The Color Purple by Alice Walker

I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you couldn’t even talk about it to God, you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing was. Well, now I know what you meant. And whether God will read letters or no, I know you will go on writing them; which is guidance enough for me.

Initially, I wasn't that impressed with The Color Purple. I reached the midpoint and was discussing it with Chris, and I mentioned that it seemed to be covering ground too similar to other books I'd read recently--Beloved and Homegoing--without catching me in the same way. He observed that I'd probably read many other books on the same topics without complaint, but was kind enough not say "try harder". However, I did, and ultimately came to appreciate The Color Purple on its own, somewhat unusal terms.

So, to kick things off, there are a few unusual things about the book that set it apart. It's in epistolary form, with about half the book being letters from the main character, Celie, to God and about half being from (minor spoiler) her younger sister, Nettie, who disappears early on but reappears later to pick up the other half of the narrative.

The story itself is broken into two pieces: the first half of the book is primarily letters by Celie, describing her life in the Jim Crow south; the second half is dominated, though not monopolized, by letters from Nettie, who has connected with a family of black missionaries headed to Africa under a white-owned missions organization.

Celie's letters are written in dialect, but never in a way which overwhelmed me--I'm not a huge fan of dialect--and it provides a nice ironiic syslistic distinction between Celie's tales, in which white people hardly appear, and Nettie's, in which the white missionaries make only token appearances but whose presence is felt even in the much more "proper" way Nettie learns to speak.

Nettie's story covers a lot of similar ground as Things Fall Apart, but from the perspective of the missionaries. It was interesting and at times quite sad--colonialism was a real bitch--but the emotional heft of the story belongs to Celie and her emotional, spiritual, and romantic awakening. But I did want to include this excerpt, which resonated with me regarding the way that our unconcious nationalism can easily breed resentment toward those who don't accept what we think they need to hear:

The Africans never asked us to come, you know. There’s no use blaming them if we feel unwelcome. It’s worse than unwelcome, said Samuel. The Africans don’t even see us. They don’t even recognize us as the brothers and sisters they sold. Oh, Samuel, I said. Don’t. But you know, he had started to cry. Oh Nettie, he said. That’s the heart of it, don’t you see. We love them. We try every way we can to show that love. But they reject us. They never even listen to how we’ve suffered. And if they listen they say stupid things. Why don’t you speak our language? they ask. Why can’t you remember the old ways? Why aren’t you happy in America, if everyone there drives motorcars?

Which brings me to the other thing I didn't know about this book: it is, in large part, a lesbian romance. Or rather, Celie seems to be a lesbian while her lover, Shug, is bisexual. Their friendship develops so naturally into a physical romance that it almost happens without notice. There's certainly no fanfare or any particular fuss made about it, in Celie's mind or by those around her.

Finally though, The Color Purple is a deeply spiritual book, although it takes pains to demonstrate that it's not a pamphlet of colonial Christianity. The libertine Shug turns out to be the novels spiritual center, in spite of Celie's letters to God. At one point, Celie is faced with a tragedy that undermines her faith:

What God do for me? I ast. She say, Celie! Like she shock. He gave you life, good health, and a good woman that love you to death. Yeah, I say, and he give me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won’t ever see again. Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown. She say, Miss Celie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let ’im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you. She talk and she talk, trying to budge me way from blasphemy. But I blaspheme much as I want to.

But Shug is there to give this lovely speech:

I is a sinner, say Shug. Cause I was born. I don’t deny it. But once you find out what’s out there waiting for us, what else can you be? Sinners have more good times, I say. You know why? she ast. Cause you ain’t all the time worrying bout God, I say. Naw, that ain’t it, she say. Us worry bout God a lot. But once us feel loved by God, us do the best us can to please him with what us like. You telling me God love you, and you ain’t never done nothing for him? I mean, not go to church, sing in the choir, feed the preacher and all like that? But if God love me, Celie, I don’t have to do all that. Unless I want to. There’s a lot of other things I can do that I speck God likes.

I would like to write at more length about the treatment of God and spirituality in the book, but honestly, I don't feel qualified. Much of Walker's theology seems rooted in animism and pantheism, but she ties such a lovely bow on it that I'm not compelled to critique or dissect it. Celie's spiritual journey is something beautiful, as far as I can tell, and it doesn't need me whitemansplaining it.

So sometimes, I guess it's true that books require some extra work, not just on an intellectual level, but on a personal one as well. I feel as though recentering my focus on The Color Purple helped me root out some unconcious racist assumptions in myself--and if that's not a good takeaway from a book, I don't know what it. Also, the end made me cry.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I first heard of Homegoing when my eyes were drawn it's brightly cover on the front page of The AV Club, a pop culture site I frequent even though it mostly sucks now, and which rarely reviews any books I would consider reading. I skimmed the review, and then forgot about it, but the book kept popping up in my newsfeed and on endcaps at the bookstore. When I saw it on sale at the end of the year for 3.99, I couldn't resist, especially since it played into my goal, this year, of reading more lit by women and POC.

And it turns out Homegoing was a great choice for that particular initiative, since it covers men, women, racial minorities, and LGBT persons and it does so over the backdrop of 400 years of history, starting around 1600, I think (the book doesn't give dates and I'm terrible with them) and moving straight through till now, with the sections of the book each following some member of the family of a pair of half-sisters, Effia and Esi, whose stories begin in colonial Africa. As the book progresses, so does the timeline, with chapters alternating, roughly, between Effia's side of the family, whose stories largely take place in Africa, and Esi's, who is sold into slavery and taken to Europe and, eventually, America.

To go deep into all the different stories in Homegoing would take forever, and diminish one of the primary pleasures (and pains) of the book--seeing the clever ways Gyasi connects to family members to their different times, and how each deals with the dual impacts of racism and the destruction of their culture. And the impacts are really the part of the book that have stuck with me the most. The structure here, which gives the whole story an epic, almost mythological feeling at times, is constantly undercut by the brutal realities faced by these people, trials Gyasi wisely ties in with the unique traits of each protagonist. Instead of being the victim of generic "racism", we see Quey forced to travel to America when his father learns that he's gay. We see Willie faced with the powerlessness, in early 19th century America, of a woman who isn't light-skinned enough to pass. And there are many more (the genealogy in the front lists about 17 people who get their own stories here). The scope and Gyasi's willingness to make her characters bleed, as well as her canny ability to inject a ray of hope just when it all gets too depressing, drive the story.

I know I haven't spoken much here about the actual themes of slavery and oppression woven into the heart of Homegoing, but they are there, and they are impactful. Sometimes it was hard to even pick the book back up, because it seems (and, for some of the characters, it's true) that there is not, nor will there ever be, a way for them to transcend their blackness, but the last section--which ties everything up too neatly by half but also makes this important point--took me to task for these thoughts, rightly, because blackness is not a thing that should be transcended. Rather, it has always been the small-minded, small-hearted, wicked heart of man that needs elevation. And the kaleidoscope of people that populate Homegoing make the point beautifully.

Also, Gyasi is only 25 years old and this is her first novel. Really excited to see what she does next.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles is a series of loosely connected stories about man's attempts to colonize Mars in the shadow of a pending nuclear war. It's not the easiest book in the world to review, like most collections of short stories, but it manages to feel cohesive despite its episodic nature. The stories are tied together by vignettes that are often a page or less. While researching this book, I found that the interstitials were influenced by the similar ones in The Grapes of Wrath, which I thought was interesting.

Most of the stories in the collection were written for outside publications initially, but they are tied together by their chronology, some of their characters, and the themes of the book. Several of them are thinly veiled attacks on colonialism, as the humans come to Mars and completely (and intentionally) destroy Martian civilization. The other theme is man's insignificance in the universe, and most of the stories touch on both of these, pointing out the foolishness of decimating other cultures when the conquering one will eventually die out itself.

The characters in these stories are diverse. There are a couple groups of astronauts, a man who wants to start the first hot dog stand on the moon, a Martian woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, and, in perhaps the books most famous section, There Shall Come Soft Rains, an automated house that keeps running, completely unaware that it's occupants have been dead for a year. There's an interesting connection to Bradbury's other famous work, Fahrenheit 451, because the house in the story is very similar to the one occupied by the main character of F451.

Most of these stories have a pitch black sense of humor to them, particularly the second expedition to Mars. The astronauts arrive and can't figure out why no one seems surprised or excited to see them. They're finally taken to a large hall where the inhabitants are thrilled that they're there, but the group quickly realizes the inhabitants are insane, and the astronauts themselves are interrogated, declared incurably crazy, and euthanized. Somehow, this story is played for laughs until the denouement which is, really, kind of disturbing.

I guess at this point I'd characterize myself as a fan of Bradbury, and anyone who liked F451 or his other short stories collections would be well-advised to read this as well.