Recitatif

Recitatif: A Story by Toni Morrison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I noticed this book in a Large Print section of my local library and picked it up because it was short.
I skipped the Introduction, read it and my first impression was: where is the story?
Luckily it was pretty short, 51 pages in Large Print, so I could not complain about wasted time.
To fill the saved time I looked into the Introduction - lxiii pages of it, which translates to 63.
Now I understood that there are 2 crucial aspects of this book:
- firstly, it is the only short story of this author.
So what???
- secondly, one of the girls admitted to the orphanage - Twyla - makes a comment that the other girl was of different race and that she smelled funny.
So what???
Zadie Smith, the author of the Introduction, explained - one of them was BLACK!.
On Goodreads page I noticed that on the front pages of some editions there are images of white and black faces.
Probably it is right because otherwise I would not remember the initial mention that girls were of different races because in the book, the girls meet each other 4 times, in different circumstances and there is no hint that anybody noticed their race nor that it affected in any way their life, their family or career.
And that is as it should be.
So - what is all that fuss about?

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