Goodreads: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read a short story by Zora Neale Hurston in one of my college courses that lead me to buy this book. I am always interested in learning about life experiences that I may not necessarily have. With that in mind I expected to learn more about a different life perspective rather than fully relate to the culture and experiences depicted in Their Eyes Were Watching God. However I found that the overarching theme of the whole book is about a human experience that is not necessarily connected to a specific race, color, creed, or culture.

Hurston's main character, Janie, is searching for happiness throughout the story. (And what is more human than the pursuit of happiness?) At 16, she follows her grandmother's perceived recipe for happiness, but realizes quickly that she is supremely unhappy. Janie leaves her first path behind to follow her own idyllic and naive recipe for happiness. On this path she finds she has no voice, though she feels like she has a lot to give, and no say in her life's direction. Finally, after years of struggling, yet quietly learning who she is, Janie finds the path that leads her to a life of supreme happiness: a life filled with understanding and love. Hurston intermingles this overarching theme with vivid pictures and insights into black history and culture from the time period. (One of these smaller insights interestingly includes the racists attitudes that some African Americans had about their own race and about indigenous Indians.)

One feature that may turn-off some readers is Hurston's style of writing dialogue in the Southern black dialect. The language-nerd in me finds this fascinating, therefore I am more willing to work through any pronunciation or word recognition difficulty that may arise. But I find that a great deal of people don't want to work a little bit harder to understand dialect writing.

Overall, this is a book that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in working a little to learn a lot.


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