Love

Toni MorrisonNanhai Publication Company2016

Rating 4.2
Word count
150K words
Chapters
9
Series
Love
ISBN
9787544282444

Tags

Literature Foreign Literature Family HistoryHuman NatureMultiple NarratorsFull-Length NovelAmerican FictionAmerican LiteratureFemale PerspectiveBlack WomenNobel Prize

Summary

Love is the eighth novel by the American writer and 1993 Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, published in 2003. The story is set in the 1950s in a black seaside town called Silk on the East Coast of the United States, and all its events revolve around the late owner of the Cosey resort hotel, Bill Cosey: father, husband, lover, guardian, and "benefactor" to all. Years after his death, the women living in the hotel—his granddaughter Christine, his young late-in-life wife Heed, his daughter-in-law May, the cook L, and Junior, known as "the scribe"—remain ruled by his shadow, each guarding fragments of memory about love, possession, and betrayal. The narrator, L, is the Cosey family's cook; her initial is also the first letter of the title LOVE, and in the manner of an executrix she preserves and orders the truth for the family. The novel shifts narrative perspective constantly, piecing together decades of family grievance in jigsaw-like chapters: how a childhood friendship was torn apart by an absurd marriage, how two women spent a lifetime hating and consuming each other, and how they reached reconciliation at the end of life. Love strips away the romantic packaging that commercial narrative gives to "love," writing it instead as an arena of control, possession, jealousy, madness, and despair, and asking how people may become brave rather than hard, and love rather than hate one another.

Editor's review

莫里森写过太多“爱”，她自己也说，人们总说她写来写去都是爱，而她写的其实是背叛——“爱是天气，背叛是闪电，将爱劈开，明明白白给人看”。《爱》正是这个命题最凝练的一次演示：篇幅不长，却像一颗致密的星辰，把父权、种族、记忆与女性命运压缩进一座衰败的海滨酒店。全书以九章、九个称谓命名——画像、朋友、陌生人、恩人、情人、丈夫、监护人、父亲、幽灵——每个称谓都是一次视角的挪移，读者像在拼一幅被故意打乱的碎镜，逐渐看清那个被所有人“爱”着的男人究竟是什么，而“爱”又如何变成锁链。顾悦的译文干净克制，保留了莫里森短句的节奏与留白，中文读者能感到那种温柔又锋利的力道。若你读过《宠儿》，会看到《爱》是挽歌之后的沉思：它不再直面历史的重压，而是直视人心深处的占有欲与宽恕的可能。这是一部需要慢读、值得重读的小说，也是理解莫里森全部创作母题的一把好钥匙。

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Reading tips

  1. 先通读一遍，把注意力放在叙述者“L”的视角上，第二遍再按人物线索重排时间顺序。
  2. 读时可对照九章标题（画像、朋友、陌生人等），思考每个称谓对应的是谁眼中的比尔·柯西。
  3. 若时间有限，可先读《宠儿》再读本书，更易看出莫里森从历史创伤转向人性深渊的创作脉络。
  4. 读完后不妨回看开头几页，许多看似闲笔的细节会在结尾处重新获得意义。

About the publisher

Nanhai Publication Company China · Founded in 1988

Nanhai Publication Company is a comprehensive publisher known for its literature and arts titles, covering fields such as classical poetry, martial arts fiction, and folk literature. Judging from the more than 1,600 books in the database, the company has released classical poetic works including the Nineteen Old Poems and the Nine Songs, as well as multiple volumes of Huanzhulouzhu's series The Swordsmen of Mount Shu, along with related writings by authors such as Guan Hanqing, Qu Yuan, Zuo Si, and Wang Zhihuan. Its publishing character lies in balancing the organization of classic texts with the dissemination of popular literature, placing poetry anthologies alongside long martial arts novels and presenting a relatively diverse literary profile. Public information is limited, and further details about its editorial practices and series planning remain to be supplemented.

Contents

  1. 1. Portrait
  2. 2. Friend
  3. 3. Stranger
  4. 4. Benefactor
  5. 5. Lover
  6. 6. Husband
  7. 7. Guardian
  8. 8. Father
  9. 9. Ghost

FAQ

《爱》是托妮·莫里森哪一年出版的作品？ 英文原版 Love 出版于2003年，是莫里森继《宠儿》《爵士乐》之后的第八部长篇小说。中文版由顾悦翻译，南海出版公司于2013年首次推出，2016年再版。
这本书和杜拉斯的《爱》是同一本吗？ 不是。杜拉斯的《爱》收入《杜拉斯全集》第5卷，与《劳儿之劫》《副领事》同属“印度系列”；本书是托妮·莫里森的长篇小说 Love，讲述美国黑人海滨小镇一个家族的故事。
没读过莫里森其他作品，能直接读《爱》吗？ 可以。本书独立成篇，不依赖前作。但它的多视角碎片结构需要读者主动拼接信息，若此前读过《宠儿》或《最蓝的眼睛》，会更容易进入莫里森的语言节奏与主题脉络。
书名“爱”有什么特别含义？ 叙述者厨娘的名字首字母为 L，与书名 LOVE 的第一个字母相呼应，暗示她既是“爱”的见证者也是守护者。书中“爱”并非温情，而是控制、占有、嫉妒与背叛交织的复杂力量。

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About the author

Toni Morrison Author

Toni Morrison is a world-renowned American novelist whose works are often classified under literature, foreign literature, and world classics. Her fiction focuses largely on race, identity, and historical memory in American society, with a profound and poetic touch that builds tension between individual fates and collective experience. Her prose is concise, and her narratives often break with linear time, presenting characters' inner worlds through multiple perspectives and forming a highly distinctive style. Her representative work Love has circulated in several Chinese editions, and a collected set has also been published. Because the database contains no confirmed information on her birth and death dates or nationality, public information is limited, and no speculation is made here. Overall, Morrison's works combine literary artistry with intellectual depth and have had a broad and lasting influence on contemporary world literature.