Their Eyes Were Watching God Part 2

Hello dear Readers,

As promised this is the follow-up to part 1.  These are some of the passages I marked and enjoyed while reading the book.  Hope you liked them also.

This is the beginning paragraph and what can give you a better view of life than this?

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.  For some they come in with the tide.  For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.  That is the life of men.

This paragraph in Zora’s infinite wisdom tells us we really have no control over the things that are not ours to control like the sun, moon, stars, and weather.  Yet, we as men want to believe we can be the sun-maker or weather maker. 

Folkses, de sun is goin’down.  De Sun-maker brings it up in de mornin’ and de Sun-maker sends it tuh bed at night.  Us poor weak humans can’t do nothin’ tuh hurry it up nor to slow it doen.  All we can do, if we want any light after de settin or befo’ de risin, is tuh make some light ourselves. 

Zora’s ability to paint pictures of the people’s lives is amazing and so poetic. I want this porch!  This from the first paragraph in Chapter 6:

When the people sat around on the porch and pssed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice.  The fact that the thought picures were always crayon enlargement of life made it even nicer to listen to. 

Chapter 16 discusses the fact that black people admire or want to be lighter skinned or ‘high yellow’ or something they are not and that somehow would change who they are or their opportunities.  I am always fascinated by this discussion since most of us would love to have something we don’t and isn’t it all about envy – not necessarily opportunity?  However, most black people don’t seem to assess it this way. 

 Now we come to the end of the book and I think there are two great philosophies shared on the last pages.  Love, life and living, what more can we ask for?

Love is lak de sea.  It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore. 

Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves.  They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.

Happy Reading ya’ll,

Barbara

PS:  What are you reading now?

Their Eyes Were Watching God #1

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By: Zora Neale Hurston

From Wikipedia:

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel and the best known work by African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston. The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny" (So to speak!) Set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received for its rejection of racial uplift literary prescriptions. Today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both African-American literature and women's literature. Time included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923

More on WIKIPEDIA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Eyes_Were_Watching_God#Politics

Hello Readers.

Hope you are all well and know that I didn’t fall off the face of the earth.  It’s been hard to focus myself on writing when spring has sprung and the weather turns me to the golf course.  This year I have begun ‘walking’ and let me tell you – its exercise!  Exhaustion follows me each day I walk and it makes my scores go up and up! 

Here is the new addition to our family.  Grandsons are so precious and wonderful.  Alexander and I had almost twelve days to play together before Silas decided to come into this world 31 hours before my trip back east.  Luckily he and his parents came home from the hospital so I could spend hours cuddling this loved bundle.

Well, I know ya'll didn’t turn in to hear me bragging about my grandkids so off we go to the book!

I enjoyed reading this book mostly because it gave me a different perspective about the settlement of central and southern Florida (where I have lived).  Many of the places mentioned in the book have become developments and suburbs filled with houses, cars, stores, and the like.  Trying to imagine it as a untamed place is interesting for me however many of the children I taught had no knowledge of anywhere but where they were as well as very little language skills. 

Do you find it difficult to read a book where the language is in dialect or uses lots of slang?  In Shakespeare he uses so many colloquialisms that many times it is difficult for me to understand and I found the same with this book so it took me quite a while to read.

The next blog post will contain some of my favorite passages from the book and my thoughts on them. 

Happy reading,

Barbara

PS:  I have decided not to name a book of the month, at least for the summer.  I will continue to tell you what I am reading and what I think of it.  Also I will list suggestions received from fellow readers and their reading lists. 

PPS:  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is what I am reading now. It is futuristic science fiction.