Abandoned by Booklikes

Wow. "The Color Purple" definitely holds up. I loved the movie when I saw it as a kid and I read the book for the first time in college. At the time I remember being shocked that it was a book. My professor at the time called Stephen Speilberg a coward for not depicting Shug and Ms. Celie's relationship on the screen the way the book did. I didn't get it at the time, but definitely did at the end of the book.

Walker does a great job of showing us Celie and her growing awareness of her own sexuality and how her acceptance or I guess her being forced to be subservient to Mr. drove a lot of things she said and did. When we get to Celie growing into her own and realizing that she doesn't have to stay in a life that she never wanted, it was glorious. Walker goes back and forth between Celie writing to "God" and then her sister Nettie. And then we get to read Nettie's letters to Celie. 

Walker does a wonderful job of showing how black women were not only ground down by the patriarchal and racist society in America, but how they were ground down by other black women and men. 

We get to see a lot of women portrayed in this book besides Shug, Ms. Celie, and Nettie. I loved the story-line following Squeak (Mary Agnes) as well as Sophia.

I also shook my head at how Walker showed the hypocrisy of those white people who are racist to your face, and those who consider themselves allies (like the young girl that Sophie raised) . Walker showing that many black men and black women in this book knew about their white relatives, i.e. many of them were sons and daughters of men who raped their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters. And we get the aftermath of a rape and the understanding that Ms. Celie was raped repeatedly as a child and that was something that everyone knew and just accepted. 

This book is exceptional and it definitely speaks to me.