Reviews

• Life changing, if you let it be

  I'm so grateful to have found The Salt Eaters. A lot of reviews say that the book is difficult to read, and that is true. The narrative is nonlinear, the prose is electric and wordy, and Ms. Bambara sometimes spends pages detailing a character's inner projections so you could get lost in knowing what's actually happening. The point of this is to show how everyone is connected across time, space, and realities. So no, this isn't something you can just read from cover to cover in a day. Ms. Bambara demands that you spend time with her writing, as "wholeness is no trifling matter," just as Minnie teaches us. But once you take your time to read, digest, re-read, annotate, and do whatever helps you to understand, you find a beautiful, resonant story about how the wisdom we need is present, and the worlds we envision are just a few decisions away. We just have to open ourselves to the truth and act.

• This book is best read straight through in one or two sittings

  This book is best read straight through in one or two sittings. The main action of the story, Velma Henry's healing, takes place in a matter of minutes but requires the entire book to extend through the minds past, present, and future of multiple characters--onlookers and passersby. Each scene requires subsequent scenes to unpack, unfold, and explain it. Toni Cade Bambara has ensured that the attentive reader will be richly rewarded for waiting and wondering. Even the smallest details--a baby bird fallen from its nest--are presented so luminously that when they are revisited pages later they are instantly recognizable. These continual moments of recognition knit together a novel that otherwise might stretch to bursting the limits of time, place, character, and spirit. This wise novel cares deeply about healing on political, environmental, and personal levels. Salt, the title image, serves as an antidote to poison but embitters a body; it runs through the neck of an hourglass as a moment in time becomes crucial. In this moment in time, to drumbeats and the strains of popular music, we meet a group of healers, a spirit guide, a bus driver, the doctors at a free clinic, a paperboy, winos, sisters, lovers, all kinds of mothers, tourists, thugs, transvestites, elders, animals--all of them teach us something about the soul of one strong woman broken under the weight of her passion for justice. Are there weapons stockpiled at the Academy? Is the nuclear power plant slowly killing its employees? What will happen tonight at the carnival? These questions pale beside the central question: Will yesterday's struggle yield fruit tomorrow? Is there hope?

• Not a passive read. Poetic prose.

  So far so good. I like the vibe of this novel. I will say I tried the passive reading thing with this and it doesnt work. Within a few pages I had to start over with a pencil and annotate. I couldnt believe how much I missed in 13 pages. I can already tell this is not just a story but a novel which focuses on character development, the deeper themes within the novel and the prose is poetic filled with symbolism so it’ll be awhile before I finish this. Even though taking notes makes the reading process slower, the outcomes are so much better and the story is that much more enjoyable.

• Salt Eaters — worth the "read"

  I am not quite finished reading Salt Eaters, which I am reading as a part of book club activity. So far, I think this book does a good job drawing the reader into the complexities of life in general. It especially draws you into the complex lives of African-Americans in the USA who are struggling for social justice as they struggle to survive and/or improve their personal lives and struggle with partnerships with significant others, friends, family, co-workers. This book is quite thought provoking and inspires self-reflection. That being said Salt Eaters has not been an easy read. There are many complex characters who all have relationships and interactions with many other complex characters. This sometimes requires one to have to go back and reread sections of the book to understand the "weave."

• So many gems

  This book was filled with so many gems. I read it at a slower pace just to make sure I soaked up all of the knowledge in this book.

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