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A review by krishnendu
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
3.0
3.2/5
I started "The Color Purple" expecting to fall in love with it, and found myself reaching the final page without having experienced the connection.
The novel is an epistolary from the perspective of an uneducated African-American woman named Celie, written in Black English sociolect with intentional spelling and grammar errors. This makes reading difficult initially, especially for non-native readers.
At the intersection of racism, feminism, economic inequality, and spirituality, I realise this work is undeniably important considering it was published in the 1980s. It addresses many critical angles like male dominance, homosexuality, sisterhood, adultery, female genital mutilation, black slave trade, etc. But I struggled to resonate with the story and its characters.
Characters like Shug Avery felt impractical and the graphic depictions of child sexual abuse and incest were insanely disturbing. However, I enjoyed Nettie's detailed accounts of her missionary work in Africa a lot. I was rooting for Celie to denounce her biblical white-skinned blue-eyed old-man God so bad!
I wish i enjoyed this book as much as the other reviewers did. It is an extremely powerful piece in modern feminist literature exploring self discovery and escaping systemic oppression not just for homosexual black women, but women everywhere.
I started "The Color Purple" expecting to fall in love with it, and found myself reaching the final page without having experienced the connection.
The novel is an epistolary from the perspective of an uneducated African-American woman named Celie, written in Black English sociolect with intentional spelling and grammar errors. This makes reading difficult initially, especially for non-native readers.
At the intersection of racism, feminism, economic inequality, and spirituality, I realise this work is undeniably important considering it was published in the 1980s. It addresses many critical angles like male dominance, homosexuality, sisterhood, adultery, female genital mutilation, black slave trade, etc. But I struggled to resonate with the story and its characters.
Characters like Shug Avery felt impractical and the graphic depictions of child sexual abuse and incest were insanely disturbing. However, I enjoyed Nettie's detailed accounts of her missionary work in Africa a lot. I was rooting for Celie to denounce her biblical white-skinned blue-eyed old-man God so bad!
I wish i enjoyed this book as much as the other reviewers did. It is an extremely powerful piece in modern feminist literature exploring self discovery and escaping systemic oppression not just for homosexual black women, but women everywhere.