The Color Purple (1982)

I love her god, I do not love the redemptions that her frogs seem to have earned, even though frogs just hop along in the background, even when this is not their tale, I’m still unforgiving of the frogs. Perhaps it is required; happy endings necessitate redemptions, and this is as happy an ending as could be. ( )

Waited too long to read this, maybe in part due to it being a movie? Sweeping and moving, captures a web of complex relationships extremely well with characters who are full and interesting. It was hard not to get caught up in these lives even though they are fictional. ( )

A visceral telling of life enmeshed with racism, poverty, violence, and love from the fictional perspective of a beautiful spirit. ( )

I came to this knowing very little about the details of this book. I knew it was ground breaking, I knew it was a prize winner, but that was about it. Until late on in the book I struggled to place it in time. I'm still not exactly sure of the duration of the book, but it certainly takes place over several decades. It is told in a series of letters, whether actual or metaphorical is not always clear, initially from Celie to God and later between Celie & her sister Nettie.
Celie is the oldest daughter and she is raped by her step-father, the resulting children taken away and she ends up married to an older man whose wife has died. He wants a wife to replace the previous one and to take care of his children. He is noticeably not named, being referred to as Mr _____ through the majority of the book. He wanted to marry Nettie, as the prettier sister, but is persuaded to take Celie, and Nettie disappears. Celie's life is pretty grim and she initially appears to be quite meek and down trodden. She is, however, a survivor and she grows through the book, coming into her own. There is an array of various characters and relatives that come and go through the book. It is noticeable that the most engaging are the women. I got somewhat confused at times with who was related to who, with most characters seeming to have multiple partners, legalised or not. It felt somewhat at odds with the writing to God and the religion embraced by Nettie.
I found it took a little while to get used to the dialect used by Celie in her letters. It was interesting that Nettie's letters had a different language and usage, reflecting the apparent extended schooling and the environment she subsequently found herself in. It took a while to get my eye in, to "hear" Celie, rather than read the words, as written. I thought it was worth the effort.
I thought that there were several areas that I thought were rather too neatly tied up. I'm not sure how Nettie and her rather more traditional approach to marriage & religion would sit alongside Celie and her relationships. Nettie and Samuel leave Africa and the village they lived in for a decade (it's unclear how long exactly) is barely mentioned again. The relationship between Sofia and Eleanor Jane was particularly interesting, the way that relationship ebbed and flowed felt to be well represented. This could have been a more substantial exploration of race relations.
I appreciate that this was a ground breaking book in its time, it remains a book worth reading. The most rewarding aspect being the way that Celie changes and grows, she comes into her own and establishes herself in the world. The scene towards the end when she is sitting on the porch with her husband and he is referred to by his first name feels to me to be a huge step from the Celie we meet at the beginning of the book. ( )

Well, that was a downer.
The first quarter of the book was decidedly poignant, which makes the rest all the more disappointing.
The Nettie plot line was just preposterous. Sooo, your beloved sister is trapped in an abusive marriage, her husband tells you that you would never hear from her again. And what do you do? You move to a nearby town but never ever try to visit your sister again. That doesn't seem like enough though... So you decide to move to Africa with the nice missionaries. Should you, maybe, at least try to visit your sister before you sail off to another continent? Oh, pish-posh! Off you go and just keep sending her letters that you're already convinced she's not getting anyway.
That is unforgivably contrived and clearly done to just a) serve as an additional tear-jerker and b) introduce the whole African agenda and drag it on and and on.
I could look past the complete lack of protagonist's internal development, Shug's nondescript flatness, the glaring bias, even the whole Forrest-Gump-Hollywoody feel of the book, but Nettie going to Africa? Oh please! ( )