Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is such an important Feminist book! why no one recommended it to be before!?!
The most significant aspect of the story was the various power dynamics in various relationships in the protagonist's life. The innate need for submission by the woman was more than often a mandatory undisclosed requirement for the men counterparts to establish "ownership". It affirms the ugly truth institutionalized patriarchy. Body image and age shaming depicted is still so significant for contemporary society. Suppression of women sexuality and chastity depicted so powerfully.

Like other great literature (Huckleberry Finn, The Colour Purple, etc) this book hits the gut in a subliminal level on the race issue. Although, the people in the book are free from slavery the after-effect of the same is obvious. Caucasian skin preference and comparison of skin colour within the African-American community (as in the case of Janie and TeaCake) is remarkable and even exist in present times.

Covering plenty of issues, Their eyes were watching God, has the essence of a love story and is realistic in that sense. It takes half a lifetime for Janie (Protagonist) to finally find love that she craved for all her life. TeaCake just made to one of my favorite book boyfriends, He comes across as a romantic heartthrob (except for sometimes...). One of wonderful thing in their relationship was how TeaCake encourages Janie to try new thing and learn new things irrespective of social constraint.

I would have given it 5 stars if the vernacular was not as difficult for me to read. The book covers dialogs in an African-American dialect. Now, in general, I enjoy reading a creative vernacular. However, my mind was not grasping it. Perhaps, due to the lack of having any real experience with that language (except for the Orange is the new black Black girls team) So it was little difficult to follow. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that The vernacular has a lot to do with the stance of the time and place where the book is written and is an essential component of the piece.

I would recommend this book to anyone who prefer Feminist literature. I would advise reading a bit about the life of Zora Neale Hurston in order to understand her prospect of the novel.

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