leynes's Reviews > Recitatif

REREAD (FEB 2022): Decided to reread this short story because it has now been published for the first time in book form (it was available online before).

When my gorgeous hardback edition arrived I saw that it had a 40-page long (!) introduction by none other than Zadie Smith analysing Morrison's story and dissecting its meaning for our lives. Thoroughly enjoyed Zadie's take on "Recitatif" and how she analysed the function Maggie plays in the story. (She's the key figure who signifies the past!)

The story was just as amazing to read the second time around. Lots of new things to discover – and many of which I had forgotten in the year since I read it for the firs time. Morrison is a master story teller.

Like Zadie Smith says in her introduction, "Recitatif" will give you "The Lottery" vibes. This short story never fails to make a chill run down my spine. It's a haunting (cautionary) tale of what happens when we tend to block out the past and not work through our shared complicated, often painful, histories and memories with each other – and it applies to individuals and nations both.

Update: Fuck it, I'm raising the rating to five stars. I'm still all up in my feelings about this story.

ORIGINAL REVIEW (DEC 2020):
Last week, I explained in a video why I'm scared to dive into Toni Morrison's fiction. Even though she is a literary icon, and basically a must-read for every Black woman who grew up in the West, I was hesitant going into her work. Even though I've heard (almost) nothing but wonderful things, I was also sure that her work could be emotionally very exhausting and sometimes even triggering to read. From my understanding, a lot of her books, especially the popular ones, deal with heavy issues such as trauma, sexual assault and slavery.

I felt quite overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback that I got. So many people went out of their way to recommend me some of Toni's books that would be safe for me to read. I cannot thank all these people enough because they have erased many of the fears and apprehensions that I had, so that I'm sure that'll start reading Toni's novels in 2021. As of right now, I think I'll start with Song of Solomon and if I end up liking it, give Sula a go as well. Beloved is a novel that is high on my list as well but I know that I need to be in the right head space for it to not take a toll on my mental health.

Today, another viewer made me aware of the fact that Toni Morrison only ever published one (!) short story during her lifetime – "Recitatif". They warmly recommended this short story to me as it also dealt with (comparatively) "safe" topics. I thought it would be a nice idea to read this short story (which is available online, if you're interested) as I knew that I wouldn't have the time to read a full-length novel by Toni this year, but a quick short story would satisfy my curiosity until next year!

And daaamn, this story truly hit hard. This is exactly the type of short story that I love reading. I need my short stories to be quick, smart, clever and leave enough room for interpretation, and most importantly, an engaging subject matter that gets readers talking and analysing. All of that was combined in "Recitatif", so I couldn't be more happy.

At its core it is the story of two girls, Twyla and Roberta, whose lives intertwine at various moments in time. The story is told within 20 pages and showcases five encounters that these two girls/women have with each other. They first meet at a state home, where they are forced to share a room. After some initial prejudices (because of being from "a whole other race"), the girls become friends. After four months together, Roberta leaves the orphanages and the girls loose touch. By chance, they encounter each other four more times and each time they attempt to revisit and adjust their memories of their shared past.

There are many things that are extremely clever about "Recitatif". Most notably, of course, is the fact that Toni Morrison deliberately left the race of the girls open. The reader isn't told which girl is Black, and which is white. Therefore, as a reader you are constantly searching for cues that might give it up. But Toni being Toni, she makes it impossible to decide, as the cues (and clues) are conflicting and inconsistent, and also reveal our own prejudices (e.g. the notion that the girl who grew up in poor circumstances is more likely to be the Black girl etc.).

What I found particular brilliant about this story is the fact that the reader becomes so preoccupied with wanting to find out which girl is Black and which is white, that the true meaning of the story and the most important character (Maggie) move to the background. And in leading her readers on in this way, Toni hammers down the point that she wanted to make all along. We are so preoccupied with the "race question", that we don't focus on what actually happened to Maggie.

Maggie truly functions as the scapegoat and represents how the unappealing elements of history are actively marginalized. She also remains parenthetical within the main story of the protagonists. In a paper it was pointed out how "she symbolised the silent truth imbedded within the parenthetical narratives of America's racialized history and how she provides a common ground for the protagonists to explore their conflicting memories of a shared history."

Maggie was a disabled woman who worked at the orphanage. She was often bullied by the girls who stayed there, Twyla and Roberta included, because she was "mute", "deaf", and seen as a "Dummy". One time, the bullying got out of hand and the girls kicked her down and physically hurt her [it remains open whether Roberta and Twyla partook in that harassment]. What happened to Maggie was awful. The way she was treated was horrible. And her race shouldn't matter. Whether Maggie is Black or white, shouldn't alter the scope of the sympathy we feel for her.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which of the girls is Black and which is white. It's funny how the girls are preoccupied with Maggie's race during their discussion of the repressed childhood event (Roberta first claims that Maggie was Black, whilst Twyla thought of her as white, at the end, they both were unsure). It's funny because they mirror exactly what the reader has been doing to them all along whilst reading the story. Toni Morrison shows us our own ridiculousness. Our sympathies for these characters, especially for Maggie, shouldn't hinge on their race. Maggie moves readers to see past the divisive quality of the obvious binaries and invites the reader to take a closer look at the “space in between”.

With "Recitatif", Toni Morrison challenges us readers to take a good look at ourselves and our own racial stereotypes, and why we often feel the need to rely on racial codes to make sense of narratives. She wants the readers' active participation, not only to examine their own assumptions about racial stereotypes but also to rethink how race has shaped their memories.

In her interesting collection of lectures, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Morrison describes that she saw "Recitatif" as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial". Furthermore, she writes: "Neither blackness nor "people of color" stimulates in me notions of excessive, limitless love, anarchy, or routine dread. I cannot rely on these metaphorical shortcuts because I am a black writer struggling with and through a language that can powerfully evoke and enforce hidden signs of racial superiority, cultural hegemony, and dismissive “othering” of people and language which are by no means marginal or already and completely known and knowable in my work. My vulnerability would lie in romanticizing blackness rather than demonizing it; vilifying whiteness rather than reifying it. The kind of work I have always wanted to do requires me to learn how to maneuver ways to free up the language from its sometimes sinister, frequently lazy, almost always predictable employment of racially informed and determined chains."

What I love about "Recitatif" is that it truly challenged me as a reader, how my perception of characters shifts, once race comes into play, albeit their actions remain 100% the same. Super fascinating and very effective because you literally feel like being part of the experiment when reading this short story. "Recitatif" is a story that truly made me think (literally made me think outside of the box) and it is therefore a story that will stay with me for a long time.