There is a sense of an ensemble at work here - a nameless, first-person narrator tells the story, her tale (I am guessing that the narrator is a woman) augmented by the first-person or point-of-view "solos" of the characters in the book. Morrison means, I think, to write a novel that mimics, in structure, content and use of themes, the work of the great jazz bands of the 1920s - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, say, or one of Duke Ellington's Cotton Club orchestras. Though brief (and more than a little reminiscent of Jean Toomer's Cane), Jazz is an idiosyncratically constructed, homemade quilt of a book, mixing high and low styles, like a sweet potato pie topped with whipped cream and Grand Marnier. Morrison has said, in an interview, that one of her goals as a writer is "to have the reader work with the author in the construction of the book." After finishing Jazz, some readers may conclude that Morrison means for them to work with her. But Jazz is also a maddening book, disjointed and digressive, testimony to the limits of language and of unconventional narrative forms. There are moments in it that cut as close to the heart of the matter - love, sex and the whole damn thing - as any great work of art.
GIVEN THE factionalism of the literary world and the potential for misunderstanding, it behooves the male reviewer of Toni Morrison's fiction to get one thing out of the way first: Much of Jazz, Morrison's new novel about love and desire in 1920s Harlem, is beautifully written, filled with powerful, visionary language.
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