Possessing the Secret of Joy

Possessing the Secret of Joy is a powerful read, written in Alice Walker's usual evocative style. Tashi, who has appeared in the peripheries of Ms.Walker's other novels, takes the centre in this book.

Through Tashi, Ms.Walker not only creates a condemnation of FGM, but also leaves the reader with insights into how it plays into a victim's psyche and life. The entire book progresses through short first person narratives from all the major characters. While we learn of Tashi's life and how a misguided loyalty to her tradition makes her voluntarily submit to FGM, we also learn of how that moment comes to be. There are forces at play- colonial, patriarchal, religious- that displace and alienate Tashi, while also subjugating her.

We also show more learn of why and how this subjugation sustains itself- an experience that is, in a way, universal. There are cultures of silence that surround such oppression- making it seem, then, as though the silenced bear their pain happily.

In a particularly reflective moment, Tashi says, "If you lie to yourself about your own pain, you will be killed by those who will claim you enjoyed it."

The wisdom encapsulated in the above line from the book captures the crux of Tashi's story itself.

Possessing the Secret of Joy startles you, from the get-go. There are several moments of Tashi's account that horrify the reader. It is by no means an easy read. But it is a read that is worth the process. show less

Alice Walker admits there is a connection between Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Color Purple. If you know your Purple you might remember Tashi as a minor character. She, among others, is back in Possessing the Secret of Joy to tell her own heartbreaking story. Except, told from the first person perspective of several different characters, Possessing the Secret of Joy is more of an ode to culture, courage, identity, and resilience. Do not be fooled by the short and deceptively simple chapters. Read carefully because details can be disjointed. One minute you are in Paris, France. The next you are in a London courtroom. Every chapter is packed with a deeper meaning. Self mutilation hints of a much larger trauma hidden beneath the show more surface.
At the heart of the story is Tashi/Evelyn Johnson, a tribal African woman. Despite being married to Adam, Tashi/Evelyn has Olinka society taboos tattooed in her brain. She knows is it wrong to make love in an open field; genital mutilation is the norm despite missionaries being against any kind of scarification. The mythology surrounding female circumcision and the price one pays for noncompliance is akin to the ancient practice of Chinese foot binding. When are ancestral cultural norms abolished for their cruelty and antiquity? Should ancient practices continue just because of the history? Are tribal roots deep enough to forego life-altering violence? show less

The wife read this before me. That doesn’t often happen and so, when she said it was good, I thought I’d have a go at it. It’s a very quick read: lots of blank pages between ‘chapters’ that consist of little more than a short paragraph sometimes. But, yes, I rated it okay… just.

It’s not the actual writing that weakened the book for me. Walker writes in a lyrical poignant style that balances western realism with elements of magical realism at times and this definitely contributes to the portrayal of an African immigrant to the US. No, the writing was fine. It was the content that was the problem. Let me explain why.

The issue, you quickly find out, is female circumcision. The fact that I have to write female there shows, to show more a certain extent, what Walker’s point in writing the novel is about: ignorance. Most people, the novel claims, have no idea that this practice goes on. The other agenda of the novel, apart from raising awareness, is to argue very strongly for stopping it.

Now, I do understand that this is a painful thing and that it does rob women who undergo it of some of their physical functions. I am sympathetic to the point she makes. But she shoots herself in the foot for two reasons. Firstly, the feminist slant alienates probably the people who are most likely to have a say in these cultures about whether this practice continues i.e. men. In the majority of these communities, for better or worse, men hold the power still. I’m not sure that making this a women’s rights issue is going to help get their participation.

Secondly, and this is a bigger issue for me, what about living and letting live? There was very vocal opinion recently that a never before known Amazonian tribe should be left untouched by ‘civilisation’ and allowed to continue their lives as they have always been. In anthropology, you observe, you study but you do not become an advocate for change. Anthropologists classify that along with other more traditional forms of Imperialism, like, say, genocide.

Now I work for SIL, a linguistics organisation that has come under much criticism in the fifty or so years since its inception. That criticism has been directed at policies we have to change cultures. There, I’ve said it now. We do want to change cultures. We want to eradicate injustice, inequality and poverty. We want to raise up the downtrodden and provide rights for the alienated. We do this through language, literacy being one such example.

But to work social reform in such a way means, inevitably, to change the way the communities operate. To leave them as they are would be to maintain the very social systems that oppress. In this sense, Walker and I bat for the same team. If I’m labelled as an Imperialist for pursuing such goals then so be it. I can live with that. The people I serve have lived with far far worse. But I wonder if Walker would be one of our critics? Hmmm.

Who’s to decide that female circumcision is to be outlawed? Who’s to decide that illiteracy is to be eradicated? Once you start debating that, what seems a water-tight case for the removal of the practice of female circumcision actually turns out to be on very shaky ground. What other practices don’t we like? What others can we argue for the removal of? How much can we decide how other cultures around the world can operate?

And while we do this, do we remain ignorant of evil in our own backyard?

I’ve had to consider these issues carefully in my line of work. Walker is, as far as I know, a novelist. It’s easy to write a book about what you feel strongly should be changed. But go out and try to change it and you’ll find yourself in a minefield of ethics. I just don’t think Walker’s considered the ethical issues enough in this novel and it is, for me, naive for not doing so. Well-written, but naive. show less

Alice Walker is such a beautiful writer. This book begins with Adam and Olivia, children of black missionaries, meeting Tashi, an African child in an African area called Olinka, which holds very traditional values. What "traditional" means in this case is that female genital mutilation is considered mandatory for girls who hope to marry a good man and have a respectable place in Olinkan society. The book details the lives of these 3 people as they grow to adulthood and struggle with Tashi's trauma from her upbringing. Her life, her personal choices, made on a background of trauma and pain, lead us to a place of deep insight regarding the treatment of women, the violence of colonialism and the lack of healing in a supposedly free society show more after colonialism ends. There is violence here but also intense sweetness and love. Alice Walker has been a strong advocate of women's rights and education to end the practice of FGM. I have such admiration for her and her incredible writing. The aching desire to end suffering comes through so clearly and so beautifully. show less

To be honest when this arrived, I was put off by the dreadful cover. It looked like a dodgy romance, how wrong could I be! I actually read this over 2 nights, completely drawn in by the style and the story.

In an attempt to reconnect, Tashi undergoes female circumcision, not really realising what she will lose. She is not a child when it is done, as is normal, but rather a sexually active adult. Living in America with her American husband, she is haunted by her past, which is allowed to dominate her future. It is not just the loss of sexual pleasure, but seem to be more about control, women lose control of their own bodies. Sadly, as is said in an afterword, this practice is still going on, not just in Africa, but in the West.

As a woman, show more I think this is an important read, but also a good insight for the men as it brings up other stereotypes about men and women. show less

i don't love the way this is written with the too-short alternating point of view chapters, but it isn't badly done. i just wanted a little more from many of the chapters. because of how much it bounces around, there isn't a lot of detail given, but you get all of the backstory that you need.

far more important is the subject matter. this is a tough book to read as she takes female genital mutilation head on. the main character, tashi, who was in the african pages in the color purple, introduces us to the horror of the ritual itself and the lifelong aftereffects of what she euphemistically calls "bathing". it's an intense thing to read about, and walker ties it nicely into the ways that men use it to keep women and sex under their own show more control.

she also touches on the slaughter of african animals (specifically monkeys) in the name of big pharm, as well as the possibility that this is how the aids virus was first actually transmitted; an infected monkey was used in the making of a polio vaccine and so began the spread of hiv. but really this book is about the torture that women and girls undergo and perpetuate generation to generation. there isn't a lot of graphic detail, but there is enough to know how incredibly horrendous this practice is.

i remember having an argument with a friend in college (maybe in 1996) about this topic. her view was that we can't judge someone else's culture, that i have no right to say that this is an "incredibly horrendous" practice. i do understand that viewpoint; i think alice walker makes a nice case against that with this story.

this is a hard, but important book.

an epigraph that is from a bumper sticker: "When the axe came into the forest, the trees said the handle is one of us."

"No, no, he used to correct me. They behave this way not because I'm black but because they are white."

"...men refuse to remember things that don't happen to them."

"They do not want to hear what their children suffer. They've made the telling of the suffering itself taboo. Like visible signs of menstruation. Signs of woman's mental power. Signs of the weakness and uncertainty of men. When they say the word 'taboo' I try to catch their eye. Are they saying something is 'sacred' and therefore not to be publicly examined for fear of disturbing the mystery; or are they saying it is so profane it must not be exposed, for fear of corrupting the young? Or are they saying simply that they can not and will not be bothered to listen to what is said about an accepted tradition of which they are a part, that has gone on, as far as they know, forever.
These are the kinds of questions my father taught me to ask, alas. Adam, he would say, What is the fundamental question one must ask of the world? I would think of and posit many things, but the answer was always the same: Why is the child crying?"

"Now of course every little girl is given a doll to drag around. A little figure of a woman as toy, with the most vacuous face imaginable, and no vagina at all."

"Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to women and to the earth, says Raye, bitterly."

"There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth." show less

"Religion is an elaborate excuse for what men has done to women and to the earth."

In this novel Alice Walker looks at the horrifying practice and consequences of female genital mutilation, according to the author's note at the end of book is believed to have been inflicted upon between ninety and one hundred million girls and women alive today. The practice varies from simple excision of the clitoris to a full-scale removal of the labia, thus denying the victim sexual pleasure,.

Tashi, the main protagonist of this novel, made a brief appearance in 'The Colour Purple' as an African woman living in America who returned to Africa to have the operation as a gesture of solidarity with the women of her village, 'Possessing the Secret of Joy' show more is her story.

I must admit that the book's fractured and non-chronological structure initially made it a little difficult for me to differentiate between the various voices, especially as many of them seem had differing names, an African and an American one. Equally as a European I struggled to comprehend why any female would feel the need to return to Africa to undergo such a barbaric experience just to somehow feel whole. However, once I had overcome these obstacles the story had me totally gripped if extremely uncomfortable.

This book raises some interesting questions because alongside genital mutilation it also touches on a possible origin for AIDS and the use of chimpanzees in medical experiments.

"There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth."

Personally I felt that Walker spent a bit too much time sensationalising the actual operation that the plot suffered a little but I fully understand why she felt the need to do so. This is an important message that needs to be made especially when you realise that 'tradition' is being misused as a reason to justify it and it's often men who insist on it's continuance .

"Men refuse to remember things that don't happen to them." show less