Marshall, Paule - Books - Magic Bean Dip

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Praisesong for the Widow

Paule Marshall

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By: Plume
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Odd Style, but Deeper Meanings 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

...The occasionally brilliant wording and the solid characterization make Avey Johnson an engaging protagonist. Her journey from a confused, troubled widow on an expensive cruise to a liberated woman with deeper understanding of her cultural and familial heritage make this book worth reading. This journey is interspersed with recollections of her relationship with her dead husband. This allows the reader to empathize deeply with her plight.
On a Caribbean cruise, Avey Johnson begins to have symptoms of both mental and physical illness. Driven by needs she doesn't understand, she leaves the cruise and finds herself adrift in a tide of Patois-speaking islanders, who are all intent on a cultural pilgrimage to a neighboring island. Her meeting with an island patriarch draws her into the pilgrimage as well. There, she learns that this is the culture she abandoned at the same time she abandoned her working-class roots.
The flashbacks to her life with her husband Jay not only chronicle her life preceding the cruise but also give a greater understanding of Avey as she throws herself headlong into a mysterious journey of self-discovery. The greater familiarity with the character is one of the book's strongest points.
The reason the book only rates four stars is that its symbolism makes it inaccessible when simply read for pleasure. This is not an offense worthy of a whole star, so my actual rating is four and a half stars, or 90%.
The symbolism sprinkled throughout the book does provide constant rewards, though- like Shakespeare, you can never finish gaining new insight through re-reading.
I feel confident in recommending this book to anyone who enjoys character-driven fiction. The symbolism was made apparent to me, as I read the book as part of a writing course. With that in mind, use only as directed.

Brown Girl, Brownstones (Contemporary Classics by Women)

Paule Marshall

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By: The Feminist Press at CUNY
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

these reviews are sad 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

i'm horrified at these reviews. marshall has put together a brilliant novel rich in prose and dialogue, an amazing work overall that should earn her the right to be identified with among the most important writers in the last half century. its funny how so much of our society is dumbed down to the point that a work of art is trashed because either people cant relate to it or dont grasp or understand it. if they dont understand words that the writer uses, they call that writer 'pretentious'. if the writer uses the language to its fullest capacity, they call the writer 'overly descriptive'. its quite a grim state of affairs when only these kind of comments prevail for such a transcendent novel. in today's lazy Western world of drive-thrus, TV dinners, and condensed 30 minute television shows with commercial breaks, people only want things easy, straight to the point. this is why our society is calcified.
if you dont understand what Marshall is doing here, either take your loss silently and move on, or, better yet, research! read more! try and understand lyricism and poetics, the beauty of creatively accurate description. that's just the thing; we're so a-creative these days its opprobrious. to the self-professed white jewish girl in the suburbs who will probably never return to read this, there are cultures and worlds outside of your own that in fact do affect you. anyone who walks around thinking otherwise is foolish. immigrants havent played a role in the development of modern America? please. Brown Girl, Brownstones is not only important for its beauty, but also for its capturing of Barbadian immigrants in Brooklyn around the time of World War II. the dialect and cadence of their speech is vibrantly bottled in the novel; someone said its hard to read. thats because its a transcription of a different dialect! if you take the time to read it, you'll eventually hear it in your head. the ability to transcribe different accents and dialects is quite a skill, and one that Marshall is not without.
anyways, if you're a true lover of amazing prose and writing in general, you'll appreciate this novel. if you aren't, at least dont embarrass yourself by haranguing others with ignorance.

Editorial Review:

"Remarkable for its courage, its color and its natural control."-The New Yorker

"Unforgettable...written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears."-The Herald Tribune

This beloved coming-of-age story set in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II follows the life of Selina Boyce, a daughter of Barbadians immigrants. Her mother craves the American Dream while her father longs for his island birthplace. The new foreword by contemporary Caribbean author Edwidge Danticat explores the novel's themes of identity, sexuality and values as well as Selina's struggle against the racism and poverty surrounding her.

The Chosen Place, The Timeless People

Paule Marshall

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By: Vintage
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A West Indian Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Merle Kinbona is one of the most memorable and interesting protagonists in all of West Indian literature. She is one of the strongest characters in all of the literature that emerged from the 1960s, and she reflects what was going on politically not only in the Caribbean, but also in the United States during that time. American social anthropologists have been sent to a West Indian island, Merle's homeland, with plans to help the residents. With this as a backdrop, Marshall explores race, politics, and cultural differences. She addresses the issues of immigrants, outsiders, and all those living outside of their cultures. Particularly effective are her portrayals of white male characters, proving that cross-race, cross-gender writing can work. The book may be too long, but the text is accessible, and the novel features a very real sense of place. Subtle and well-handled issues of homosexuality show that Marshall was, indeed, a woman ahead of her time.

Very well written and beautiful book 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Marshall's strength as an author of fiction lies in her ability to write rich, detailed characterizations. Throughout "The Chosen Place, the Timeless People," the variety of ages, races, class identities, and cultural backgrounds is woven into a fascinating narrative about a fictional Caribbean island in the early throes of multi-national post-industrial capitalism. How the characters react to these outside influences of globalization on them is the focus of the struggles: in their interpersonal relationships, in their determination to remember and re-enact the history of oppression and liberation from slavery, and in the larger struggles between nations and nationality.
As a metaphor for colonialism, this book is stunning. Harriet, the American woman who finds herself so out of place in the West Indian world, so unable to understand the "laws" by which this world operates (as seen in the arrogance she displays by taking the eggs meant for trading and making omelets for the children, which go uneaten), gets swept away by the force of a carnival crowd. She feels the power and feels the fear of that power as she falls to the ground. Without understanding, she watches the recreation of the past and senses its full force, then becomes overwhelmed by it-but she is unable to comprehend it or stop it. This representation of the local history is too much for the American to take in, and she is ultimately undone by its power. Although she never understands why, the force of this collective memory changes her life forever, and her incapacity to understand it forces her to her final end.

The Fisher King: A Novel

Paule Marshall

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

One Damn Good Book! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I EVER READ! IT HAS EVERYTHING YOU COULD WANT IN A BOOK, BUT THE ENDING [was unsatisfactory]! THAT S.O.B. EDGAR PAYNE! I FEEL SO SORRY FOR HATTIE AND EVEN MORE SO FOR SONNY, BECAUSE HE HAS TO GO THROUGH THAT. HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. BUT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. MS. MARSHALL SHOULD REALLY WRITE A SEQUEL, BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE UNFINISHED ENDINGS. BUT ALL THE PRAISE TO MS. MARSHALL FOR WRITING A VERY GOOD BOOK AND I ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH!

Editorial Review:

In 1949, Sonny-Rett Payne, a jazz pianist, fled New York for Paris to escape both his family's disapproval of his music and the racism that shadowed his career. Now, decades later, his eight-year-old grandson is brought to Payne's old Brooklyn neighborhood to attend a memorial concert in his honor. The child's visit reveals the persistent family and community rivalries that drove his grandfather into exile. "The Fisher King -- a moving story of jazz, love, family conflict, and the artists' struggles in society -- offers hope in the healing and redemptive power of one memorable boy.

Daughters (Plume Contemporary Fiction)

Paule Marshall

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Great Sleeping Aide 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Daughters reads very slowly. The book is filled with several interesting scenarios. However, they go undeveloped. The scenarios share no common link except that they involve the same characters. There seems to be no purpose to the book; including the title. (There was only one daughter.) I was determined to finish because I wanted to know the point. There wasn't one. Like Seinfield, this book is about nothing but it's a whole lots less funny, uneventful, and boring.

In search of our mother's legacy 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book manages to about some of the real concerns of being hemmed in by values that are imposed upon women, particularly black women. One of the truest pictures of the anxiety that besets a woman trying to juggle inter-generational relationships across countries.

Editorial Review:

One of America's eminent black novelists tells the story of a young black woman living in New York and her struggle to understand herself and her parents back home in the West Indies. Reprint. 50,000 first printing. Tour. NYT.

Reena and Other Stories: Including the Novella "Merle"

Paule Marshall

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By: The Feminist Press at CUNY
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 1.0 of 5

WOW!!!! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I am the only person to write this, yall better follow along. I had to read this book for school. This book is not all that good cus it has all these different stories n i dont think that others should read this book unless u want to get confused or sumhin. But i wanna giv a shout out... I <3 eric!!!
HI MOMMY!!!!!!!!!! '04

Editorial Review:

This collection of Paule Marshall's short works illustrates the growth of a remarkable writer. For the first time these stories, long out of print or difficult to obtain, appear together in a single volume. Introducing the volume is Marshall's much acclaimed autobiographical essay, "From the Poets in the Kitchen" from the New York Times Book Review's series called "The Making of a Writer." This collection included newly written autobiographical headnotes to each story and "Merle," a novella excerpted from Marshall's 1969 novel, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, and extensively reshaped and rewritten for this collection. It stands as an independent story about one of the most memorable women in contemporary fiction.