Do as I Say! and Zora Neale Hurston: A Woman on the Edge of Time

I don’t remember exactly why, after my first ill-chosen detour from my February theme, I decided to further digress and read Their Eyes Were Watching God as my next book. My best explanation is that I think it was some particularly well-placed advertising. I had been seeing billboards for the new Oprah TV movie adaptation on nearly every stop on the EL to and from work for weeks. All those images of Halle Barry, long hair disheveled and dewy with the heat of the south (or perhaps the blossoming of a young woman’s sexuality) must have made some subconscious impression on me, because I decided that not only did I have to see this movie when it premiered on television, but I also had to re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God before then. Halle Barry may have sucked as Storm, and sucked HARD as Catwoman, but she’s still pretty damn sexy, and as we all know, sex sells. Well, at least to me.

I had read Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school, when I took a couple classes at the local community college senior year. I remembered that I liked it... and that was about it. I had been experiencing this a lot lately; where something I had learned I now remembered only fuzzily, or something I once knew well I had now forgotten. It was most frustrating. As someone whose greatest desire is To Know, and having realized early in my youth that there isn’t world enough or time to acquire all of the knowledge or understanding I long for; to think that I may have wasted any second of my precious time or resources... to think that I may have to go BACK over something I thought I had already covered.... It smacks of the same frustration as, say, someone trying to plug the holes in a breaking damn with their fingers, or a child trying to bring snow inside to play. (Though not quite the same kind of frustration as that which I experienced trying to come up with a reasonably suitable simile to describe frustration, just now. I suck at this game - the metaphorical language game, that is. I am far too literal to be poetic.)

Nevertheless, I was a little excited to be reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, merely for the experience of it. I thought I would breeze through it quickly, refreshing my deficient memory just in time to be ‘in the know’ for the TV movie, and then I would move on to my real February books without a backward glance.

I did read Their Eyes Were Watching God quickly, in about three days, but I found I couldn’t immediately leave the book behind. First, on the calendar of events I had snagged from Women and Children First, there was a monthly book group I was planning on going to, and the book for February was Their Eyes Were Watching God. But it was weeks away, and I didn’t want to go there without anything to say, so I found myself occasionally re-reading parts of the book here and there, as well as reading a couple of scholarly articles, and doing some online research on the author Zora Neale Hurston. Second, when reading it, I was stunned at how modern the book seemed - Hurston’s use of language was progressive even by today’s standards. She makes Toni Morrison read like a repressed ‘50's housewife. If you didn’t know beforehand, you would never guess that Their Eyes Were Watching God was written in 1937. I was so struck by the language of Their Eyes Were Watching God I found that I wanted to tell everyone I knew to read this book. I talked it up to anyone who would listen, including one random woman on the EL who asked me, “Isn’t that Oprah’s new movie?” I was given ample opportunity to fulfill this desire to educate when my department at work decided that everyone would research an influential or inspirational black personage for Black History Month, and I was able to put up a fairly large display all about Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God at my desk. Shortly thereafter, someone at work was asking me about the book or the author nearly every day.

It’s times like these, when I’m being a literary pimp, that I know I’ve chosen the right career path and that someday I’ll make a bomb-ass librarian.

So I should probably tell you something more specific about why this book is so great, since lately these entries have been all about me, me, me. (Don’t worry, though, we’ll get back to me, me, me in a soon enough.)

The major theme of this novel is something that everyone can relate to, but something especially powerful for women, or any minority; for all artists and basically anyone who has ever felt marginalized or silenced in any way. It’s about the main character, Janie, finding her voice; and as you hear her tell of her struggle to grow into an individual, and journey with her through the literary odyssey of language, you find yourself searching for your own words and growing right along with her.

Now, much literary criticism past and present of this novel focuses on the question of whether, in the end, Janie really did find her voice. Many people are of the opinion that Their Eyes Were Watching God is only a half realized or half finished novel, and that the climactic trial scene is a failure, leaving Janie oddly silent when her voice is most needed, and leaving her story in some way, still untold. But I disagree. I think that the reason it is the narrator, rather than Janie, who tells the jury what happened after the flood is because Janie has such a command of her own language at this point that she doesn’t feel the need to explain herself to those she deems unworthy. Language is no longer something that she uses to get along, or to capitulate; and it certainly no longer inhibits her. Once she learns to express herself fully, she can just as easily choose not to; she is truly free.

This would be making a lot more sense to you right now, dear reader, if you had read Their Eyes Were Watching God, too.

Anyway, Their Eyes Were Watching God was an incredibly entertaining and poignant novel. It was funny, romantic at times, and best of all; original and alive with fresh creative imagery that even after 65+ years, has not gone stale. And, I might add, this book contains what I contend is THE MOST exciting flood scene in all of literature - it beats The Grapes of Wrath hands down, in my opinion. Part of me wants to reread The Grapes of Wrath soon, because it would tie in thematically I think with this book in a couple of ways, which is interesting to me, them being written from such different perspectives, and having such different themes. One is an attempted epic look at depression era American families in the dustbowl and the plight of migrant farmers in California, exploring the themes of greed versus altruism, and man’s inhumanity to man; the other is written by a black woman in the same era, about an all black town in Florida exploring the themes of female independence and sexual freedom, and the need for individual language and expression as a basis for the formation of personal identity. But both are describing life in the same time period, in similar economic conditions, in rural communities, with a focus on familial and interpersonal relations. And both have these awesome flood scenes. Maybe that’s all I really care about, as far as commonalities go, actually - I have this secret and strange desire to have a book group one day that reads a book a week, and each month will have obscure themes like “existentialist mysteries”, “biographies of inanimate objects”, “postmodern aesthetics of consumerism” or “books with great flood scenes.” I think it would be fun to read a bunch of books that all contain a specific event or plot twist, and see which one was the best. But right now, as far as floods go... between Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Grapes of Wrath, David Copperfield, and... um, the Bible - I would have to say Their Eyes Were Watching God is way ahead.

And if you're wondering at all about the significance of the title, you'll really have to read this book, because I feel like I've given too many spoilers here already, and it really is worth finding out about - this is probably one of my all time favorite titles; right up there with This Island Earth and And Then There Were None.

So, to sum up... read this book! Because the flood is exciting and the language is dazzling and the story is powerful. And because I say so.