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.