124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs , was dead, and the sons Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old – as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard). Neither boy waited to see more; another kettleful of chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the doorsill.

I’m a words guy. Other than dates, numbers in books spook me a bit.

And over the years, I’ve read a few descriptions of various hells. This feels it might end up there with the worst of them – perhaps all the worse because it’s seems quite realistic?

Close Reading

Let’s begin with that unsettling number. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another text that begins with one. And perhaps it shouldn’t trouble me, but before we even begin, I’m uncertain. Without any signifier, 124 could be almost anything.

That short opening sentence does two contrasting things. The opaque number is a potentially dehumanising label, then strangely, whatever that thing is, it’s personified by ‘spiteful’.

It produces one of those ‘wait, what?’ moments that the best oxymorons do.

And if you’re not already knocked a little-off balance, that dissonance continues with the startling, jarring image of a ‘baby’s venom’. I had to stop and think about that – about what it might actually mean. About the harsh, malicious sounds I made when I said ‘spiteful’ out loud, and then the sinister, invidious mouthfeel of ‘venom’. So many other entries in the series have opened with long, discursive sentences, but these short declarations feel like a couple of slaps to the face.

It begins to dawn on me that 124 might be a place where people live. A ‘house’, sure, but when you factor in the familial relationships we’re given, I don’t think I’m stretching too far to suggest it’s a ‘home’. But my world remains upside down, because it’s a home which claims ‘victims’ – part of me is wondering if I’m straying into the same territory as Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (1959).

What happened to Sethe and her daughter, Denver? Did they die? Or has something else happened? Something worse?

When I discuss ‘emotive language’ with students, ‘home’ is one of the examples we tease through. With so many potential connotations, the idea that a place where a family lives has ‘victims’, that people choose to ‘run away’ from it? That’s saddening, right?

I think Morrison goes a little further with the emotive button-pressing. Explicitly, both our runaways, Howard and Buglar, escape ‘124’ before they enter their teens. They’re still children.

Then we have to untangle the reasons why these lads have gone.

What are we to make of the catalyst for Buglar’s departure? There’s a very unkind part of me that wants to smirk because I’ve inferred that he’s ugly enough to break mirrors. And I fully apologise for being childish! I’m going to reject that in favour of more widely-held superstitions about the consequences of breaking mirrors. I think ‘shattered’ is a far stronger verb choice here than ‘break’ or even ‘smash’, and with my Shirley Jackson hat on, I’m wondering if ‘124’ did it …

And then Howard. This is where slow reading, repeating where necessary comes in.

Here’s what happened – when I first read Howard’s story, my mind was coloured with the harshness of the environment, maybe the date, maybe something else subliminal. I leaped to the assumption that Howard had got somebody pregnant – that the ‘two tiny hand prints’ reflected that, and he had done a runner to escape his responsibilities. I wanted to add that to the litany of poverty and social deprivation which was forming in my mind.

I don’t think that fits any more. Because I re-read, paid more attention, and thought about the idea that the hand-prints ‘appeared’ in the cake. Today, the supernatural connections fall into place more easily. What if they really did appear, unbidden? It’s frightening, matches the mirror stunt, and feels the kind of malevolent action of someone or something spiteful and venomous.

So when the 100-word guillotine descends, I am feeling spooked. The author hasn’t allowed me to get my balance, and – with my cold read blinkers on – I don’t quite know how to react. Should I despair at the terrible lives these humans are forced to endure, or delight in the prospect of further spookiness?

Is this gothic, or just really, really grim?

As you read on, look out for …

That tension between realism and the supernatural: does the novel ever resolve it, or is this an authorial intention, to prevent the tale being pigeon-holed in one genre, on a single shelf?

What happens to mother and daughter: as the only victims of ‘124’, it feels like the tale is going to be about them. I’ll be watching for their full introductions to the novel, characterisation, and the cause-and-effect of whatever befalls them.

Whether it gets ‘easier’: what I mean is that sense of not having any equilibrium as a reader. Is there any point at which the narrator becomes more ‘helpful’ in terms of guiding us through the narrative? If so, where, how, and why?

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