Their Eyes Were Watching God

I have had this book for twenty-six years and only now have read it. My husband read it in college and I've been meaning to. What serendipity that my book club chose it. And what an appropriate and relevant time to read it finally. 

Zora Neale Hurston has crafted a masterpiece in Their Eyes Were Watching God. A black woman's journey of coming into her own, I found Janie's story a pure delight. It's a novel of black experience and also feminism. I like how she couched the story inside telling her neighbor friend her tale. I like how little the white people figure into the story - they show up with ingrained oppression, but the story isn't about them. I like Janie's interesting interaction with Mrs. Turner, a black woman prejudiced against black-skinned people. (See the quote from page 138.) I especially like how we get to see the world through Janie's perspective, the beauty in description and in the vernacular. She has plenty of struggles but at the end we find her feeling content, with experience and memories and full with living.

Just read it. 

Page 15:  "You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. You in particular. Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat's one of de hold-backs of slavery. But nothing can't stop you from wishin'. You can't beat nobody down so low till you can rob 'em of they will." 

Page 138:  Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ration to their negroness. Like the pecking-order in a chicken yard. Insensate cruelty to those you can whip, and groveling submission to those you can't. Once having set up her idols and built alters to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. 

Page 151:  The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God. 

Page 182:  "Ah know all dem sitters-and-talkers gointuh worry they guts into fiddle strings till dey find out whut we been talkin' 'bout. Dat's all right, Pheoby, tell 'em. Dey gointuh make  'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore." 

The Radium Girls

It was fascinating to read The Radium Girls - The Dark Story of America's Shining Women first during the impeachment trial and then as the global epidemic was unfolding. Kate Moore compiled an interesting account of the (mostly) young women who were poisoned by the radium in the paint they used in their work. It showed the mistreatment of people for the financial gain of a few, and then the dogged refusal of those businessmen to take any responsibility. I was struck by the similarity in "rephrasing" the facts and rewriting history used by the company lawyers and the president's defense team. At least the radium companies were eventually shown for their true role in ruining their employees lives. We'll see how accurately history remembers Trump and his actions using his presidential powers. It's gratifying to know that good legislation protecting workers' rights came out of the radium trials, although it was disappointing to hear the short account of it happening again in 1978. Wow.

I was also struck by the context Kate Moore brought to this subject. So many landmark events were happening during that time: World War I, the Flu of 1918, Women's Suffrage and getting the vote, Prohibition and into the Great Depression, just to name a few! I love it when history is sewn together to show us how events are interrelated.

I didn't keep any quotes this time. I almost did, but realized I was just noticing when the author wrote with clear bias, in an isn't-this-awful-guys way that I found to be too emotional (even though I was agreeing with her!) It felt a little long at times, but that helped show just how dogged legal battles like this can be. It was a well-researched work of an important issue, and I am glad I read it.

And now I am waiting for the libraries to reopen to be able to return the book.

The Dependents

There is no doubt that Katherine Dion is a talented writer. My book club read her debut novel, The Dependents, and our impressions weren't terrible nor were they terribly positive. One of our readers couldn't be bothered to finish it. I think in choosing the book we saw the words "summer read" in the reviews and thought "easy read", but when I google it now the accompanying adjectives are "best" and "memorable", which certainly isn't the equivalent to easy. I'm not sure how well I liked it. Expectations can ruin things.

My father-in-law recently lost his wife of 54 years, no small impact on a person, so the protagonist, Gene, won my empathy immediately. Watching Gene grapple with moving on without her, we get to really feel the complexity of memory. At times it's painful to watch Gene essentially deciding how to remember his wife, their marriage. I found myself wanting more of a concrete resolution - a reckoning - someone to step in at the end and tell us definitively what the past contained and all the little truths each person carries. But that isn't real.

I kept one quote:

Page 254:  There was a kind of solace in the deepest misery, the comfort of confronting the worst possible thing that could happen to a person.

A summer read that isn't sunny. With a little time and reflection, Dion's story has grown on me.

The Children's Blizzard

I drove across half the country with my daughter to be her roadtrip buddy. She was starting a four-month internship at a zoo and I got to be part of the beginning of her adventure. The Rockies were icy and slow-going at times, but we got there in three days. While waiting a few days in cold, snowy Minnesota before flying back, I read The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. I'm sure it was partly because it was the same time of year as that blizzard in 1888, but I was enthralled by this story, even when the author lingered perhaps too thoroughly on the weather nuances and perfect combination of circumstances that resulted in that killer storm. I liked how David Laskin filled out the characters and even did research to fill out the peripheral characters, sharing so much back story to really put that time period into context. We not only met people who survived and died in the storm, but we followed them from their countries of origin. I didn't save any quotes from the book, but the story certainly sticks with me.