Whenever anybody asks me what my favorite book is I always say Sula by Toni Morrison. The reason why is because of this passage:
Sula squatted down in the dirt road and put everything down on the ground: her lunchpail, her reader, her mittens, her slate. Holding the knife in her right hand, she pulled the slate toward her and pressed her left forefinger down hard on its edge. Her aim was determined but inaccurate. She slashed off only the tip of her finger. The four boys stared open-mouthed at the wound and the scrap of flesh, like a button mushroom, curling in the cherry blood that ran into the corners of the slate.
Sula raised her eyes to them. Her voice was quiet. "If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I'll do to you?"
I've thought about that passage every single day since I first read it in 1988. There is a whole world in that passage. Words are magic and if you don't believe me I present to you that passage.
I had a long walk between home and school myself as a little girl. I met my share of scary bully boys along the way. It never came to my mind to do something like what Sula did. I wish I had. I was always more a Nel than a Sula, doing what I was supposed to do and saying what I was supposed to say and then wondering why it didn't add up to happy. Sula on the other hand is an anarchist and I love that about her.
I also happen to believe that every American should have to read Beloved as a requirement of citizenship. Toni Morrison makes me want to say things like most important writer ever. That may or may not be true but I do know that this passage is why I am writing today.
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