GANC: Their Eyes Were Watching God

I am not sure about this book. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a decent book, but I did not grasp its importance in American history. Written in 1937 by an African American woman, this book went in and out of print and the American conscience until the late 60s when largely female African American professors unearthed it and began teaching and writing about it. Is this a case where the book's greatness prompted the teaching and focus, or did the teaching and focus prompt this book's greatness?

As most of you know, I am not an African American female, nor have I read and researched much in African American literature, so there is an obvious gap in my knowledge. Perhaps I am making an unfair parallel, but if this book were written by a white female about poor white people, I am unconvinced it would have the standing it does today. However, I am not here to compare a mythical book to this one, I am here to talk about the book I read.

Beautifully descriptive passages. This is the most superb part of the book, Hurston's elegant and unique way of expressing the time and place of action. In the opening of the book, this:

"Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters, walking altogether like harmony in a song."

This plays in stark contrast to the rural Southern dialect the characters speak. "At dat she ain't so ole as some of y'all dat's talking," for instance. It is so jolting to the eye that once you encounter the eloquent words, you hope they go on for pages. And then, when the dialect erupts, you change your rhythm and cadence and almost speak the writing yourself to understand it. Hurston grew up with this dialect, so to read these contrasting words echoes of how she must feel - history of rural, life now of sweet eloquence.

Perhaps this book fell short for me because of what I read about it before chapter one. I read the forward, which is usually a smart thing to do should a book have one. But in this case, I feel the forward puffed the book up in a way that as I dug into it, my grand picture of what the book was to be fell short. It was like hearing all your friends talk about how awesome a movie is and then seeing it yourself and it not being as great because it had been so talked up for you. Disappointing.

This is an excellent novel of a side and voice of America not often placed center stage. It is stark and beautiful, simple and pained. A woman rising above history, stereotype, men, fortune, and family in order to find her happiness. Is it the great American novel? No. Is it a great African American/woman's perspective novel? I think so.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:

July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936

August 209: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, publ. 1985

September 2009: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, publ. 1851

October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, publ. 1940