Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel

their eyes were watching god is an emotional roller-coaster. the main character, janie, is an incredible protagonist who you can find yourself relating to frequently, for better or for worse. this story, despite being a journey about love, happiness, and self-discovery, is gutwrenching when it wants to be the prose is the highlight of the book, in my opinion! it's written using a mix of southern dialect and african american vernacular english, which only enriches the setting further the first bit might be a little slow to some, but once the story begins to progress, i had a hard time putting my copy down. it's not a super long book, either! in short, it's a beautifully-written book that knows what it's trying to portray from start to finish. i am trying to avoid sharing plot points to not give too much away... but, i highly recommend to anyone who enjoys classic literature!

Why did it take me so long to read this beautiful book? It also took me too long to write this review because I finished this book about a month ago. During this time, I have not forgotten Janie or Tea Cake. They are characters that will stay with me. The story is Janie’s, her journey through life and towards happiness. Written decades ago, it feels timeless. The writing is seamless. Not a spare word, but at the same time there were stunningly vivid descriptions of people and places that brought out every sense. My dad, an avid reader and writer, has always said that the most talented authors can say it all in fewer words, and that she does, writing with intention and purpose. I did not find the dialect hard to read, perhaps because I live in the south, but also it is consistent throughout, and it added so much to the authenticity of time and place in the story. As I mentioned above, Janie is very much on a journey. The first chapter foreshadows that she’s been on a journey that’s not gone well, and she’s now home. For the entire book, I thought I knew what that journey may have been, how it went with Tea Cake, and I was entirely wrong. I loved every bit of that because the journey was a complete surprise to me. Through a series of marriages, she finds her true love, and through him, love for herself. I have to mention the hurricane Janie and Tea Cake experience. Having lived through several myself, I never had to experience on literally on the ground, on foot, running to escape the winds and rising waters. I felt like I was alongside them as they make their treacherous escape. One of the biggest messages in the story is that people are complex and imperfect. You can love a person and not love everything they do. When characters are drawn this way, as they are in this book, they become living, breathing real people, and that’s exactly how I felt the entire time I read this book. I’m disappointed with myself that I didn’t write this review sooner after reading because I think my feelings would have flowed better. If this is a classic you haven’t read, it’s more than worth the read. Between the spare writing and shorter length, it’s a quick read, too. As many of you know, I hardly ever re-read, but this is one I will re-visit because I know I will get even more out of it the next time. As it is, I highlighted dozens of beautiful passages. Zora Neale Hurston was an immensely talented writer, and this book was not given the recognition it deserved during her lifetime. I look forward to exploring her other works.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, is a powerful read for all. It teaches both men and women, adults and children, the power of respect, equality, love, and freedom, especially for women. This book is a solid 4 out of 5 and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great story, that is not overwhelming to read. In my opinion, the book starts slow and is sometimes difficult to read on, however don’t give up on it. About a quarter of the way through, my eyes were glued to this book. I felt a connection to Janie and I wanted to see how her life panned out. When I reached the final few pages, I was actually sad it was over (which shocked me because I was so bored in the beginning). This book originally grabbed my attention because it was narrated by a strong female character. Janie is a fair-skinned African American woman who grew up in poverty with her traditional grandmother, Nanny. Stuck in the time before “equality” existed, Nanny wanted Janie to live a life of leisure, something she was unable to have. She married Janie off to Logan Killicks at a very young age. Janie then left Logan to venture to a new town with Joe Starks who offered her a grandiose and comfortable life, where she didn’t have to work and he could show her off. In a naive way, she believed that Joe loved her and wanted nothing but the best for her, however as he became more obsessed with his store and his town, she became more oppressed by his harsh words and head kerchiefs he forced her to wear. As Janie moves onto her third marriage to Tea Cake, she finally finds the relationship she is looking for. She knew “he could be a bee to a blossom--- a pear tree blossom in the spring.” This was something she dreamed of, having a relationship wear she could lay under a pear tree and simply be in love. This book sends a powerful message about the importance of an equal relationship. Janie is oppressed by Logan and Joe, leaving her sad and lonely. When Tea Cake comes along and takes her to picnics, hunting or fishing, and teaches her to drive she realizes what she has been missing for years. He even chopped down a tree she didn’t like, along with “all those signs of possession” in Joe Stark’s house. Despite the strong relationship they have, Tea Cake still has control over Janie. He takes her money and goes off spending it without her permission, but she can’t say anything about it. This made me very angry. He also whips her when she talks to another man, though nothing was going on between them. He believes that “being able to whip her reassured him in possession.” She doesn’t let these things affect her because she loves Tea Cake and believes God is working in her life. When she comes to terms with this, she finally finds peace. At the end of the novel, when she is completely free of all relationships and ties to people, Janie is truly a happy woman. She is described pulling in “her horizon like a great fish-net” and “calling in her soul to come and see” the life in its meshes. At this moment her life is fulfilled. This book hit all emotions. I was sad and felt empathy for Janie, I was happy, and I was angry beyond belief. Sometimes I laughed, while other times I wanted to tell one of the characters off. This story that Hurston created is so relatable that I felt aspects of Janie’s life in my own, even without the many years of experience she had. I truly believe that I could go back and read this book in a couple of years and learn a whole slew of new lessons.

This book truly deserves a place among the great books in American literature. It is well written in wonderfully rich, lyrical prose with frequent quotable epigrammatic insights into our lives. ("There are years that ask questions and years that answer.") It is the fictional biography of a poor black woman written by a brilliant, black, female writer which speaks so universally to our individual human needs that it appeals even to an old white male like me! It is a book about life and about people which just happens to have a poor, black, female lead character. The language of the book may be off putting to some because Hurston attempts to graphically reproduce a rural Floridian dialect just after the turn of the 20th century. At first it helps to read aloud --even while alone, but it isn't too difficult to master and soon becomes part of the book's character and charm. It would be a fun book to read aloud with others as part of a book club or drama exercise. Despite her dialectical storytelling, her prose are brilliant and lyrical, and her use of imagery and metaphor is as ingenious as any of Garcia-Marquez' best stuff. She has a similar ability to sum up a whole character in a few well chosen images. E.g. her description of mayor Joe Starks, "He can’t help bein’ sorta bossy. Some folks needs thrones, and ruling- chairs and crowns tuh make they influence felt. He don’t. He’s got uh throne in de seat of his pants.” A whole character summed up in one brilliant image! You feel you know the man and could predict his behavior based on this one word picture! This story is wonderful and wonderfully told from start to finish. Hurston's characters are rich and human and Janie, the main character, is well developed and grows from each of her significant relationships over the course of her life. The storyline serves to develop the characters who exist to show what it is to be human; to love, to lose, to feel and to be both crushed and exhilarated by simply living our lives as they come rushing at us.

To appreciate this novel one has first to place it in its historical context: the 1930's, at the core of the Harlem Renaissance, known then as "The New Negro Movement." Or does one? Nature speaks to Janie Crawford, Hurston's heroine, nature and its open spaces; so when her grandmother forces her into an arranged marriage, Janie feels locked into a place that turns her dreams into ashes. Leaving her husband in order to widen her horizons and following her vision is indeed a revolutionary act in the Black America of the 1930's. What if I sliced off the adjective in the sentence? Would that make the act revolutionary? How about the country? Indeed any woman leaving her husband in the 1930's would commit an act of undeniable courage. But Janie assumes this dream is linked to another man, that she cannot dream alone. At the time, that may be true. Still, if her ambitious and authoritarian second husband uses her as the continuation of his dream, he also makes her a rich widow. What has been crushed and repressed in Janie has not necessarily died, however; there is a phoenix somewhere ready to fly out from these ashes. At first, this phoenix looks like Tea Cake, a charming man younger than Janie as well as a gambler not keen on rational thinking. With him she will let her hair free, assume her womanhood. Although Tea Cake is the winner in this trio of husbands, he does hit her, if only once. Hurston could have chosen to have a completely gentle character here. Her lucid eye, albeit compassionate, compels her to honesty. There is a lot of progress to be made when it concerns respect toward women, be it in Black or White culture. Even the best men are prisoners of that culture. Although Janie discovers love with all the moments of joy that passion can convey, she never completely finds herself while living her adventurous epopee with Tea Cake. This said, during all these years of struggle that will culminate with the flood that eventually kills Tea Cake, Janie builds herself. And her return to her place in men overalls and amidst waves of female nasty gossip is a triumph of sorts. They can say what they want. She has finally found herself. Because she dared to take the journey. And so did Hurston. For the novel, with its subject, metaphors, and singular pacing, makes for a great act of valor. The author does not hesitate to portray a black racist among her bunch, a business owner who would rather serve white or light colored people than people her own color. A woman in constant need of bleaching out her own identity. This is a profoundly tragic character, brainwashed by the domineering culture and denying her own self. One can understand why the great Alice Walker played the phoenix here, that is brought Hurston back to life in the mid 1970's. With her flowing use of the vernacular, her compassionate yet perspicacious view of human nature, Walker is a brilliant Hurston inheritor. What Hurston brought to the literary scene can make the Harlem Renaissance proud, but like Janie herself who despises limits, her work goes beyond borders, as the universality of Watching God in undeniable. Women know Janie Crawford the minute they meet her. They understand the way she talks to nature, the way she dreams her space, the way her reality is beyond definition. Defining the undefinable and universalizing a theme while maintaining the identity of a culture, is a tour de force that only a central author could achieve. So thank you, Ms Walker, for kicking unjust oblivion you know where and placing Zora Neale Hurston right where she should be.

For centuries, marriage has evolved into a contract rather than a proclamation of love; it dictated the roles the man and woman would play and suppressed the woman under the influence of the stronger man. In the brilliantly-written novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston explores whether marriage could be built on trust and love rather than submission and negotiation by detailing the intricately woven life of Janie Mae Crawford and her experiences with marriage. In the beginning of the novel, Janie is quickly ushered into an arranged marriage with Mr. Logan Killicks, a rich and older African-American man. Janie only agreed to the marriage because she had thought that eventually “she would love Logan after they were married...Husbands and wives loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so” (Hurston 27). Ever since the day Janie was sixteen and sat underneath a pear tree and gazed up at the bees merrily buzzing in and out of the blossoms, she believed that a marriage could be one of love and self-fulfillment. She tried to have that love but quickly discovered that she was never going to love Mr.Killicks the way the bees loved the pear tree’s blossoms: “She knew that marriage did not make love” (29). One cannot simply walk into a marriage without loving the other person first. Love already has to be present in the relationship for there to be love in the marriage. Love does not grow from unfamiliarity; it stems from trust. When Janie married her second husband, Joe Stark, he became infatuated with power rather than with her. As the mayor of Eatonville, he left her to do the chores around the house and would yell at her for making mistakes in their store. Janie’s personality remained hidden inside of herself; she could not do as she pleased and obeyed her husband’s commands like a slave. Joe “wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it” (64). He also believed he was “building a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the world [but] she [was] pouting over it” (57). Because there was no true communication between the husband and wife, both were left unsettled by the other. In order for a marriage to last, there has to be honesty between the two partners. Both of them would have needed to drop their pretenses in order to fully accept and understand the other person. However, because Janie kept a part of herself locked away from Mr.Starks and because Joe kept demanding her submission rather than allowing her to be herself, she could never truly love him nor would he ever know her. It was not until Janie’s final marriage to Tea Cakes that she began to feel happy and loved. Tea Cakes always wanted to be with her. He taught her to play checkers, made her laugh, and provided anything for her. He was even the only man Janie compared to her pear tree: “He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring” (90). Though their relationship had its flaws, there was trust and honesty between the two. Their marriage may have been the briefest, but it was the only one that left Janie truly grieving when it was over: “No expensive veils and robes for Janie this time. She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief” (149). In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston expertly weaves the truths behind marriage through Janie’s experiences with failed and lost love. In the end, marriage is a contract; it does have its rules and obligations, but it is also about working together to build an open and caring relationship, not a dictatorship.

This was such a beautiful yet heartbreaking love story! Janie and Tea Cake endured so much, yet they were so beautiful together! I am glad that I took a chance on this novel and read it. It truly is a beautifully written piece of literature.

Janie's lives, I say live because she seemed to live three or four from what I read, were so different but it was the same person living them. I loved this book and will absolutely read it again and recommend it whenever asked about this author and genre. I love the peak into the 1920s American South too. The way black folks spoke to each other and about each other, they way they spoke to and about white folks in that region, at that time was very interesting. I can't wait to read more from the incomparable ZNH.

A remarkable book from a member of the Harlem Renaissance. The book describes the life of a woman and her marriages with her desperate search for a satisfying relationship. The book was particularly interesting in its description of life in Central Florida and the Lake Okeechobee area in the early 1900s with a dramatic description of the 1928 hurricane that caused so much flooding and loss of life.

Incredible novel with such depth and beautiful prosody. The timelessness of the themes are so universal, yet the era of writing and setting are completely foreign to me … making an enthralling read.

It's amazing novel.

Worth reading this. So emotional and heart-wrenching...a journey of self-discovery, love, and independence. The prose sings with rhythm and wisdom, turning everyday life into something almost mythic. I was surprised by how alive Janie’s voice felt...fierce, funny, and heartbreakingly real. It’s one of those rare books that feels both timeless and freshly alive every time you read it.

yea