Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Quick summary: This book is set in Florida in the early part of the 20th century and follows the life of Janie Crawford, whose life has been mostly sorrowful and tragic, and yet Janie is a woman made stronger by her travails. Her story is relayed through her conversation with her friend Pheoby, which frames the story. There are lots of letdowns (even the most tender part of Janie's life doesn't seem safe), but it is a great work of African American fiction to be sure.
I have read this book a couple of times, the first being in ninth grade, and the last being a couple of years ago via Ruby Dee's superb reading on an audiobook. I can't say how many people have borrowed my discs, but it is truly magnificent. Dee's reading adds depths that I think I missed the first time around because I was trying to get past the thick drawl and dialect of the dialogues.
As for high school, I remember two things: 1) the opening metaphor of the pear tree, representing Janie's burgeoning sense of her own sexuality; 2) Tea Cake. I won't tell you about number two because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone out there. The metaphor though is absolutely striking, although in high school, I thought our teacher had gone mad trying to tell us that a blossoming tree could in any way have anything to do with a metaphor for burgeoning sexuality. I guess this is another moment that I could hold up to signify the good education I had, even before I was ready for it. Want a taste of the prose?
Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard. She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness.
She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation...
Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! (pp 10-11)
Pretty obviously about sex, wouldn't you say? Hey, I was a freshman and not so worldly!
I can't say much about this book with regards to a plot because everything is so intertwined and beautifully crafted, I do not think I could do it justice. This is Alice Walker's the Color Purple before it's time. It's a shame Zora Neale Hurston is not read more often... maybe you'll read her next?
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone With the Wind
Quick summary: Fiddle-dee-dee! I'm sure most of you know the plot of this one: young, beautiful, and spoiled Scarlett O'Hara (Hamilton Kennedy Butler) uttered these words and put off thinking about unpleasant events until tomorrow more than once as she sashayed through the South embroiled in the Civil War. It's about life, love, loss... and growing up, sort of.I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of Gone with the Wind. Oh, I don't mind it, to be sure, but it just never captured me the way lots of other historical fiction did when I was younger. Perhaps I didn't know enough about the South in the Civil War or enough about the life people led then, but I just didn't get sucked in the way many girls did. That's ok if you're shocked and awed, I can take it.
To be honest, I remember more of the film than I do of the book. In neither case did I really find Scarlett a sympathetic character, not even when Rhett leaves for good. Maybe you guys out there can fill me in on what the hullabaloo is all about, but I just don't see it. Go ahead, tell me.
Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse Quick summary: One of the Woolf greats, not Mrs. Dalloway (which I have NOT read), but wonderful and melancholy. This is another book that is difficult to summarize because it is extremely modern in its narrative technique replete with requisite number of philosophic musings as the reader follows the Ramsay family. Wonderful passage with stream of consciousness - not to be missed!
We read this some time in junior or senior year, which I know because it was an option for the IB exam. Alongside The Sound and the Fury, this was my first introduction to "modern" writing (although from across the puddle this time), and it only reinforced my liking for strange plotless fiction. Not a small wonder, considering my love for French novels. How many times have people said that both French fiction and film are plotless and depressing? Sounds a lot like Woolf, eh?
Let me just say that I don't find Woolf depressing, and I don't find French books all that depressing either. They tend towards thought processes and life and the ways in which it unendingly disappoints. What I love about To the Lighthouse is exactly what I love about Marguerite Duras' Moderato Cantabile, which is also a rather intriguing labyrinth: To the Lighthouse and Moderato Cantabile center around those parts of life that often go unspoken.
I guess, for me, I will always have a penchant for the thinking man's literature. As my dissertation adviser and friend (hi Kline!) says when talking about the difference between American and French cinemas: If Americans had a motto, it would be, just do it; if the French had a motto it would be, just think about it. I think that applies beyond cinema and into deep cultural differences as well... I like to think, to ponder, to wonder... I'm not a Nike, I'm a Mont Blanc.
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