Rating: 
Summary: AmErICaNiSm - bOOk cHaT rEvIeW
Review: "Tar Baby" by Toni Morrison sets off on the Isle des Chevalier where Valerian and Margaret Street lived in the fancy rooms upstairs and the colored servants; Ondine and Sydney lived in the second-hand use furniture downstairs. Along with the other members of the household lived the servants' niece, Jadine, who stayed occasionally when she was away from modeling in Paris of New York. During the vacation stay, Margaret awaits for the arrival of her son, Michael who is supposed to show up for Christmas. But the cynical Valerian doubts his visit because of a mysterious reason. Amidst the waiting, one night, Margaret discovers a big black man hiding in her closet. Everyone is alarmed of his trespass, except for Valerian. Not only is Valerian calm of his trespass, but also invites this man to the dinner table. While Margaret, Sydney, and Ondine disapprove of this "nigger," Valerian gets to know him better and a special, but strange relationship develops between Jadine and the mystery man. Finally, Christmas time comes and the family still awaits Michael. Not only does his visit become questionable, but also trouble arises the dinner table when both the colored and non-colored are seated together. I highly recommend this book to someone who is willing to appreciate Morrison's vivid descriptions. Some drawbacks are the overuse of information, but is still worth reading. This book is rather complicated and keeps you hanging on what will be on the next page, but is worth the time to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A satire with real bite
Review: "Tar Baby" may not be the most celebrated of Toni Morrison's many memorable novels, but, in my opinion, it's the most fun. Much of the story takes place at the Caribbean mansion of white millionaire Valerian Street. Morrison weaves a deliciously nasty psychodrama involving Street, his flaky wife, the Street's black servants, and Jadine, a young black woman who is niece to the servants and who has been educated thanks to Valerian's money. Into this mix Morrison tosses Son, a dreadlocked black man with a dangerous edge."Tar Baby" is a frequently outrageous satire of racial identity, sexual politics, consumer culture, class consciousness, and family dysfunctionality. Her cast of characters is colorfully warped in an almost Dickensian manner. Particularly interesting is the portrait of Jadine, the black wunderkind beloved by her wealthy white patrons; I think of her as a whorish postmodern parody of early African-American poet Phillis Wheatley. As always, Morrison's writing is marked by passages of poetic power and grace. Check out, for example, this marvelous description of Son's hair: "Wild, aggressive, vicious hair that needed to be put in jail. Uncivilized, reform-school hair. Mau Mau, Attica, chain gang hair." Ultimately, I read "Tar Baby" as a comic tragedy of people trapped in a complex web of racial, sexual, and economic mythologies. Profane, thought-provoking, ironic, and rich in scathing humor, this novel is ample proof of Toni Morrison's writerly talent.
Rating: 
Summary: Lickety-split boring
Review: Good English skills, worth one star, rambling on in endless and trifle details lead to no conclusions in a mesh of decadent white masters full of caprice and down-to-earth-like-in-roots black servants. The one character that came through believable, is the queen of the soldier ants. Lack of phantasies and an absent talent of spellbinding make it utterly boring to the end, lickety-lickety-lickety split. gerborguta
Rating: 
Summary: EHHH
Review: hoothoot420.
I found this book slow untill the middle and end. it wasnt as good as SULA, but it was laright. It is a story about love, abuse, and rascism. the White couple Margarete and Valerian have a son that later on in the novel you find that she abused the boy terribly, she burnt him, stuck him in the behind with pins and cut him. it is a good book, and i spose if someone asked i would recommend it
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: I felt, after reading the other reviews here, that I had to speak out in this novel's defense. Tar Baby is among Morrison's best, and near the top of my list of recent American literature. Morrison's prose is angry here; perhaps that is why so many had a difficult time with this novel. I admit I do not agree with the racial philosophy of this book. The idea of a Black woman "selling out" is preposterous to me. But this does not lessen the impact of the statement, nor does it illegitimize the novel, allowing a reader to dismiss it as bigoted, or separatist. Rather, it exposes one to another point of view which, while disturbing, is nonetheless thought-provoking. Funny, but I always likened her writing style to Hemingway. Distinctly her own. While it is seldom easy to read a book of hers, she is an adept master of language, and crafts sentences filled with emotion and beauty. It is too easy to say this book creates boundaries and contrasts- Black/White, Strong/Weak, Good/Bad. However, the point of the novel is identity. Toni Morrison's examination of this topic is, in my opinion, wonderful, and captivated me throughout.
Rating:
Summary: A Shocking Socioeconomic Prescription!
Review: In reading Toni Morrison's striking novel Tar Baby, I came to characterize Jadine as a cultural orphan. The two often times conflicting worlds of white and black juxtapose along the lines of social, cultural and political demarcation. In the midst of such duality exists the character of Jadine, who symbolizes a contemporaneous example of the black female in a post-Civil Rights moment. Jadine is a woman who is educated, elevated and moneyed and in sharp contrast to the perceived notions of what it means to be black and female in a time of vast social and political change. Jadine is a woman trying to escape the stigma associated with her class position. Her family has money, but finds it hard to truly identify with them. She has no allegiance to African-American cities; she had received an education at the Sorbonne and was afforded the kind of lifestyle that is alien to many African-American women of her time. Jadine finds herself torn between the black world and the white world, fitting into neither. She equates her position as a black female in the culture through two dogs copulating in a street in Baltimore, Maryland. She is in a working-class situation and does not enjoy it - especially since she witnessed the "other side of the tracks," figuratively speaking, and saw life through the rose-colored lenses of the white world. Jadine is part of a new generation - one that did not grow up in a segregated society. The culture she is in and the lifestyle she inherited is predominately white - her upbringing, her education and her outlook. African-American culture is a hybrid culture, leading one to wonder why Jadine would be viewed as a cultural orphan, but there are political reasons, which determine why we rally under the flag of race or gender or sexual preference, etc. There is a change in the culture and Jadine is reflective of such change in a culture that has always been hybrid since its very beginnings. Toni Morrison, through the characterization of Jadine in the novel of Tar Baby is trying to redefine the parameters and scope of the term "culture" and gerrymander its boundaries.
Rating: 
Summary: a different Morrison
Review: Morrison moved outside of the Ohio setting in her novel Tar Baby. She plays on familiar themes of love and identity and sets most of the action in the Caribbean. This is not Morrison's best work in my opinion. It is an interesting novel, but one I didn't have to work so hard to understand. Her reference to the Tar Baby story and its connection to the novel were well paired. I think that this is a wonderful book, an easy read, but having read her previous works, I was a touch disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Passion
Review: Name the big Black romance novels. I dare you. Name them all. Ok, five, name five romance novels centralized around Black characters, in love, loving, making love, living well, being well that doesn't have four women as successful best friends?
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Toni Morrison is not easy. Do not mistake her ever for easy, do not mistake her subject matters for simple to pierce or to understand. I agree with the previous reviewer, people expect books to be like TV. And they aren't. Good books anyway. Books that are literature. This book is literature.
Hopefully more will come along, more romance that mean something, that say something about culture, about color, about power and the abuses.
Son is all of the projected racial fears and Jadine is the homogenized Black America wants Black people to be/to become. Grateful and still on some level serving in the kitchen (Sydney and his wife). Black people are required to be so much within this world, this America. Savage, erudite, butler, maid/cook and yet all of the characters here in the book, that are White, are one form (rich) here. White is a decision to be, to be a thing, rich, poor, bohemian, angry, depressed, rebllious, vane, but all that is shiftable, malleable. Black however is static from White perception and being Black from the inside out? That's birth from a dead womb.
Rating:
Summary: Long
Review: OK, I didn't understand all of this novel, but I liked it. Being a 46 year old while male I probably never will undestand it all. How ever, I can report that the character studies of Valerian Street and his wife ("The principal beauty of Maine") are some of the most devistatingly accurate upper class character studies I've ever read, and very funny in a vitriolic way. This is my introduction to Toni Morrison, and I plan to read more.
Rating:
Summary: Poetry in Novel form
Review: Tar Baby is the story of a young, successful, black model, who lives between the world of successful white people and her own black heritage. She continually struggles with the indebtedness that she feels towards her white benefactor and his wife. Jade's relationship with her benefactor is further complicated by the fact that her aunt and uncle, by whom she was raised, work as domestic help in the home of her benefactor Valerian Street.
The dynamics of the relationships between the members of the household keep you wondering from one moment to the next what will occur.
Margaret and Jade had a good relationship with their Aunt Ondine, but as the relationship between Margaret and Valerian continues, their relationship begins to decline. Sydney, Ondine's husband and his employer, Mr. Street get along very well. Sydney is very grateful for all the advantages that he has been given by Valerian.
Margaret who has befriended Jade, is less than emotionally stable. On several occasions Margaret has had episodes where she cannot remember how to do the most simple of tasks. She is also obsessed with an upcoming Christmas visit from her estranged son.
When a young black man is found hiding in the closet of Margaret Street, the whole mansion is thrown into chaos. The man is ragged and unclean. Margaret enters the dining room screaming about an intruder in her closet. Valerian, who sometimes tends to give little credence to his wife, ignores her. Sydney responds to the situation and goes to Margaret's aid. He brings the intruder to the dining room at gun point, where he is invited to join the dinner gathering by Valerian. This is Valerian's way of getting back at Margaret for her obsession with their estranged son.
The entire situation explodes and things are said by all members of the household and it is disclosed by Ondine that Margaret had physically abused her son when he was a child and that is the reason for her obsession with him, as well as her unstable emotional state.
To make matters even worse, Jade is attracted to this dangerous stranger and they run off together. She sees in him the side of her black heritage that she is out of touch with because of her success.
Throughout the entire book, you are treated to poetic, symbolic and descriptive writing by, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Toni Morrison. She explores the relationship of a black man true to his black heritage and a young woman who is molded by the white culture that has made her who she is.
The story explores relationships between blacks and whites, as well as the relationships between black people who have been given very different opportunities in life. It also examines how successful black people treat those less fortunate of their race.
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