The Color Purple

 

I said this in one of my updates, and it's so true: I wish my English teachers throughout high school and college had put more books like this one in my hands. I had one male teacher, particularly, who seemed to gravitate only towards books where women were shamed, oppressed, depressed, or suicidal (i.e. The Scarlet Letter, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, etc. ...) By no means am I disparaging the worth of these other classic novels, but it's so refreshing to read a story where women grow and develop into happier, more fulfilled individuals, rather than having their miserable circumstances bring them down. As an added bonus, it opened my heart to trying other classic novels, which for the above reasons among others, I've always had a resistance to reading, so thank you Ms. Walker for that.

A story set in the post-slavery era, this story covers not only the power dynamics of male-female relationships, but those of race, culture, religion, sexuality, and wealth versus poverty. The journey of watching the women in this story: Celie, Nettie, Shug, Sofia and Mary Agnes (aka Squeak), among others, find their voices and actually thrive despite their hardships, was uplifting and gratifying. It celebrates the strength and talents of women, while also showing growth and change in the male characters, like Mr. ___ and Harpo as well. Any of the take-aways of this story would apply to all humans, regardless of gender and race. It's a thoughtful exploration of friendship, family, the nature of God as each character defines that, love, and finding one's purpose in life.

From a more technical literary evaluation, it's largely narrated in Celie's voice, as a poorly educated black woman writing letters to God or to her sister Nettie, who she was separated from as a young woman, so it takes a bit of effort on the reader's part to translate the misspellings and intended meaning of what she's saying. I didn't find that difficult and appreciated the realism that it brought to the writing. Nettie's letters back to Celie, show her exposure to education and are often quite descriptive and detailed. I'm sure many would disagree with me, but I actually found Nettie's story line and letters to be the least enjoyable part of the story for me, only because it somehow felt detached from the rest of the book, like it belonged in its own book. As for Shug's story, she's a big ball of contradiction that you can love and hate, but I found her character delightful, and some of her insights into God were pretty darn profound.

I've had a really hard time trying to rate this one or decide if it's a favorite. I like it a lot, and my rating may go up at some point, but for now I'm going to say it's a 4.5 rounded down to 4, simply because the second half didn't enthrall me quite as much as the first half. Once it became Celie and Nettie writing letters back and forth, that kind of constrained the focus of the book for me. All in all a wonderful book though and one I highly recommend!

★★★★ ½ (rounded down to 4) ❤️