LitPicks - April '08

Transgressions: This month we portray women who cross boundaries, defy codes, and flaunt tradition. They gain much and lose much as they search for a truer self. What are we to make of them?

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works




Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
219 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Alice Walker (The Color Purple) was responsible for kindling our current interest in this lovely but once neglected work. Their Eyes was a favorite of hers, now a favorite of many, and "short-listed" as a favorite of book clubs everywhere.

From the opening lines we know this story is of a dream not deferred (nods to Langston Hughes)—certainly not for Janie Mae Crawford.

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, [for] women ... the dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

It is Janie Mae's passion to "act and do things accordingly" that drives this story. Doing so comes at a price, but one she is willing to accept. Married thrice, widowed twice, she carves her own way in a life pre-determined by race and gender. (For a more detailed plot summary, see our Reading Guide for Their Eyes Were Watching God.)

Hurston's prose, poetic at the onset, sometimes falls flat—but only sometimes. Overall, her novel is compelling and her heroine endearing. We admire Janie Mae's doggedness and daring. Although some readers find the colloquial speech difficult—like Twain and Faulkner, it lends her work a rich and authentic voice. Read this—you will be glad you did.

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Loving Frank
Nancy Horan, 2007
400 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Though engrossing and beautifully imagined, this book is disturbing. When real-life Mamah Cheney leaves her husband and children to elope with Frank Lloyd Wright, she pays a price. Throughout, one wonders: is the price too high or not high enough?

Yet author Nancy Horan doesn't ask us to judge; she simply wants to reveal how people make complicated choices and how they manage to live with their decisions. It's easy to feel torn, identifying with Mamah (MAY-ma)—but questioning her actions. Her sudden dash to Europe with Wright leaves you both distressed and exhilarated.

Although part of me hoped, fervently, for both characters' happiness, in this case it's hard not to consider utilitarianism—an ethical system in which actions are judged according to the greatest good for the greatest number. Mamah and Frank's actions leave a wake of emotional devastation that remains hard to justify, and yet....

The two make a life together that is enviable—one of intense creativity and artistic vision. According to Horan, it was a life that inspired Wright to reach his mature genius, of which we are the lucky recipients. Yet (too many "yets" and "buts" in this review) Horan seems to imply that genius should be granted great leeway—even at the expense of others' pain. Echoes of Ayn Rand?

Read this elegant book! Read it because it's good—and because it will yield a rich, thought-provoking discussion. Also, be sure to download our Readers Guide for Loving Frank.

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Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, 1877
838 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Powerful, tragic (you know what happens, right?), and one of the greatest reads in all of literature. Outwardly, Anna Karenina is the story of a woman who struggles to break free of one web—marriage—only to find herself entrapped in another web. The latter, more pernicious, is the futility of life centered on self. In a final, brilliant interior monologue, Anna realizes she cannot escape her own self.

Utlimately, the book is not so much a romance about love and marriage as it is a philosophical exploration of what constitues a good life. Tolstoy sets up a mirror plot, the story of Levin, who lays claim to the novel's moral center. The book's last line is his, in which he reflects on his life—a life with "the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it."

Levin's life is the antidote to Anna's: like the landowner he is, Levin nurtures his life as he nurtures his crops—with "positive meaning," faith, and devotion to family. It is a life that transcends self— and in doing so, fulfills self, a fufillment that Anna could not attain.

Which brings us back to Anna. Tolstoy doesn't judge her on moral terms. In Anna "a surplus of something so overflowed her being that it expressed itself beyond her will." She is intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, and unable (not just unwilling) to be bound by restrictive, hollow societal codes. She is a seeker and a woman in a society that will not tolerate difference—in women.

This is a vast, sprawling novel teeming with life. (How's that for cliched writing? But it fits so well!) Do note the page numbers before tackling it—though it is not difficult going. The only difficulty you'll experience is trying to put the book down to go to work, go to bed, go do anything.

A final note: next to "Call me Ishmael" and "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." the opening lines to this "vast, sprawling novel" are perhaps the most famous in bookdom. No, I'm not going to tell you...read for yourself.

Be sure to download our Reading Guide for Anna Karenina. 


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