• THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
• by Zora Neale Hurston [rated by PBS readers as #51]
• 205 pages

First off, can I say once and for all, that the number of pages is virtually meaningless in a read? This project has really slammed that home to Christmas for me. This is one of the shorter books on the list, but the read is dense and packed and meaning isn’t slapped out to you, so you need to really examine each words and its implicit meaning.

This book is interesting, as is Hurston herself. Once again, just like with my last bonus book, The Good Earth, it was written by a woman in the 30’s. And it is fierce!

So many stories about female authors from way back are dipped in gauze and stylized so that nothing can take away from their fan’s glossy feelings about that era and its people.

But once again – it was its women who told it plain and dared you to look away. And as a black woman of that time, I am completely dazzled by her outspokenness and her bravery.

Maligned for years for her conservative views, Hurston was not selected for sainthood by those of her race, even though she was the top selling black female author of the time. Also, she refused to bemoan the culture through her work. She chose instead to portray characters who were simply standing up and living their lives as best they could.

But it was Alice Walker and other burgeoning black female writing voices that restored Hurston to her rightful place in front of the literary parade. They were her rightful heirs and they wanted that known. Even though Hurston ended her life in squalor, she is now recognized for the amazing talent she was. And the amazing talent that she still is, every time someone like me reads her for the first time.

The book is vivid. Janie, the lead character, once read will never leave you. Won’t leave me anyway. Her two first husbands leave her empty and her roustabout third man, Tea Cake, pulls her back into the living and allows her to realize and become conscious. He is controversial to us, but never to Janie.

Will I return to this book? I don’t think so. But I’m very much the richer for having read it. And if anyone felt pulled to read it, I would encourage them to do so.

Good writing is good writing. And Hurston wasn’t only a pioneer; she was a damned good writer.

And to have written this in the 30’s? The evolutionary ladder towards self-awareness apparently moved a lot faster than most of us ever realized. Thank God the crumbs have been left for us to catch up with.

Additional Note: The title is a beautiful reference to a point in the story where a bunch of people were trying to live out a storm that would most likely kill most of them, huddled in flimsy shelters.

“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.”

Whew!