back.”

• “..now it seemed to him that sexual deprivation would affect her... it would affect and hurt him.. may walk and live among women, you may even lust after them, but you will not make love for 20 years.. suppose he were married and his wife refused him..”

• “..he had the power to drive a woman out of her mind.. because he had fucked her, and she was driven wild by the absence of his magnificent joint. His hog’s gut.. Even the last time, he used her.”

• “Fuck ‘em.” “..son of a bitch.. motherfucker.. fuckin.. tribe of niggers.. shit!.. black ass..”

• “..fuckin... Oh, shit... What the fuck.. you jive-ass. What the fuck... you are fuckin with our work!”

Further information about Song of Solomon can be found at Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, www.pabbis.com.

The following statement is a portion of a review written by a Blue Valley Communication Arts teacher. To read these reviews, ask for the documentation in your school library.
"Toni Morrison's 1977 novel not only involves her usual sophisticated poetic style, but features an elaborate use of African American folklore."


Later, in an on-line rationale, the Blue Valley teachers wrote this: "Morrison’s use of poetic language and advanced dialogue places Song of Solomon in a category for higher-level readers and evaluators of literature." and "This book is necessary for success on the (English AP) test." This is not true!


From a professional review by the Village Voice: “...One closes the book warmed by the richness of its sympathy, and by its breathtaking feel for the nature of sexual sorrow.”