This is (one of) my favourite paragraphs in the novel "Jazz" by Toni Morrison.  This passage is about when Joe and Violet go to the city from country.

"And like a million others, chests pounding, tracks controlling their feet, they stared out of the windows for the first sight of the City that danced with them, proving already how much it loved them.  Like a million more they could hardly wait to get there and love it back.

Some were slow about it and traveled from Georgia to Illinois to the City, back to Georgia, out to San Diego and fianlly, shaking their heads, surrendered themselves to the City.  Others knew right away and that it was for them, this City and no other.  They came on a whim because there it was and why not?  They came after much planning, many letters written to and from, to make sure and know how and how much and where.  They came for a visit and forgot to go back to tall cotton or short.  Discharged with or without honor, fired with or without severance, dispossessed with or without notice, they hung around for a while and then could not imagine themselves anywhere else.  Others came because a relative or hometown buddy said, Man, you best see this place before you die; or, We got room now, so pack your suitcase and don't bring no high-top shoes.

...However they came, when or why, the minute the leather of their soles hit the pavement there was no turning around.  Even if the room they rented was smaller than the heifer's stall and darker than a morning privy, they stayed to look at their number, hear themselves in an audience, feel themselves moving down the street among hundreds of others who moved the way they did, and who, when they spoke, regardless of the accent, treated language like the same intricate, malleable toy designed for their play....  

--Last edited by meela on 2006-07-10 19:52:31 --

There is rhythm, music and flow in the book "Jazz" by Toni Morrison.  It moves, slides shimmies and shakes.  It sets my body movin'.  It's about being black set to black music.  It's about gathering together as a people to form a new community and identity during the Harlem Rennaisance.  

When I read "Jazz" the first time I was struck by the non-linear style and I dug it.  It was not about writing a dry, linear account of events, or a 'who done it.'  Toni Morrison writes with a voice and gives voice to her character.  There are the main characters, and then there are characters that appear for only a moment.  But for that moment it is all about them.  A snapshot.

More than five years after I read "Jazz" I took at least three times as long to read it.  I savoured it.  When it's that good you can't digest it that fast.  And the thing that is consistent throughout the whole book is the voice of the narrator.  It is powerful, strong and oh so sexy.