Their Eyes Were Watching God: a review

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board."

When a novel opens with a sentence that beautiful and revelatory, it's hard to imagine the author can maintain that high standard throughout. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston creates such poetry and truth on nearly every page. 

Beyond her mastery of language, Hurston's experience as an anthropologist, ethnographer, and folklorist give her an incredible insight into humanity, particularly the humanity of Black communities of the southern US in the 1930s, (though Their Eyes reaches back to the slave era in explaining the motivations of protagonist Janie's grandmother). 

I was fascinated to learn of Eatonville, Florida, one of the first self-governing all-Black communities in the US. I was even more fascinated with the way Hurston weaves Black folklore throughout the story without ever foregrounding it as such. The personification of Death. Community moments of song. Games. Nicknames. The depth of culture and the celebration throughout the story adds a richness like the soil in the great Floridian muck. 

Their Eyes has a framing story that begins at the end, yet the story moves with surprise. Janie grows and moves and makes free choices that women still struggle for 90 years on. The plot travels - literally and figuratively - it never hurries, but it keeps action happening even in simple domestic scenes.

Hurston's female characters, especially main character Janie, do have more fullness than the male characters, but that feels appropriate to the story. The males aren't flat, they are just peripheral characters. I love Janie. I wish I could sit on the porch with her and learn more from her. She is wise, unique, brave, strong, and honest.  

Their Eyes is simple, and it is incredibly complex. It is comfortable and unique. It is brief and deep. I understand why Alice Walker said "There is no book more important to me than this one." I will not be loaning my copy out. 

PS: I cut the earlier quote short so you could feel the power of it. In fact, the whole paragraph hangs together so beautifully that it should be enjoyed in its fullness: 

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

The Little Paris Bookshop: a review

Nina George's writing is a master class of the true meaning of sensuality. On each page you might smell a riverbank, taste the sea in a pot of mussels, hear the cry of cicadas, feel a cat purr against your belly, or watch the hair rise on a lover's arm. 

Having devoured Little French Bistro, I tried my best to savour The Little Paris Bookshop. I failed. Once again George swept me into a French adventure, this time leaving Paris via riverways and canals to Provence. Bookshop is the bigger selling of George's books, and perhaps if I'd read it first I would understand why. I do recognize, however, that my lack of engagement with the main character Perdu comes from my own particular circumstances and is probably unfair both to him and the author. Unfortunately, to explain that statement would require a spoiler, so you'll just have to ask me about it in private. 

The theme of healing, through relationships and literature, from the inevitable bruises of life is one with which I have deep experience and deep appreciation. The bookshop in the title is called The Literary Apothecary, and Perdu sees himself as a druggist prescribing the right book for the right reader at the right time. The knowledge of both people and of books that such a job would require is remarkable - perhaps only achievable in fiction, but still highly compelling. It made me understand a little better the drive to read that I've experienced in recent months. It's not a new drive, but it has definitely grown like an unsated hunger. I get hangry for books, but the right books. And Nina George's books satisfy. How she manages to combine light and depth amazes me. Most writers make you choose between being talked down to and having your spirit assaulted. Like Anne Patchett, Nine George does neither. 

High praise and gratitude aside, Nina George's world is shockingly lacking in diversity or awareness. No people of colour, only the most tertiary of lesbianism. There are no gay men in the arts in France? No trans people in Brittany or Provence? None of France's millions of immigrants have anything to say or do (besides producing cooking smells behind closed doors) or ever enters a popular bookshop? Seems implausible. Celebrating "Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas" was jarring, anachronistic, inaccurate and out of touch. 

Still, this book was pleasing and insightful and lovely. I look forward to whatever else Nina George writes, and hope her next story includes a more representative cast of characters. 

Little French Bistro: a review

Aaaaaaaah. Is there any more satisfying feeling than choosing a random book off a bargain pile and finding it the perfect read? That was exactly how Nina George's Little French Bistro felt. Charming. Encouraging. Refreshing.

It started out a little rocky for me - a suicide attempt. This is not a spoiler, it is on the book blurb and is the very first scene. In my world it's not the perfect way to open an novel, but the story really picks up from there. The theme of finding your true self at any age followed so nicely with having recently read Untamed, but George's writing (and, to be fair, the novel form) appeal to me SO MUCH MORE.

With moments in Paris, Bistro takes place largely in Brittany, a region of France I never read about without wanting immediately to book a one-way ticket. I want the wild sea. I want the wild woods, I want the wild people harkening back to their Celtic roots. Oh sure, that may all be fictionalized exaggeration, but it is exaggeration that appeals to me. The food*, the settings, the stories, the wine - it all just works.

This is a novel you read in two sittings, not because it is light and airy, but because it is deep and moving and keeps pulling you forward. The central love stories in Bistro happen between people in their middle years with baggage and scars and insecurities and sagging breasts. I love these people. Oh sure, there's a young couple, but their story isn't central, which is a nice change. Sadly, the  one spot of diversity (I'm not going to be more specific because that is a spoiler) is downplayed rather than celebrated, and I thought that was a missed opportunity. 

I loved this book. I will re-read this book, which I honestly don't do much with novels. I think everyone should read this book. I also think I should learn to speak French and Breton and move to Brittany and work in a bistro. That is all.
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* At the end of both this and The Little Paris Bookshop (review soon coming) George shares several regional recipes. Sure, gluten means some of them - like the fabulous sounding Breton pancakes - aren't for me, but it shows how essential food is to George's stories. Maybe have a snack before you read one of George's books as they will make you hungry.