In the introduction to one of Toni Morrison's often-cited interviews, critic Claudia Tate observed that “while her stories seem to unfold with natural ease, the reader can discern the great care Morrison has taken in constructing them.” Over the span of nearly thirty years, from The Bluest Eye in 1970 to Paradise in 1998, the Nobel Laureate has not only continued to take great care in the construction of each novel, but she has also commented on the role of the reader in the construction of meaning. In fact, in one interview, Morrison says, “[t]o make the story appear oral, meandering, effortless, spoken - to have the reader feel the narrator without identifying that narrator, or hearing him or her knock about, and to have the reader work with the author in the construction of the book - is what's important. What is left out is as important as what is there.”