Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
219 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Historical/Literary

Like Into Thin Air, this was assigned reading. I had heard horror stories about the dialect, but I found the novel surprisingly readable and reasonably interesting. (By the way, the cover of my edition, with a foreword by Mary Helen Washington and an afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is just gorgeous.) This is a great book to analyze, perhaps not as great a book to read for pleasure, at least for this reader. There are definitely feminist undertones--Janie accepts and endures abuse by the men in her life, and even Tea Cake, who gives her the most self-agency, is controlling and jealous. Race, of course, also plays an important role.

I appreciate Hurston's work on a literary level, but I find the plot lacking--it serves only to drive the development of Janie as the all-important main character, which is a noble purpose and sufficient for mainstream fiction. I'm used to reading genre, I guess.

Link Anthology 8/15/08

* Do teachers influence blackness?

* Thoughts on poverty in America, complete with charts and hard data.

* Greta Christina on evangelical atheism. Thought-provoking.

* Also, on anonymity and manners on the Internet. I agree, of course, or I wouldn't expend effort in blogging (i.e. during ibarw).

Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay (reread)

Tigana
by Guy Gavriel Kay
676 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Historical

This is my third pass of Tigana and my second front-to-back read (the other time being a skim-through of Dianora's sections). I still love Kay's prose, overwrought as it sometimes is; the ending still killed me, though no tears. I love Dianora as usual; more unusually, I loved the riselka legend. Although I don't understand the last sentence of the Epilogue--three men see a riselka, one is blessed, one forks, one shall die. Devin, Alessan, and Baerd: which is which? The ending has very neat couplings--Devin/Alais, Alessan/Catriana, Baerd/Elena--I wish Dianora could have had a happier ending, but I know it's not meant to be. Alais is almost too perfect, but I grew to like her; Alberico is too conveniently focused on power. He is, as Brandin says, ambitious but nothing more. The theme of memory works perfectly to tie all the various plot threads together. And how did I miss the incest scene on my first two passes? Heh. The little things are what I like best about this novel; for instance, go back and read the first sentence of Chapter 1 after you finish the book (and do read the afterword if it's in your edition). Also, Kay's poetry is awesome. Not as good as the pieces in The Lions of Al-Rassan, but still awesome.

However, the espoused view of feminism is disturbingly cynical. Quileia, a matriarchal land to the south, is overthrown by Marius to become true king, and the high priestesses are thoroughly vilified. On page 504, Rovigo tells his daughter, "Alais, my darling, a woman cannot live a life at sea. Not in the world as it is." Even Dianora, the most powerful female character by far, holds influence solely through Brandin. It would be interesting, I think, to analyze Kay's oeuvre from a feminist point of view. He writes strong female characters, but the male characters are usually stronger.

What, you say, you actually want to know what Tigana is about? Well, it falls under the subgenres of high and historical fantasy. It is an epic story with lots of gray and skillfully shifting, poetic narration. The Ygrathen sorcerer Brandin has cast a spell that erases the province of Tigana and its capital city, Avalle of the Towers, from the entire world's memory--save for those who were born in Tigana before its fall. Ostensibly, the plot follows Prince Alessan of Tigana and his motley band, but it achieves so much more in surpassing cliché. I'm glad that I bought it, because this is a novel that I'll definitely be rereading in the future.