Michael Finocchiaro's Reviews > The Color Purple

The Color Purple is an absolute masterpiece about love and redemption. Shug, Celie, Sofia, and Nellie are some of the strongest women characters in American fiction. I am literally writing this with tears streaming down my cheeks.

There is so much to unpack here as Alice Walker deals holistically with the fate of African Americans from the perspective of Africa and the tribes who sold their kinsman to white slavers, the devastation of Africa by European colonizers particularly after WWI leading to WWII, the violence of in the South particularly aimed towards women, female sexuality...There is an infinite depth in this book that can reveal itself more and more with each successive read.

The first half of the story is told through letters to God by Celia who is married, against her will, to Mr. ____. We learn that his first name is Albert, but we never learn his last name. Perhaps, this anonymity is symbolic of the widespread rape and spousal abuse in impoverished communities - and yet we also see that in the white mayor's family, through her sister-in-law Sofia's eyes is no more sane and no less violent.

Celia was raped by her stepfather and bore two children that subsequently disappeared. Her sister refuses Mr. ____ in marriage and leaves and thus Celia is given to him. Sex for her is a burden and a torture without end: You know the worst part? she say. The worst part is I don't think he notice. He git up there and enjoy himself just the same. No matter what I'm thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling don't seem to enter into it. She snort. The fact he can do it like that make me want to kill him. (p. 65).

In fact, Albert loves the singer Shug who, ailing, comes to their house (and incidentally name drops legendary blues singer Bessie Smith as a friend - thus dating the story to the 30s). As Celie nurses Shug back to health,the two women develop a deep, lasting love for each other that is both physical and spiritual and the first love that Celia has ever felt from another person: She say my name again. She say this song I'm bout to sing is call Miss Celie's song. Cause she scratched it out of my head when I was sick...First time somebody made something and name it after me. (p. 73) This is one of the first moments where having a box of Kleenex handy is not a luxury. Through Shug, Celie learns about her body and that she can have pleasure via her breasts and her sex (p. 78).

The book has many characters that transform completely during the book. Mr. ____ for example, will be cursed by Celie when she leaves (finally), but he will change completely into a tender-hearted and remorseful man who accepts his wife's sexuality such as it is and she in turn is able to forgive him. In fact, at the end of the book, there is a beautiful reunion which is somewhat prefigured back on p. 57: "First time I think about the world. What the world got to do with anything, I think. Then I see myself sitting there quilting tween Shug Avery and Mr. ____. Us three together gainst Tobias and his fly speck box of chocolate. For the first time in my life, I feel just right. She and Shug have a spiritual transformation as well, evolving from the white-borrowed religion of a white God which has born no good for Celie: Yeah, I say, and he give me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won't ever see again. Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful, and lowdown. (p. 192). Shug expresses her beliefs this: The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. (p. 195). The next two pages are a beautiful eloge to this form or Emersonian deism, a powerful arugment for a more personal and less judgmental religion. Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees to everything to git attention that we do, except walk?" (p. 196) I was touched by this ecological message that reminded me of the comments on this that I made in my reviews of The Overstory and The Lord of the Rings. From this point on, she addresses her letters directly to Nellie...

The letters written back to Celie from her sister Nettie are hidden for years by a pre-repentant Mr.____. In this letters, we learn of Nettie's voyage to Africa as a missionary. Nellie also has a spiritual transformation as she sees European Christianity's utter disregard for villagers and their traditions with the complete destruction and near elimination of the Olinka culture that she traveled to Africa to help.

There is just so much depth in this masterpiece, that I will stop my review here and just urge you, beg you to read this book if you have never done so. It is a rare, raw look at humanity and suffering but with a powerful, compelling message of redemption and hope.

My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...