Zora Neale Hurston
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 407
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
Southern Florida in the early 20th century and one black woman's story 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.
This 1937 novel has become a classic of its time. It is a mere 184 pages long, but the edition of the book I read is packed by commentary. I skipped this commentary because I wasn't particularly interested in literary or social analysis. I just wanted to experience the book for itself and the story it told. Reading it this way, I actually "felt" the book in the way the author intended. And, "wow", I really understand why it has stood the test of time.
Set in her native Florida, we first meet Janie Crawford, a black woman in her 40s, when she returns to the town of Eatonville. She's been gone for a few years because she left town with a younger man named Tea Cake, who she married after she was widowed. As she tells her woman-friend her story, the reader is cast into her world.
Born the granddaughter of a slave, she was married young to a farmer who wanted more of a farm worker than a wife. She then ran away with a traveling salesman and moved to an all-black town where her new husband became the mayor. They had a general store and he expected her to run it, keeping her hair covered so that her beauty didn't show, and expecting her to be the perfect wife in the eyes of his world. She was unhappy but accepted this and nursed him through a long illness. When he died, she ran the store herself where she met Tea Cake, who appreciated her good qualities and completely adored her. Against the wishes of the people in the town, she ran away with him.
All of the characters in this book come across as real people. All have flaws and all have strengths. For example, even though Tea Cake stole her money and lost it all gambling, he begged her forgiveness, managed to pay back the money and was a devoted husband. He got a job in the Florida Everglades where both he and she worked hard and loved hard and were part of a community. And then, they were swept up in a devastating hurricane. It was awful. Lots of people died. They had to swim for their lives amidst the horror around them. While trying to save her, Tea Cake is bitten by a dog. Only later do we discover the dog was rabid and that Tea Cake himself has rabies. He turns on Janie then and there are dire results.
The book moved fast. I was glued to it but it took some getting used to because it was written in the Southern Black dialect of the time. This actually made the characters even more real to me. She did not necessarily preach about segregation. To her it was a "given". However, I was particularly moved by the part where she described the aftermath of the hurricane and how the black men were rounded up to bury the bodies of the dead. They had to carefully separate the white bodies from the black bodies. The whites got coffins and were buried in one section. The blacks did not get coffins and were thrown into a pit. Often it was impossible for them to know the race of the decomposing bodies. To me, this said more about segregation in the South than anything else I've ever read on the subject.
This is a very worthwhile book. I loved it.
Editorial Review:
One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.
