Janie Crawford is no stranger to hard times, or good. She’s been married now three times and each man was so different from the next. The one thing they all had in common? They took Janie away from her current situation with a promise of love and a better life. Will that promise be enough to keep Janie content with her life, or will she start looking for more?
Their Eyes Were Watching God is often considered one of the best American novels and is commonly required reading in collegiate literature courses. Zora Neale Hurston released the work in 1937 to a relatively poor reception, but its popularity has grown of the decades, especially for readers of Harlem Renaissance and African-American literature. The book has regained popularity again recently thanks to the 2005 TV adaptation by Harpo Productions. This is a book centered around women’s rights and the liberation of oppressed people – both women and people of color in the south.
I give Their Eyes Were Watching God 4 out of 5 stars. I struggle to read books like this one where the common vernacular of the community is used in writing. It slows me down as I have to sound out the words written with missing letters or uncommon spellings to get the full picture of what the writer intended me to read. I did enjoy this story and the struggles, both external and internal that Janie experiences. I did feel a disconnect when Janie left the store and her home to marry Tea Cake – what happened to Jody’s store? How did it continue? I also felt like the clerk and a few of Jody’s friends could have been better developed to show some of their motivations – they all felt like strangers when they would appear in a scene, but you get the impression Janie knew them well.
I would recommend this book for readers looking to learn about life in the 1920’s and 30’s in Florida’s black communities. I would also recommend this book for anyone studying Harlem literature, and even the Southern Gothic style. With inclusion of sex, violence, and death, this book would be best directed to audiences over 13. This is another great book club pick – there is so much to unpack about Janie’s decisions throughout her life!
I chose Their Eyes Were Watching God for the Read With Lindsey 2024 Reading Challenge prompt “by an African-American Author”. I’ve read so many great books by authors of color recently. This book in particular was recommended by several authors in recent book talks and also came up while reading Africatown earlier this year. Hurston visited with Cudjoe Lewis, a community leader and survivor of the last slave ship to land on American soil, while performing anthropological research on folk tales. She would later produce a biography of the man which was largely lifted from the work of another Alabama writer. This faux pas threatened to derail her literary career, but Hurston recovered in part by developing a historical fictional manuscript based on Lewis’ life title Barracoon. Have you read any of Hurston’s works? Give me your thoughts!
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
- Current audio book: Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, Lili’uokalani
- Book I’m most looking forward to: The Bridges of Madison County, Robert James Waller
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