The Color Purple ~ Alice Walker

For a book that is only just over two hundred and fifty pages long, it took me far longer to read this book than I anticipated. I have no clue why but I had no motivation to read.

The Color Purple is an epistolary novel that tells the story of Celie, a black woman who was raped by the man she called father, married off to a man who wanted nothing to do with her and loses her beloved sister. Then Celie meets Shug Avery, a self-confident singer, and falls in love.

If I’m entirely honest, I didn’t like Celie for a very long time and I think that’s partially why I really struggled to find the motivation to read this book. Celie has all these horrible things done to her and is treated like less than dirt by her Pa and her husband and yet she sits back and allows it to happen. I know that her position and the setting of the novel meant that Celie couldn’t do anything about her situation without causing more problems, but even in her own words, does she not seem to have a backbone. I realise this is probably an unpopular opinion, but it really grated on me that she wouldn’t even think about sticking up for herself until Shug Avery entered the novel.

Shug Avery is an interesting character and it’s a little hard for me to put into coherent words what I think, but I’ll give it a go. I loved the fact that she was the catalyst for Celie to finally figure herself and what she wanted to do out. I loved her views on her religion, I thought they were quite beautiful. To start with I thought she was going to be one of these characters that was the seven deadly sins personified and that she’d lead Celie on, knowing what she was doing. I was quite surprised by how she supported Celie and helped her become her own person. Shug Avery was a character that I expected to fall into a certain two-dimensional trope and she turned out to be a well-rounded three-dimensional character that smashed through my expectations whilst simultaneous disappointing me.

Despite my lack of motivation to read this book, I was intrigued by the letters Nettie wrote. Nettie’s letters told of her time as a missionary in Africa with one of the many tribes. Personally, I really enjoy stories that have explorers meeting native tribes and having their views on them as savages being subverted (on this note I suggest you go read the Lost City of Z by David Grann for the story of legendary explorer Percy Fawcett’s expedition into the Amazonian rainforest). I found myself reading through Nettie’s letters with vigour and then losing all motivation when the point of view switched back to Celie.

Overall I give this book a controversial three stars. I thought the issue of race was beautifully written and the development of characters was brilliant, but it took me far too many pages to actually want to continue this book and I had absolutely no idea how much time passed between each letter which made it a little hard for me to follow.

C🌙