Help! I've fallen into the 1930s and I can't get out. But at least Zora Zeale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God isn't a political statement that warns about fascism or supports aspects of communism. It's about a black woman who moves through three relationships and comes to grips with herself. And, actually, it may have been in the twenties—Hurston was part of the Harlem renaissance—but it felt like the other two books, except that the characters were black and in most cases had way less money.
Hurston's life itself fascinates: she wrote tons (I'm particularly interested in her essays), wrote and produced a Broadway review, spent six months in Hollywood as a script consultant, spent gobs of time in places like Haiti and undeveloped countries in South America, taught, worked for and was fired by the Air Force, finally died as a ward of the state and was buried in an unmarked grave. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, has been instrumental in renewing interest in Hurston's work. In fact the next Hurston I'll search for is a Hurston reader, edited by Alice Walker. Seems like the best place to find some essays.
So what about Their Eyes Were Watching God?
1) Ill start with what I found to be the biggest problem—although it's listed as one of the book's achievements in the one essay I read. Problem/asset: all the dialogue is in dialect. I'm sure it was accurate and I'm sure it was startling at the time, but it sure slows down one's rate of reading—at least it does mine. I'd have to literally hear each word in "Did he wade in de lake and uh alligator ketch him" (page 52) to figure out what was said. Then a few lines later on that same page a stutterer joins the conversation with "Ah-ah-ah d-d-does feed 'im! Ah g-g-gived 'im ah full cup ah cawn every feedin'." Hard to scan, but I have to admit the book wouldn't have worked with anything else.
2) Sometimes Hurston was able to express a thought in a way that took my breath away. Husband #2 has just beaten Janie, the protagonist, because his dinner was flawed. Hurston writes: "Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell of the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood image of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. … She found she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen." (page 72) Wow! I'm reminded of the mind/body statement in Oil and aware of limitations.
3) "Ah turnt him every way but loose." (page 127) I'm wondering if the director of that movie Clint Eastwood was in (Every Which Way But Loose?) ever read this book. Or was that title a common expression that I never heard before it was a title?
4) An interesting brush with prejudice within the black community occurs in one subplot. Hurston describes a woman who tries to be friends with Janie. "Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid to herself in direct relation to their negroness. Like the pecking-order in a chicken yard." (page 144)
5) The following bothers me. The woman mentioned above brings her light-skinned brother to meet Janie. Tea Cake, Janie's third husband, beats her. "Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but because it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show who was boss." (page 147) Nope. We can't ever be forgetting that women are possessions—slap 'em, offer 'em up in beauty contests. The Man? He the boss!
6) A big storm is coming. "Several men collected at Tea Cake's house and sat around stuffing courage into each other's ears." (page 156) "…stuffing courage into each other's ears"? Wow!
7) During the storm: "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God." (page 160) That's in case anyone was wondering about the title.
As I read, I started to recognize scenes and remembered a TV movie with Halle Berry. It's available on Netflix. Guess I'll rent it and see it again with Hurston's book fresh in mind. Bet Halle Berry doesn't get slapped. Also bet the book says lots
more than the movie.
See? The book/movie pattern again. I really can't get out of the thirties.
