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arisbookcorner's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"Hyacinthe should have laughed at those crackers portraying Longstreet, Sheridan, Custer, and Stewart, just like they'd have laughed at us, a bunch of colored girls, saying out loud that crackers not only created a country they stole from other people, but they reaped the riches of the labor of other folks they had stolen. Not only was this a thieves' paradise, but all of us, Lollie, Roxie, Hyacinthe, Liliane, and me, we were living testimony that nobody like us had ever existed before, and nobody had expected we'd be so goddamned hard to kill off." (238-239)
This is a story about a young Black woman told in an unique multi voice format where it alternates between conversations Liliane has with her psychoanalyst and chapters told from the perspectives of those who know her whether it's exes, family members or friends. I loved the structure of the novel, it's creative and allows the reader to both see different sides of Liliane and also explore different periods of her life and current events at the time. It moves from North to South, the present to the past. Liliane's world is also very Black and brown. Different class and racial backgrounds are present but there are no stories centered around white people, no chapters narrated by them. Additionally I loved that each character not only had their own impression of Liliane but also that their own personalities and stories shone through. Their stories provide a more three dimensional look at Liliane but also give them a chance to be actually realized people that I wanted to keep popping up in the story. Each character sounds different, they are wholly realized individuals. The chapter titles are also very clever, slyly making references to the content of the chapter even though most titles are indirectly referenced. I also wonder if this is one of the earliest works of Black literature to include mentions of therapy and subtly promote its usefulness. It took me a minute to understand what was occuring in the early chapters with Liliane and her psychoanalyst but gradually I grew to appreciate how these chapters contributed to the storytelling, he helped her unpack her childhood traumas and current anxieties by urging her to remember incidents she'd shoved to the back of her mind. Or pushed her to recall a story exactly the way it happened, not the way she wished it had happened. Liliane never mentions to others that she's in therapy but the very matter of fact way it's presented, for a book in the early '90s, struck me as novel. But I could be wrong! It's something I'll keep in mind.
The writing is imaginative and luscious, I love novels by poets and Shanghe's poetry background is on display here with delicious descriptions of thoughts and feelings such as, "I mean, I know I came here voluntarily. I wanted to come cause I'm coming out of my body. This is really odd. Parts of me, my feelings are streaming out of my hands and my thighs. I sense when I am walking that my thoughts are dripping down my calves from behind my knees. I am leaving puddles of myself underneath me and I can't pick myself back up, put myself back together" (pg. 80). The poetic writing is also fitting for the character of Liliane. She is an artist, a bohemian bon vivant, an intellectual, a woman who owns her sexuality. It feels completely believable that she would be closely attuned to her body and feelings and wholly able to describe them in such a lyrical and distinctive way. The freedom to flaunt your sexuality is a central theme of the story, as Liliane and her exes, talk about her passion and energy. Her exes are also not all men and she avoids labels. It's borderline stereotypical except Shanghe's writing and character development goes so much deeper than the typical artist story. Liliane's upper middle class background is also used to explore the heavy burden of the self proclaimed Talented Tenth and the rampant elitism and snobbery they displayed. Liliane's mother, S. Bliss, was similarly free spirited and artistic and this line she utters haunts me "I have never been what anybody expected, or wanted for that matter; I'm not even what I wanted" (191). There is so much painful truth in that one line about expectations society has for us and expectations we have for ourselves set against a sharp and claustrophobia inducing upper class background. Much of the book is about Liliane struggling to find herself amidst her father's elitist and benevolently sexist expectations as she realizes he held both her and her mother to an impossible, stifling standard.
LILIANE is a dreamy, sensuous, polyphonic novel about a young Black female artist pursuing new beginnings and opportunities. Liliane is now one of my favorite characters in literature: artistic, messy, romantic and somewhat selfish. Some of her decisions made me cringe and the novel can be extremely dark but I was enthralled from beginning to end. Alternating between Liliane's childhood in the '70s and the present day this is also a book that is heavy on pop culture, dropping references to musicians, artists and movies that enhanced my reading experience. She is unapologetically Black and unapologetically herself. Her story is used to probe ideas around class, race, gender, the global diaspora, sexual expression, relationships and therapy/psychoanalysis. The language and writing style is vibrant and rhythmical, this novel is simply sublime.
Additional favorite lines:
"Bliss, now you know I love you like nobody else in the world, but you can't build all this for no child, especially not a Negro child in this day and age. Why she can't even drink water some places. Plus, hear me now, if she carries on like you, she'll be dead before either one of us: me or you. How's that sit with your fancy ways and dreamin's?" (190)
“White folks got us so tangled up and wound round ourselves we can’t live without them or the idea where we can touch it. If we live like white folks don’t exist, like they don’t matter, they kill us. . . . If we act decent, they treat us like fools. If we spend our lives hating them, we look as foolish and psychotic as they do to the rest of the world.”
"Didn't anybody know you didn't haveta let any man talk like he owned you, like we owed them something. For what?" (238)
This is a story about a young Black woman told in an unique multi voice format where it alternates between conversations Liliane has with her psychoanalyst and chapters told from the perspectives of those who know her whether it's exes, family members or friends. I loved the structure of the novel, it's creative and allows the reader to both see different sides of Liliane and also explore different periods of her life and current events at the time. It moves from North to South, the present to the past. Liliane's world is also very Black and brown. Different class and racial backgrounds are present but there are no stories centered around white people, no chapters narrated by them. Additionally I loved that each character not only had their own impression of Liliane but also that their own personalities and stories shone through. Their stories provide a more three dimensional look at Liliane but also give them a chance to be actually realized people that I wanted to keep popping up in the story. Each character sounds different, they are wholly realized individuals. The chapter titles are also very clever, slyly making references to the content of the chapter even though most titles are indirectly referenced. I also wonder if this is one of the earliest works of Black literature to include mentions of therapy and subtly promote its usefulness. It took me a minute to understand what was occuring in the early chapters with Liliane and her psychoanalyst but gradually I grew to appreciate how these chapters contributed to the storytelling, he helped her unpack her childhood traumas and current anxieties by urging her to remember incidents she'd shoved to the back of her mind. Or pushed her to recall a story exactly the way it happened, not the way she wished it had happened. Liliane never mentions to others that she's in therapy but the very matter of fact way it's presented, for a book in the early '90s, struck me as novel. But I could be wrong! It's something I'll keep in mind.
The writing is imaginative and luscious, I love novels by poets and Shanghe's poetry background is on display here with delicious descriptions of thoughts and feelings such as, "I mean, I know I came here voluntarily. I wanted to come cause I'm coming out of my body. This is really odd. Parts of me, my feelings are streaming out of my hands and my thighs. I sense when I am walking that my thoughts are dripping down my calves from behind my knees. I am leaving puddles of myself underneath me and I can't pick myself back up, put myself back together" (pg. 80). The poetic writing is also fitting for the character of Liliane. She is an artist, a bohemian bon vivant, an intellectual, a woman who owns her sexuality. It feels completely believable that she would be closely attuned to her body and feelings and wholly able to describe them in such a lyrical and distinctive way. The freedom to flaunt your sexuality is a central theme of the story, as Liliane and her exes, talk about her passion and energy. Her exes are also not all men and she avoids labels. It's borderline stereotypical except Shanghe's writing and character development goes so much deeper than the typical artist story. Liliane's upper middle class background is also used to explore the heavy burden of the self proclaimed Talented Tenth and the rampant elitism and snobbery they displayed. Liliane's mother, S. Bliss, was similarly free spirited and artistic and this line she utters haunts me "I have never been what anybody expected, or wanted for that matter; I'm not even what I wanted" (191). There is so much painful truth in that one line about expectations society has for us and expectations we have for ourselves set against a sharp and claustrophobia inducing upper class background. Much of the book is about Liliane struggling to find herself amidst her father's elitist and benevolently sexist expectations as she realizes he held both her and her mother to an impossible, stifling standard.
LILIANE is a dreamy, sensuous, polyphonic novel about a young Black female artist pursuing new beginnings and opportunities. Liliane is now one of my favorite characters in literature: artistic, messy, romantic and somewhat selfish. Some of her decisions made me cringe and the novel can be extremely dark but I was enthralled from beginning to end. Alternating between Liliane's childhood in the '70s and the present day this is also a book that is heavy on pop culture, dropping references to musicians, artists and movies that enhanced my reading experience. She is unapologetically Black and unapologetically herself. Her story is used to probe ideas around class, race, gender, the global diaspora, sexual expression, relationships and therapy/psychoanalysis. The language and writing style is vibrant and rhythmical, this novel is simply sublime.
Additional favorite lines:
"Bliss, now you know I love you like nobody else in the world, but you can't build all this for no child, especially not a Negro child in this day and age. Why she can't even drink water some places. Plus, hear me now, if she carries on like you, she'll be dead before either one of us: me or you. How's that sit with your fancy ways and dreamin's?" (190)
“White folks got us so tangled up and wound round ourselves we can’t live without them or the idea where we can touch it. If we live like white folks don’t exist, like they don’t matter, they kill us. . . . If we act decent, they treat us like fools. If we spend our lives hating them, we look as foolish and psychotic as they do to the rest of the world.”
"Didn't anybody know you didn't haveta let any man talk like he owned you, like we owed them something. For what?" (238)
kayjay34's review
3.0
I find this book difficult to rate, I enjoyed the chapters between Liliane and her therapist, but I felt a lot of the POV chapters fell flat. This was a good, quick read, and for me a good introduction to the prose of Ntozake Shange. Looking forward to reading more by her, but I don't think this was my thing.
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