Title: The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Pub: 1983
Pages: 295
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Classic, lgbt
Etc: National Book Award; Pulitzer Prize
Wow. I mean. Really. Wow.
You know how there are some books and their words wrap around you like a comforting blanket? Well...
This. Is. Not. One.
The Color Purple rips the clothes right off of your skin, leaving you bare and vulnerable. From the first freakin' moment opening the page. You are just THERE and you can't be anywhere else but THERE. Even when you're not.
Wow.
Have you seen the movie? I had. I thought I was prepared. Because the movie was devastating. I remember vividly being in the house that me and a couple of college friends rented, sitting there in the dark, all of us sitting on our furniture, chain smoking, drinking wine and crying. The movie didn't prepare me.
Walker's words are music. Sometimes a sweet melody, but mostly a cacophony of pain and sorrow. Oh and how the characters change and grow with time, how they eventually find peace. And the dichotomy of the South and Africa? It makes me yearn to find pieces of literature that can show me the mysteries of that continent.
I am incoherent and refuse to speak of the summary. It's The Color Purple! It doesn't need a summary.
It is alive.
It is life.
I can't wait to read this!!
ReplyDeleteWow! I've never read the book either but have seen the movie. Sounds powerful... I'll move it up on the list!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great book. I loved it the first time I read it in high school and have read it a couple more times since. I've been meaning to pick it up recently...and I may do that soon!
ReplyDeleteWow... This is about the most accurate review of The Color Purple ever. I haven't seen the film, but the book is completely harrowing but also amazing :)
ReplyDeleteI'm doing the GLBT challenge from your other blog, so I might need to read this again as part of that (and because I really really want to now!)
Beautiful post, Christina. I adored this book too.
ReplyDeleteLots of yes to this. The Color Purple is one of my desert island books -- every time I read it, I'm blown away all over again by Celie's voice, and Nettie's, and just basically every single thing about the book.
ReplyDeleteHow could I not have read or watched this yet? Looks like I need to read first.
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