Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ratings130
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings130
Average rating3.9
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.
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Reviews with the most likes.
It's hard to rate this book. Hurston created great characters that we feel for and an engaging story. And most of the writing is beautiful. But the dialogue is difficult to read and pulls me out of the story.
Take the opening sentences:
“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.”
The short novel is full of beautiful, poetic prose like that. But then the characters speak. At the time this was written, it was common for phonetic spelling to be used to show different accents. Hurston dials this up to eleven to the point that I often had to read the dialogue aloud to even know what it said. It's frustrating and breaks the spell of the story. Here's one example:
“It must be uh recess in heben if St. Peter is lettin' his angels out lak dis. You got three men already layin' at de point uh death ‘bout yuh, and heah's uhnother fool dat's willin' tuh make time on yo' gang.”
But overall, it's a powerful and well-written story about complicated love and perseverance of a marginalized black woman in my area of central Florida in the beginning of the 20th century.
Obviously... A classic for a reason! I adore this book because it's not your typical coming-of-age story! In this Janie doesn't come of age until she's much older which I can completely relate to... Definitely a fantastic read... if you have it read it you totally should 😍 🙌🏾
This is a masterpiece. It is so lyrical, and beautiful, and profoundly real.
