Their Eyes Were Watching God (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

When Janie walks back into town eighteen months after leaving with a man 12 years her junior, her former friends and neighbours gossip and snigger, assuming he has spent all her money and then left her for a younger woman. But Janie's story is more complicated, a tragedy but also an awakening, her journey one of self-discovery.Janie is 16 when we first meet her in the care of her grandmother, a slave who became pregnant to her owner just before abolition. Janie's own birth was as a result of the rape of her mother by a teacher. The date isn't given, but a quick calculation suggests that the bulk of the book takes place in the first couple of decades of the 20th century. This matters, because one of my major criticisms of the book is that it seems to be set quite apart from historical context. There is no mention of WW1, no suggestion that any of the men fought or, indeed, had an opinion on the rights or wrongs of fighting for the USA. My (shallow) understanding is that this was a time of great change for African Americans, when they began to demand that a country that expected them to fight and die for it should also give them rights as equal citizens, develop a true democracy that embraced all people equally. But Janie's world indicates none of this, and I found myself therefore not being able to entirely accept it as a realistic picture of the time.Instead, Janie's contemporaries are shown as lazy, passive and unambitious on the whole, their aspirations beaten out of them by a world still run by and for the white elite. That I could accept more, though it seems in conflict with the idea of the development of the all-black town of Eatonville in which much of the story is placed. And Eatonville itself doesn't ring wholly true – when Janie and her new husband arrive there, it is no more than a plot of land with a few shacks, but within a few years it seems to be a thriving success story, without any indication of where that success comes from. And again, there is no discussion of politics or the wider world – Eatonville seems to exist in happy isolation, and the people Janie meets there and on her travels live carefree lives, based around drinking, gambling and sex – a happy-go-lucky existence, with no thought for the future. The position of women is one of almost total subservience to their men – a style of life where sexism and domestic violence is accepted by all. I was surprised at how negative a picture a black author was creating of the black community at a time when the political struggle for equality was building to a crescendo.The reason I bring up these criticisms first is that, after I finished the book, I read the forewords and afterword in my copy, written by Edwidge Danticat, Mary Helen Washington and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and was rather stunned to discover that my criticisms echoed those of the male black writing community of the time, whose dismissal of the book was based pretty much on it not conforming to the political agenda of the black movement. The subsequent feminist critiques of the '70s and later, it seems to me, dismiss these criticisms too easily, perhaps because they think that to accept them would weaken their own argument that the book is a seminal text in the finding of the black female voice in literature. I beg to disagree - with both parties: the lack of a political context is a weakness but not one that prevents the book from making an important contribution; and the fact that it gives women in black culture a voice does not negate the fact that it would have been a greater book had it addressed, or at least acknowledged, the contemporary political situation.Where the book excels is in its portrayal of Janie's character – her finding of her own way despite the male dominance of the society she lives in. As a person of mixed racial ancestry, Janie's light skin tone and unusual hair are used to great effect to show how indoctrinated the black psyche had become to accept the desirability of 'white' physical traits; showing within their community the same kind of prejudices heaped on them from outside it. Having been married off young to a much older man, Janie rebels and runs off with the good-looking and ambitious Joe to Eatonville, only to discover that Joe too believes that a woman is at her best in the kitchen and bedroom. We know from the beginning of the book that there is a third man in Janie's story – the younger Tea Cake, for whom she has left her comfortable home in Eatonville and gone off to work the fields in the Florida Everglades. It is in the few months that she spends with Tea Cake that Janie finally discovers what it is to love and be loved equally.Although the structure of the book is that Janie is telling her story in retrospect to her friend Pheoby, this is a third person narrative for the most part, slipping into first occasionally as we are made directly privy to Janie's thoughts. All of the speech is in dialect, which Hurston handles brilliantly, and although the non-dialogue parts are in a more standard form of English, she maintains speech patterns, tone and vocabulary throughout. The dialect is not so broad that it makes the book hard to read – it's sustained so beautifully that it almost recedes into the background after the reader gets tuned into it. While I have criticised the portrayal of the society as negative, it's also done with great skill, making it completely believable within the internal context of the book. The writing is lyrical at times, especially the section in the Florida Everglades where the land and weather come to play a huge part in the story. The book has its share of tragedy and horror, but Hurston offers compassion to her characters at all times, and she draws them subtly, so that there are few of them who can't earn our empathy.I am aware that this review has taken on gargantuan proportions, but that's a sign of the effect the book and the debate surrounding it had on me. I could write at length about my disappointment that fundamentally Janie's search for herself seems too much to be a search for a man who will love her right. I could mention my anger at the way Hurston seems tacitly to endorse wife-beating so long as it's done with love(!). I could wonder about the lack, not just of children, but of any mention of them. But instead, I'll say that, despite my quite severe criticisms of it, I loved the book for the language and the compelling story-telling, and for making me think, and it's one that I'm sure would deliver even more on a re-read. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of those books that you feel you ought to love because it occupies such an iconic position in 20th century literature. I can’t say I found it an easy read for the reasons I’ll set out shortly but I certainly admired it and felt more kindly towards the book in the second half.The main thing I found difficult about the book was that much of Janie’s story is rendered in vernacular. This does give it a fantastic sense of authenticity but, initially, I found it difficult to get to grips with and found myself having to re-read sentences to ensure I understood what was being said.Janie is a young woman who instinctively wants more from life (although she doesn’t know quite what) and snatches the opportunities that arise although more often than not, sadly, they don’t work out. A recurring theme of the book is the silencing of women, in particular by men but more generally by society. When Janie finally meets someone who seems to want her to be herself and not be constrained, it ends in tragedy.I did find it strange that at certain points in the book the author chooses to switch from Janie articulating her story directly to the third person. The Afterword included in my edition (an essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) describes this as the author shifting ‘back and forth between her “literate” narrator’s voice and a highly idiomatic black voice found in wonderful passages of free indirect discourse’. In one section, the book even switches to the point of view of Janie’s second husband, Jody. And towards the end of the book, when Janie is on trial accused of a serious crime, the reader doesn’t get to hear her defence in her own words.The author’s writing craft is demonstrated by some imaginative turns of phrase. For example, when Janie wakes up in time to see ‘the sun sending up spies ahead of him to mark out the road through the dark’ or, sitting on her porch one evening she watches the moon rise. ‘Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.’ And there is real drama created in the scenes set in the Everglades during which Janie, Tea Cake (her third husband) and others flee the flood water created by the passing hurricane. (It is during this section that the book’s title appears.)

Opens a window on a fascinating place and time in history I had known nothing about.Written in beautiful poetic prose and dialect, the latter hard going but so vivid that the characters come to life.

In this story we meet Janie who is the main protagonist. The author brings the Southern style of talking alive with the characters. It made me feel like I was right there within the story, talking along with them.We are taken back in time to when Janie was a child and I felt privileged to be able to hear of her Nanny (Grandma), giving a bit of history to what life was like for her and Janie’s mum. It shows the dark side of what life was like many years ago with the author describing how diverse things were back then.In fact the author deals with many subjects within this story. Diversity, racism, domestic as well as mental abuse to name but a few. It makes for quite a sombre read but Janie is such a larger than life character and there is much to take in of her life over time and her relationships with three different men. Each one brings something different with it to the reader.I can see why this book has been described as an American classic. It makes for a good solid read and I enjoyed the author’s laid back style of writing. Whilst it didn’t quite impact me in the way I had hoped, Their Eyes Were Watching God is still a novel that people should consider giving a go.

When Janie Crawford heads back into town dressed in rough overalls and without the younger man she left with, the local gossips’ tongues get busy wagging. Her old friend Pheoby Watson heads over to Janie’s with a plate of food and a willing ear to let Janie tell her what’s gone on and that’s where the story begins. What a tale it is.Without spoiling too much, it’s fair to say there is space on the branches of the 'great tree' of Janie's life for more love, life and natural disasters than one woman should have to bear. As it’s the American South in the 1930s, racism is everywhere, including in Janie’s blood. If you have been following some of the conversations in books and other media about how sexism and racism entwine, or on topics like colourism, there is both a feeling of what a modern writer Hurston is, and a shameful indictment of how little things have changed since she was writing. The way Black communities in the book are impacted more by the (real-life event) Okeechobee hurricane had echoes in Hurricane Katrina for me.Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story of Black women, as told from woman to woman, be it Janie talking to Pheoby or Nanny telling Janie her remembrances of the Civil War, reminding us how few generations there are between slavery and Janie’s time, and back then and now. It reminded me of the intergenerational story in Yaa Gyasi’s book Homegoing.

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" represents the life of Janie, a black women struggling to establish herself in her society - from the teenage girl whose life is defined for her to the women whose life experiences finally gives her the independence she really wants. This work explores the life of African Americans, the oppression of women in a male dominated society and views on skin colour.Possibly one of the classic works of the 20th Century and a major work of African American literature. I found this novel full of life and an enjoyable read.

Great book, loved it took me on an emotional journey of relationships, male views of colour, race, and what they considered to be worthy of their affections of that time as it is now, in regards to being a lighter complexion. Most importantly the main character just wanted affection and not to be put on a pedestal because of her appearance.

A really interesting read with a powerful narrative voice. It dealt with love but also expectation and alongside that, inevitably, disappointment. Janie is on a journey to find the woman that she wants to be despite the expectations of everyone else. She is both typical and atypical and the communities within which she lives are both close (sometimes to the point of suffocation) and isolating if you don't quite, 'toe the expected line' or 'fit the mold' that you have been allotted. The novel also has elements of a love story but it is a love that does not always wear its Sunday best and whilst it is beautiful, can also sometimes be cruel. It was interesting to read about how this book was received but I am glad that at the point of reading, I knew nothing and just appreciated it in its own right.

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