Reading post: Their Eyes Were Watching God

My reading pace has slowed down considerably since Chester died -- I've only read a couple of mysteries and of all things a Chicken Soup for the Soul book about cats. And today I finally finished this month's book for my book group, which was also my choice for the Classics Challenge #3: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, published in 1937. (Regular readers may note that I haven't yet posted about what was going to be my next challenge book, a Faulkner novel, and that's because I haven't read it yet. I'm just not up to Faulkner right now.) I did enjoy it, but I found it rough going, with the dialect writing and all, even though I've been reading books written in dialect for several months now. What can I say? Grief drags you down.

And what can I say about Hurston's masterpiece that hasn't been said before? Their Eyes Were Watching God (I still don't understand the title) is the story of Janie, a young Black girl growing up in western Florida at some point after the Civil War, whose grandmother marries her off to an old farmer just as she is coming into bloom as a young woman. Tiring of this man, who she never learns to care for, she runs off with another older man and lives as his bored, unfulfilled wife for 20 years in Eatonville, Florida, an all-Black town in central Florida, near Orlando. Finally he dies, leaving her a rich widow, and she takes up with Tea Cake, a handsome man much younger than herself and of a lower class. They marry and live very happily in the Everglades of southern Florida until tragedy strikes. The book is about a woman growing into herself, finding joy, choosing her own path in life. That the woman, Janie, is Black is important to the book and at the same time unimportant, because in part this can be seen as any woman's story. But I'd say it's especially amazing to read it as a Black woman's story, a Black woman in the 1930s yet. I'm trying to fit Hurston's work into that of the Harlem Renaissance writers I've already read, and let's just say it stands out. As did Hurston herself.

Hurston was an unusual woman, an unusual person. Born in 1891, the 5th of 8 children, she moved to Eatonville when she was three. Her father served as the mayor of the town (in Their Eyes, Janie's 2nd husband becomes the mayor). Hurston was unable to get much of an education early on, finally going back to high school at age 26 (she lied and said she was 16). She earned an AA at Howard University and later a BA at Barnard, at the age of 37 (27 to the world). At Barnard she did anthropological fieldwork for Franz Boas (who was also Margaret Mead's mentor) that led to two books of folklore. She also wrote essays, short stories, and novels. She started a PhD in anthropology at Columbia but after an unhappy love affair with the inspiration for Tea Cake she dropped out (and wrote Their Eyes). She married and divorced three times, but never had children. She was part of the Harlem Renaissance, but gradually fell out with friends such as Langston Hughes. She was utterly repudiated by Richard Wright (she didn't like him either), who became the new voice of Black America in the 1940s, which led to her being quickly forgotten in the literary world. She later worked as a maid in Florida and died there, penniless, in 1960 -- the year I was born.

If I were feeling up to snuff, I would have read some of her anthropological work, and either a biography or her autobiography. I might also have read some of Richard Wright, to help me think about the differences between them. Instead I read a few articles about her online. That's all. I bought a copy of Mules and Men (her first folklore collection) but ended up lending it to a member of my book group tonight. Someday I'll get it back and maybe then I'll read it. For now I'll just say that I enjoyed the book, it's worth reading, but according to my book group it's especially worth listening to. The audible version is read by Ruby Dee, who does a masterful job.