Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu, ed. The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia

African American Review, Spring, 2004 by Yoshiko Okoso

Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu, ed. The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia. Westport: Greenwood P, 2003. 423 pp. $89.95.

This publication certainly a measure Toni Morrison's contemporary stature, as it is extremely rare for an encyclopedia of a living writer to be published during her lifetime. Does it fill a need? Morrison's works have long had a reputation for difficulty, especially on first reading. Morrison does not explain everything, nor does she provide solutions or resolve every detail of her plots. Rather, she forces her readers to think through the problems she raises, demanding of her readers a degree of participation and inquiry unusual for a living writer who is not yet a part of the canon. By and large, Morrison's readers have responded positively to her call to engage fully with her work, but for those who would prefer a guide, and I suspect they are not a minority, this Encyclopedia will be a welcome tool.

Morrison's relationship with her public is interesting. On the one hand, she has always sought to raise their consciousness. On the other, she is far more than a political or a sociological writer. Several years ago, Morrison told me that she always strives to make something new, to write something unlike anything that has come before, and that she has to do this regularly, simply because that is the sort of challenge she needs to rise to. To this end, she has always been at great pains to revise and polish her work to a state of high creative accomplishment. This dual intention--to raise her readers' consciousnesses and to lay before them a succession of works of art, newly minted, none like the last--has lent a deeply enigmatic, multilayered quality to her body of work.

These, enigmatic, shifting, vibrant aspects of Morrison's work are what justify the efforts of the compilers of The Toni Morrison's Encyclopedia. This is not merely an accompaniment, but a provider of essential background knowledge for Morrison's work. As one contributor, Jane Atteridge Rose, points out, the best way to achieve "the participatory reading that Morrison requires" is "to go to the source" and "to read Morrison on Morrison."

This volume is a welcome addition to the body of Morrison criticism. Even to those having only a passing acquaintance with Morrison's work, this Encyclopedia is both reader-friendly and highly browsable. The focus is on Morrison's seven novels, with some space given to her one book of criticism. The Encyclopedia does not deal with Morrison's extensive magazine writing in its entirety, but does cover some key essays and other non-fiction writings, as well as a play.

Spread over 428 information-packed pages, the 196 entries concern all the work, in English, of acknowledged Morrison specialists. Each novel has its own heading, with film treatments given a separate section. Each of Morrison's characters has a discrete heading, as do some places in her novels. There are 97 character entries and 21 places are discussed. In each novel entry, we find a plot outline, key characteristics of the novel within the framework of the Morrison oeuvre, important themes and issues, a consideration of Morrison's intentions in the novel concerned, and an overview of critical work on the novel. Thus, within each entry students and general readers of Morrison can find a rounded consideration of the work and a basis--not a plinth, but a basis--on which to build their own understanding.

The film Beloved has a similarly rounded treatment: background history detailing Oprah Winfrey's acquisition of the film rights, a survey of the reviews, other critical responses, audience reactions, even box office records.

Complementing the entries on fiction and film is some coverage of other material. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination is given useful treatment, as are two collections of essays edited and introduced by Morrison, namely Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and the Construction of Social Reality and Birth of a Nation'hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O. J. Simpson Case; her Nobel Prize speech; and her only short story, "Recitatif." We are also given a play, "Dreaming Emmett," and even The Big Box, a children's book co-authored with Morrison's son Slade. There is an interesting section for Morrison scholars that comprises material on writers to whom she has made active reference in her work, among them entries on Plato and Shakespeare, African myth, the Dick and Jane story, ghost stories, and so on. Another section is devoted to literary influences: articles on William Faulkner, Mrs. Stowe, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and the South as a region.

To this reader, the most stimulating selection is that devoted to "Approaches." These include subsections on "Ecocritical," "Feminist/Black Feminist," "Historical," "Pedagogical," "Postcolonial," "Psychological," and "Womanist" ways into Morrison's writings. The essays in this section, covering a great deal of ground, are all well-written and highly readable and serve as useful surveys. The effect is to show, as if we had constantly to be reminded, just how multilayered and rich Morrison's work really is, and how rewarding each approach can be. That her work can stand up so well to so many different readings and interpretations is a testament to her enduring richness as a writer. Finally, we are treated to 43 keywords, including Christianity, Community, Conjure, Myth of Flying Africans, Magical Realism, Neo-Slave Narrative, Oprah's Book Club, Oral Tradition, The Oven, The Seven Days, Trauma, Violence, and so on, each with its own in-depth, precisely referenced mini-essay.