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