The book starts with some major gut/heart wrenching. I mean, Alice Walker reaches into your chest and rips out these organs, Indiana Jones And That Scary As Shit Temple Guy style. It's an epistolary novel, with the first several letters written by Celie, who begins by talking about how her father first raped her at 14 and how she had two children by him. He then gives her away to a neighbor as a wife. Mister --- is equally brutal, beating her and treating her like a slave while openly pining for his mistress, Shug Avery.
AND THEN Shug Avery shows up and BOTH Celie and Mister ---- are like damn, gimme some of that. And it's understandable coming from Celie because no men have ever treated her like a human being. Celie's voice is earnest and intelligent and strong and stoic. I got about halfway through the book and became super-invested in Celie's relationship with Shug, and in Sofia, Celie's daughter-in-law who literally fights back when her husband tries to beat her. These characters GET IN YOUR HEAD.
And then (not as exciting as the previous AND THEN, and also, SPOILERS HERE) Celie finds letters from her sister that Mister --- has been hiding from her. Now the reader spends about 30 pages not with the characters you've come to care about, but with another cast of characters you were introduced to 100 pages earlier and have sort of assumed are dead. Nettie's letters all start with a prefix from Celie that reads "and here's what the next one says" and so on, until you're up to speed with THOSE characters. It's a bit jarring, and it seems like Walker could've found a different structural technique that didn't require abandoning the first set of characters for the second.
At about the same point, the book becomes less about Celie and more about Alice Walker's religious philosophy- which, hey, that's cool. I'm fine with a book with a Message. But she uses The Thing I Hate Most In Books- using dialogue and/or speeches to delineate a point-by-point explanation of the author's worldview. It wasn't ok when Ayn Rand did it, and it's not ok when you do it, Alice, even if it did win you a Pulitzer. It's LAZY. It basically goes like this:
Celie: God has abandoned us.
Shug: No, you just don't understand God.
Celie: Exsqueeze me?
Shug: NO PROBLEM! Let me (a thinly disguised Alice) explain what God actually is and how one should actually interact with him/her, and all about his/her nature and life, the universe and everything.
Celie: Is it 42?
Shug: No way! That would make this last section of the book much shorter! Instead, let's talk about it for many, many pages. Meaning I'm going to talk about it. And you are going to be a character-vessel for my philosophical ramblings. K? K.
I cannot. I just. I cannot tell you how much this irritates me. It's the literal opposite of show, don't tell. WRITING RULE ONE, PEOPLE.
I know a lot of people love this book and I loved the first half of it, and I loved everything that wasn't a structural problem and a lazy dialogue-philosophy-religious essay ( FOR SERIOUS JUST WRITE AN ESSAY ok I'll stop). I loved Celie and I loved Sofia and I loved how unflinching Walker is in showing that yes, being black and poor and a woman immediately post-slavery was possibly the worst version of person to be because no one not no one treated you with kindness. It's a difficult novel in that way- there's injustice after injustice and you will probably cry. But it's not a stylistically perfect book and that can be a little distracting. But! Worth the read, I think.
Three stars out of your mom. Stupid preachy dialogue.
I haven't read this book, but I don't agree with the "show, don't tell rule." It sometimes applies, but it depends on the kind of novel. I think it's also a generally questionable because it reduces literature to an external medium, like theatre or painting or film. But what separates literature from other kinds of art is that we can get into the interior lives and heads of people, their subjective experience and thoughts. To *only* ever show would deprive literature of one of its most unique abilities: giving us imaginative direct access into the thoughts and ideas of others, whether characters of the authors themselves.
ReplyDeleteThere are many great novels of ideas that don't fit the show don't tell rule, and many great novelists who don't follow it. The Russians especially: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Lermontov. But there are many others: Melville, Mann, Goethe, Proust, Steinbeck, Hawthorne, Whitman, even Dickens.
Maybe The Color Purple is a case where following that rule really would have made it a better novel, but I hate to see literature reduced to such simple formulas, and it would be a shame if there were not many different kinds of novels with different kinds of goals that use different styles and methods to reach those goals.
Yeah, I don't like it when the "greats" do it, either. In fact, I had to specifically get an edition of WAR AND PEACE with the historical essays at the back because having the interspersed throughout the narrative was really driving me batty. I know this is a personal pet peeve, but I do honestly think it weakens the book most of the time, no matter who is doing the writing. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's still a rule I agree with.
DeleteI totally couldn't find the bit where I could leave me own comment, so I've had to add this here under something someone else has already said.
DeleteBut anyway.
How interesting. I've only ever heard OHEMGEEREATHISNOW about this book, and that's how it's now on my TBR pile. I'll get round to it eventually, but now I am wary of this happening.
Also, the give a fuck gif was great.
Thank. You. I am not one to think just because something is a "classic" that it's all good. I don't like lazy exposition. Ever. It kills a book for me.
ReplyDeleteI really like a lot of the ideas behind THE COLOR PURPLE, but like you, I didn't think it was completely successful.
I loved the ideas, I loved the concept. I loved the first half! Ergh. So conflicted.
DeleteI read The Color Purple as a teenager for school, dreading it, then loving it. That was so long ago that maybe I should read it again and see if being an adult has changed how I feel about the writing.
ReplyDeleteI think I wouldn't have been as bothered by the writing as a teenager. I would've loved All The Feelings.
DeleteI am studiously ignoring this post as I LOVE this book. My husband loves it too, I made him read it when we were about 19 (not married then!) and it turned him into a feminist.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly feminist-tastic, which I appreciate. I should hoist it on my husband...
DeleteI loved this book! I didn't mind so much that Shug was the one who explained all the religion stuff, because her relationship with Celie was so central to the book that it just seemed to fit. I don't think Alice Walker was using her characters only as mouthpieces for her ideas like Ayn Rand definitely does, which is really annoying. I think dialogue in general was an important part of the book - Celie's narrative voice becomes more pronounced and mature by the end of the book, and all the important relationships develop through dialogue of some kind (talks with Shug, letters with Nettie, etc.)
ReplyDeleteI also loved that Celie made pants. That was just awesome.
And all that singing - that could be a kind of dialogue. And the letters to God that Celie was writing.
DeleteMaybe if she had spread out the philosophical bits and integrated them more into the relationships in the book instead of having One Big Chapter Where Shug Explains All The Things, it wouldn't have bothered me so much? Also, I love the pants. I love that they're all stretchy pants.
Delete"instead of having One Big Chapter Where Shug Explains All The Things"
DeleteOh, that I can totally agree with. New rule: show and tell, but don't tell only or all at once.
As luck would have it, I'm hosting a group read of The Color Purple next month, so those who are saying they read it a long time ago and should maybe read it again... I'm looking at you.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I doing that? Basically because I LOVED the book and want to read it again and talk about it with people.
As for myself, I also read-and-LOVED it a while ago. Now that you've reminded me, I remembered I also found it a bit irritating at the time. I agree Celie's story is somehow more catching. Let's see how I feel about it this time.
I read this awhile ago and remember loving it. I can't remember having a reaction to the philosophy, though I might if I read it now.
ReplyDeleteBest. Book review. EVER.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I appreciate the Ayn Rand reference. I believe Ayn the Rand included a speech scene in THE STUPID FLIPPING FOUNTAINHEAD that went on for 60 pages, which is only about 59 pages too many.
She did the same thing in Atlas Shrugged. After about three pages, I started skimming. FOREVER later, I started reading again. The really appalling part was that all that philosophy had already been said before in the book. It was just a rehashing.
ReplyDeleteSo my computer was just being really retarded slow and I've found the comment button now. Not that I want to clog up your comments or anything.
ReplyDeleteI read this one years ago and I remember liking it (mostly) and then feeling kind of meh because it got preachy. The one thing that sticks out to me after all this time is that Celie states at one point that naked men remind her of frogs and that she just cannot take them seriously because of it.
ReplyDeleteYou are totally and completely right about the odd structure and preaching. And yet. I still loved this and would now list it as one of my favorites. Celie just got to me enough that I ignored the issues. Maybe that's a sign of a different kind of good writer - she made me care enough to overlook the technical issues. :) I think we all have books that everyone seems to love and that we just can't get past some problems that everyone else seems to ignore.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your review, and just wanted to point out that Alice Walker is not exactly your typical Dead White Guy...
ReplyDeleteLove your style of reviewing! I agree with the preaching. Everyone that I know (offline) seemed to have loved it, but I just... I don't know, something just didn't sit right and now you mention it, I think it was the tone.
ReplyDeleteNew to your blog!
Stephanie @ Stepping Out of the Page