Daniel had this idea to read a book without knowing anything
about it. I thought it sounded fun and
looked at what was on the shelf and decided on The Color Purple. I hadn’t seen the movie and didn’t really
know what to expect. At first I thought
this was written as a diary, but later realized it is actually letters. The letters are mostly written by Celie to
God, but there is a portion of the book that is written/told from her sister
Nettie’s point of view, and later Celie starts to write to Nettie instead of
God. The book covers most of Celie’s
lifetime, from her as a young girl, to an older woman who has experienced a
lot. The book was very sad at the
beginning, Celie is abused by her father who gives and takes away her two
children. Her mother dies and her father offers her to Mr. Johnson- her sister Nettie’s
suitor, who takes Celie as a wife even though he wanted Nettie and has a public
love affair with Shug Avery without caring how it hurt Celie. The only person Celie has is her sister, but
after their father starts to go for Nettie, Celie urges Nettie to runaway to a
missionary couple who have adopted her own children. This will end up taking her to Africa for
many years. Once Nettie leaves, Celie
has almost nothing. Her husband doesn’t
care for her more than how she can take care of his children and satisfy his
needs. Over time, her life starts to
improve, she becomes great friends with Shug Avery, to the point she loves her. When Celie discovers that her husband has
been hiding Nettie’s letters for years, she has a breaking point and decides
she doesn’t have to take it anymore.
Shug rescues her and brings her to Tennessee where Celie starts a pants
(tailoring) business. Pants for women, a
modern idea.
Besides those main characters- Harpo is Celie’s stepson and
his wife is Sophia. Sophia is not a
pushover as Celie, she will hit Harpo back when he tries to beat her. She stands up for herself and won’t take
anything. When she is insulted by the
Mayor and fights them she is put into prison and then later has to work as
their maid, taking care of their children.
It’s really sad how her independent spirit is broken and she becomes a
mild quiet person at the end. Celie and
her almost switch roles.
In all, the book really was an awakening about life in the
south in the 1930s. It was interesting
how the characters were not monogamous.
Harpo and Sophia break up and he begins seeing Squeak, and Sophia is
okay with it. Later Squeak goes off to
sing and Sophia is back with Harpo, they just seem to accept each other. The writing style flowed fast and I was able
to read this novel in one day. As soon
as the sisters started writing to each other I couldn’t put the book down, I had
to see if Nettie would make it back from Africa to see her sister again. A good novel, now it’s time to see the movie
and compare.
I’ll give this a 95%- solid A
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