Zora Neale Hurston and the wonders of Their Eyes Were Watching God
Like, I'm loving Zora Neale Hurston as a writer, as a reader, as all of those things. And I'm also loving her as a woman. I grew closer to her in her work, her memoir. I feel like her memoir is the book that brought me to want to know her as a writer. And so where I'm at now, with their eyes of watching God, I feel like it's a place of knowingness and a place of understanding than where I was before
And there, it just reminds me that, like, if you don't play by the rules, right, as a, as a writer, this adds excitement and tension. But as a person, it reminds me that if you, that there are rules and there are societal rules, that if you're not playing by them, you can be canceled, you can be outcasted and set aside. Right?
And so then there's this idea that if she was going to be his wife, which was a mayor's wife and business owner's wife, that she had to portray herself in a certain way, even though she desired to be part of the community. And where their marriage falls, and there's going to be some spoilers. Where their marriage falls is when she decides at some point that she wants to join in on these communal games
The other things that really take me out about this book, which I love, really, really love, is how she utilizes her style, in which she tells the story. Story. I mean, she goes from standardized English when she's given backstory, when she's speaking in dialogue, she's talking in, she's writing in Floridian Aave. And then when she's giving description about setting or a person, the similes and the metaphors are so rich
You would probably be wondering what happened, or why is that person, why was that person skimmed over, right. And so there are times where when she does this moving in and out, it seems very necessary. And then it's sometimes what? It always feels necessary, but sometimes it's seamless, it's easy, it's smooth. And then other times, it's very jolting in. And like, it's doing something to me as a reader, right
It's a new phenomenon for black Americans. And when Zora Neale Hurston wrote this book, it was definitely coming on the new, coming off the new. I don't know, people. I don't know, family. I don't know. This book has got me in my mind. It's got me in my feelings. It's got me everywhere. But if it has you, if it, if it's done anything, my sharing this with you, please let it do this