I wanted to like this when I read it, although I found that I didn’t, because I was reading it to read “good” lit and be inclusive, and I found that it was about people and love and such, and being about Blacks I wanted to include wasn’t enough to make me get over my personality types things with friends and lovers, you know.

I’d probably enjoy it more if I read it again, but if a similar sort of box opened up in my reading schedule I’d probs read a third Toni Morrison or maybe a second Zora Neale, you know.

It certainly is good lit, like Jane Austen, although I suppose maybe it’s more like Dickens via the issue of dialect, kinda wandering over towards the borderline of old pop lit, you know, although it is still more like any other good-lit friends and lovers book than a ghetto romance or Twilight, not that the latter two types are inherently evil, and some people might even find them easier to read.

I think that a lot of intellectuals who read books like this mask what they really feel, if they even know themselves, and then there’s the issue of it being about a Black chick which can kinda exacerbate the thing where you distance/hide, you know. People do that with Greek stuff, too, though—you have this idea of Homer, right, that has nothing to do with the swords clashing or anything else about the poems. (shrugs) But when I first read this book I was an “intellectual”, and there were many things I would have liked to hide if that had been my standing policy, and it was embarrassing not to, you know. (I’ve deleted that review now, since it no longer reflects me.)

(shrugs) But I don’t know. Back in the 1920s, say, even the Black people in this book sided with the white men’s knowledge over the Native people’s intuition regarding the coming storm, you know….

Anyway, the point is, Janie had a number of relationships, and there was good and bad, but one at least had very strong positive elements. It was very painful and mortal, but in the end, I guess it was worth it. Tea Cake was a jerk at times, but he was also a sweet thing.

(shrugs) One of the few positive things they taught us in nerd class was that a thing about a book shouldn’t be a summary, but then also, contrariwise, after having read a book you should have some idea what it was about, you know. Not in terms of plot summary, but….

I mean, if you don’t like “good lit” you don’t like it, and if old good pop lit or whatever isn’t fun for you, it isn’t fun. But if you do like it, presumably you liked something about the book, not this bronze abstraction of the book, you know…. And you know, sometimes it’s harder to like people who don’t live in your town, but if you’re honest you might just learn that they’re people just like you, just with different personality patterns, right.

A classic first published in 1937 - Missing review! ( )

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story about making mistakes, and having to grow and learn from those mistakes. Janie starts out her life sheltered and protected and runs off thinking that she is being repressed. She soon learns that perhaps she made a mistake, but has to learn from that. She gets a second chance and has learned and grown from her previous experiences. Every step she takes, she has to overcome some obstacle, but she marches on to become a beautiful, mature, strong woman. ( )

The lush layers of female voices—Hurston, her character Janie, and the brilliant Ruby Dee who brings them all to life through her reading/performance—made this my favorite novel of 2021. Just. So. Good. [a:Zora Neale Hurston|15151|Zora Neale Hurston|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1194472605p2/15151.jpg] mesmerized me with the poetic style that brings Janie's love of life into clear focus.

Janie inhabits and describes a world that unwinds before her as a marvel. A world where she is often swept along by the choices of others, but always maintains her own thoughts and secret hopes. Lyrical, unhurried and rich in the telling, Janie narrates her own life story with warmth and candor.

Ruby Dee's reading animates the ensemble of characters that Janie encounters. I laughed out loud at the storytellers, ached with longing, and felt Janie's anxiety during times of emotional and physical uncertainty.

I'll remember this Janie and her story for a long time. ( )

I'm not finishing this. I'm having real problems with the language, and not enjoying it enough to makr up for it. ( )