false 60969 11 The Mundo are a new tribe, created by the intermingling of escaped Black slaves and native Indians in the Mexican Sierras. Ineligible for academic funding, a husband-and-wife team of African American anthropologists pose as Christian missionaries to secure sponsorship to live among the Mundo and study their culture. This soul-stifling deception underlies the family tragedy at the heart of Alice Walker's novel, her first in six years. The father, preaching the message of his puritanical Protestant sponsors, is "sucked into the black cloth" of Christianity and blinded to the Mundo's life-affirming ways. When he discovers his daughter Magdalena's affair with a young Mundo, he beats her with a belt, thus estranging himself from both her and the younger daughter, Susannah. The first of several narrative voices to speak is his. Dead, he has become an "angel" who observes his daughters from the "other side" and seeks to make amends for the pain he inflicted on them in life. <p> It is the conceit of <I>By the Light of My Father's Smile</I> that angels have complete access to the consciousness of the living beings they observe. One of the book's very first scenes involves the ebullient lovemaking of Susannah and her partner, Pauline, reported in sweaty detail by the angelic paternal voyeur. Highly explicit, this set piece is a kind of guerrilla assault on our sensibilities, preparing us to receive Walker's urgent message--that sexuality and spirituality are inextricable, that denying one causes the other to atrophy as well. The blessings of fathers are, according to this canon, essential to the sexual flowering and spiritual maturity of their female offspring. It is in the loss, the conferring, and the claiming of these blessings that the novel finds its narrative thrust.<p> <I>By the Light of My Father's Smile</I> is intended perhaps less as a story than as a parable presenting Walker's cosmology for the new millennium--one that synthesizes ancient and modern wisdoms in a way that's as artistically daring as it is politically correct: Sex is good, repression is evil. Dominant is bad, distaff is good. European culture is dead meat, the third world is wise, there is ongoing commerce between the living and the dead, great orgasms shall set us free. Many readers will agree that a world built upon these precepts surely would be preferable to the one we now inhabit. Here, as in previous fictions, Walker the storyteller is spellbinding, Walker the preacher-theorist, less so. On the other hand, what other novelist risks so bravely or with such generosity, and seeks to give so much? With the proper mindset, Walker assures us, anyone can become a member of the Mundo tribe. <I>--Joyce Thompson</I> 943942 1998 By the Light of My Father's Smile total:620|5:165|4:225|3:169|2:42|1:19| 620 2335 805 47 5 0 false false Mon Mar 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 05:47:13 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 19:27:23 -0700 2009
all right. i had to let this one sit and rumble around before i can get my mind around. i'm not all the way there yet, by any means. however, i have made progress with walker's point about it being not only crucial that parents are honest with their children about s...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 06 20:00:02 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 12:40:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Tue Mar 27 14:29:24 -0700 2007 Tue Mar 27 14:30:01 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Fri Dec 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 04 11:33:37 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 09:47:22 -0800 2008
"The heady scent she wears rises full-blown into the sultry heat. All around her tension builds. She is the kind of woman who could provoke rain."

"Of course, she said, from watching their mothers make pots, primitive man would assume G-...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Tue Jan 13 10:05:45 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 10:31:04 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Jun 22 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Fri Oct 09 16:20:58 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 16:22:06 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Thu Apr 23 06:36:37 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 06:37:47 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 09:00:29 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 09:01:18 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jan 04 20:01:17 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 20:01:40 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Tue Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 24 11:14:35 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 24 03:52:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 22 21:12:14 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 21:12:57 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 04 07:19:47 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 07:20:00 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Wed Jun 17 08:41:21 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 08:41:30 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Mar 18 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Tue Oct 14 10:58:51 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 11:00:38 -0700 2008
Here's what I wrote back in 2000:

Powerful book. I was shocked at first, then I...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 19:09:18 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 19:11:40 -0800 2009 4 0 true false Fri Nov 21 22:42:50 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 16 18:43:42 -0700 2008 Fri Nov 21 22:42:50 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Wed May 14 11:28:20 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 11:30:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 08 16:40:28 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 08 16:42:11 -0700 2008 Alice Walker and Toni Morrisonmore...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 21:08:27 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 21:08:27 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Mon Jun 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 11 18:40:47 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 16:31:02 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=60969