Der Eyes Wuz Watchin' God

Since I am an avid reader, part of this blog will be book reviews and such things. I have a hard time reading more than one book at once successfully, these will be not few, so much as far between. Today's book is "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neal Hurston. I found out today that it was made into a movie staring Halle Berry, but I'm a bit scared to see the movie because I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I like it because it is a love story and it's actually starting to get cute. I hate it because of the dialect that they use. It's heavy, uneducated sounding Florida speech. For example, "I" is "Ah" and "with" is "wid". It was hard in the beginning, but now it's more normal, but that doesn't make it any more fun to read. I find myself reading with a black woman's voice in the back of my head. What makes it all the more amusing that my English teacher says some of the dialect, but uses a normal "Ohio Accent". It's like...Spanglish in a way.

Anyways, the book is starts off with the protagonist Janie Crawford returning to a town she had left for a while. She is forty years old, and the people in town knew that she ran off years ago to be with a guy named Teacake, and now he's not in the picture. Janie goes to her friend Phoeby, who asks what happened, and Janie, to tell what happened to Teacake, needs to tell the whole story of her marriages. And so begins the story of Janie, starting at about 16 years old, pressured by her Nanny (Grandmother) to marry soon. It's a tale of heartbreak, wealth, hardships and love. I'm not done reading it yet, but that's what makes this exciting. You don't know what happens, and neither do I! I still don't know what happened to Teacake.

This book is slightly confusing, but that's mostly because of the language. If you are up to the challenge, read it independently, but otherwise, have an expert (or Sparknotes) lead you through it and help you realize what's really going on in the story. It says on the back of my copy that this book is as good as a Hemingway, or a Fitzgerald, and perhaps it is, but in a different way. I haven't read much Hemingway and no Fitzgerald, so it's hard for me to judge. This wouldn't be a book that I would just pick up at the store, because it's not exactly the genre that interests me, but I probably wouldn't have read The Scarlet Letter either and I love that book thanks to English class.

Happy Blogging/Reading!

-Devon

"Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life."

 -Mortimer J. Adler