Review The Color Purple

Review    The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., 288 pages 
Orig Published 1970, Winner of the Pulizer Prize and the National Book Award

I enjoyed reading this and can understand why it won the BIG prizes and why it is on a few banned book lists.    It’s a quick read once you get into the dialect slang;  I believe it’s true strength is in the dialogue.

It has a matter-of-fact presentation that bars excuses for the subject matter, it is what it is:  violent, sad, revolting, gentle, loving, amazing, and real.     It’s about two sisters who communicate out of time and out of touch across the ocean via letters not only to each other but to God and to themselves.    They experience tragedy, they learn about themselves, they find love.   As the preface points out (see my personal PREview), the book could be about the coming to an understanding of a truer god or God or spirit or SPIRIT.   I can ‘get’ why it’s being heralded as a feminist book but this topic is almost fuzzy – never heavy handed and does not beat you on the top of your head.    

My FAVORITE LINE is “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”         p.196

I’m glad I read this novel.   Now I can say I’ve read it!    I have added the 1985 movie to my Netflix queue (which is over 200 count;  any other Netflixers want to be in my circle of movie-friends, just let me know…)     And now, in the spirit of true Weekly Geekness, I present to you a few reviews I’ve discovered across the bloggosphere: 

Please read  Nymeth’s EXCELLENT review that tells exactly what happens in the story and covers some of the issues presented, as well.

This review at JennysBooks has some great incite into the love of reading:  you “… only get to read a book for the first time once.”     (I loved her review of Atonement, too.)

Michelle/3m read this for the Banned Book Challenge.

 

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