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The Color Purple

Alice Walker

Start date: August 1, 2017

Finish date: August 30, 2017

Discussion: Monthly Bonus Reads

Why we're reading this: August Bonus Read- Women's Equality Day

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The Color Purple by Alice Walker

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Feb 20, 2017 Puck rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, cover-love, people-of-colour, lgbtqia, historical-fiction

“I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found him.”

The Color Purple is a powerful book with an amazing cast of strong female characters, but in my opinion, it was 100 pages too short. I can certainly see how this book made such an impact by its discussion of (painful) topics and its feminist messages, but it was mainly the second half that brought this book down to its 3 star-rating.

The first half “I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found him.”

The Color Purple is a powerful book with an amazing cast of strong female characters, but in my opinion, it was 100 pages too short. I can certainly see how this book made such an impact by its discussion of (painful) topics and its feminist messages, but it was mainly the second half that brought this book down to its 3 star-rating.

The first half of this book was wonderful. I loved reading about Celie, Shug Avery, Sofia, and Mary Agnes (Squeak) and how each of them found the strength to stand up for themselves. Their attempts as black women to fight the sexism and (male) oppression present in their society are met with anger and a lot of protest, but the women all help each other to improve their lives. Alice Walker does an amazing job at weaving timeless feminist ideas together with themes like LGBTQ-culture, the struggle with domestic abuse, and female sexuality.
A running topic through the book is Celie’s relationship with God, who for a long time is her only confidant. Thanks to an important talk with Shug – one of the most important talks in this book – the author shows not only how racism and sexism has affected Celie’s image of God (as an old, white man) but also how ‘wrong’ it is to search for God in a church.

“Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it.”

The second half of this book however, when Nettie’s letters from Africa take over and the narrative gets divided between Celie and Nettie, was when things started going downhill for me. The book changes from a coming-of-power story into an epistolary novel, which killed the story’s energy and realness. Because there is no sense of time in these letters, no conformation that the sisters receive each other’s messages. For all we know Celie and Nettie are writing these letters to themselves with each other in mind. So when the end of this book came, and we suddenly find out that ± 20 years had passed, I was shocked. When did time went by so quickly?!

And apart from the adventure described in those letters – an interesting tale about former African slaves returning to Africa and the culture clash that shows itself there – the story is told in an incredibly slow pace and without any vigor. Walker wants to make so many statements that Celie’s storyline gets drowned under the author’s messages about oppression, sexism, and racism. This way the second half of this book lacks the power that was so present earlier, making reading about Nettie’s missionary work in Africa and Celie’s sowing business in Georgia a drag for me.

So although I’m a great fan of all the female characters in this novel and how they all found love and happiness, the second half was a letdown. The story had no impact anymore and Celie’s ending was a little too good to be true (I especially disliked how she ended things with Mister).
I do, however, certainly recommend this story. Walker’s story is filled with excellent messages about feminism, faith, the power of sisterhood, fighting abuse, and learning how to stand up for yourself. I give this book 3 stars because I think the author overdid herself in the second half of the novel, but overall I found this a very powerful book.

“Man corrupts everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain’t. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to go lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock.
But this hard work, let me tell you. Man been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lighting, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.

Amen.
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Jun 21, 2013 Chris Hoffman rated it it was amazing

Jul 03, 2013 Chloe marked it as to-read

Jul 07, 2013 Jan rated it really liked it

Shelves: award-winning, historical-fiction, american, fiction, authors-of-color, african-american-experience, civil-rights, family, southern-usa, pulitzer

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