Book review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

I think most people have heard of this book, as it is a classic. Zora Neale Hurston was one of the Harlem Renaissance artists. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, because I knew it would be sad. I think I originally got it from a thrift store.

Amazon summary:
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

I was right, of course; this book is sad. Any book about any slice of the African American experience, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is going to be sad. Janie's family stories and first two marriages are very sad. But the writing! The writing is just lovely. This book has sentences like pearls. Even in describing things that may seem mundane, Hurston give them a glow. I could quote you like half the book, but I won't. Here are a few single lines from several different parts of the book.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. 

Somebody near about making summertime out of lonesomeness.

He drifted off to sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

Anyway, a lot of sad, bad stuff happens to Janie, but she is able to retain her sense of self and what she wants out of life. And she gets the soul-affirming relationship she deserves. I really like books that deal with the interior lives of women and what they think, feel, and want. I highly recommend this book for teens and up. Halle Berry played Janie in the movie adaptation, and that sounds like a good choice. 

Cover notes: My cover, above, is fine, although not accurate as to Janie's skin tone (she is at least a quarter white and is described as being light-skinned). I like most of the other options better. My least favorite options are the ones where Janie's turning into a tree, and this one, because it looks too much like a fun middle-grade novel which it decidedly is not. 

 

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: February 19
From: thrift store?
Format: paperback
Status: giving away

Trigger warnings I'd apply to this book: rape mentions, period-typical racism, domestic violence, domestic abuse, period-typical and constant N-word usage, controlling relationships, a narrative about being enslaved and escaping slavery,  a minor is made to marry an older adult, period-typical sexism, period-typical misogynoir, physical violence, internalized racism, verbal abuse, colorism/shadeism, guns, a character dies by shooting, death, disease (especially rabies), descriptions of dead bodies, natural disasters/floods, period-typical racism towards Native Americans, alcohol mentions, tobacco use, animal deaths, gambling mentions, elder abuse of very minor character

Book review: The Spider's Web by Peter Tremayne

I think this is my third or fourth Sister Fidelma mystery. Like at least 1 of the others, I borrowed it from the Library. Like Girl Mans Up, I borrowed it from a heap of donated books.

Amazon summary:

In the spring of 666 A.D., Sister Fidelma is summoned to the small Irish village of Araglin. An advocate of the Brehon law courts as well as a religieuse, she is to investigate the murder of the local chieftain. While traveling there with her friend Brother Eadulf, a band of brigands attacks the roadside hostel in which they are staying and attempts to burn them out. While Fidelman and Eadulf manage to beat back their attackers, this incident is only the first in a series that troubles them. When they arrive at Araglin, they find out that the chieftain was murdered in the middle of the night, and next to his body, a local deaf-mute man was found holding the bloody knife that killed him.

While everyone else seems convinced that the man's guilt is obvious, sister Fidelma is not so sure. As she investigates, she's convinced that there is something happening in the seemingly quiet town--something that everyone is trying very hard to keep from her. In what may be the most challenging and confusing situation that she has yet faced, Fidelma must somehow uncover the truth behind the chieftain's murderer and find out what is really going on beneath the quiet surface of this rural town.

According to Amazon this is the fifth Sister Fidelma mystery, and the events from the third? book are referenced a few times. There were lots of twists and turns in this book, and they happened fairly regularly. This was a pretty good read, although I figured out the villain like halfway through the book. I'm not sure whether Peter Tremayne thinks his audience is too dumb to pierce the clues he's flung at us together, or if he does that on purpose so we feel smart. Remember when he gave the villain away in the first? book I read, by referencing Sappho poems? LMAO. Anyway, there's always a few pieces of the puzzle that are added at the end, so at least part of it is a surprise. The medieval Irish law stuff is always fascinating, and it's sick when Fidelma drops obscure knowledge on people's heads to put them in their place. I think in some parts, their law was better than modern American law.

I think this is the second SF book where Fidelma has to defend a person with disabilities who was planted with the murder weapon and is accused of killing the victims, and the community wants to kill them as a mob. The person turned out to be super smart and sensitive, once Fidelma took the time to actually talk to him, just like in that book with the nunnery murders. It's really hammered into our heads how bad it is to be mean to people with disabilities, and I was glad to learn that they were afforded some measure of protection from medieval Irish law. However, having the person in question always be super smart despite their disabilities kind of cheapens Fidelma's compassion and wokeness, because it makes it seem like people with disabilities have to be exceptional *despite* their disabilities to be worthwhile. Some people with disabilities are not intelligent, and that is okay!  It's concerning to me that is is a pattern in the SF books. I read a really good thread of harmful "disabled people" tropes from a Twitter user who has disabilities, and this falls right into that (specifically, the "only a nice special abled person can see/understand the disabled person" trope). I did find the communicating through tapping the Ogham alphabet into one another's hands thing very interesting. It's kind of messed up that his caretaker didn't take the time to let others know that he was intelligent and could communicate, and the means of communication. She just let everybody think he was an animal.

Anyway, this book was fairly enjoyable, although there was way too much about how gorgeous Sister Fidelma was, as usual. I'm also not crazy about how the villains are always ugly and/or stupid and/or womanish (if a man) or mannish (if a woman).

Trigger warnings I'd apply to this book: murder, gore, blood, incest, rape, sexual abuse, ableism, death, lynching mentions, poisoning, corrupt and hateful religious leader, twisting of Scriptures, fire, whorephobia (prejudice against sex worker)

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: February 6
From: Library donated books
Format: paperback
Status: returned