Name: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Rating: 3.833333333333333 (375 reviews)
ISBN: 9780061120060

Zora Neale Hurston

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

loisesya

clara

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

"Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo life and see whut you ever done. They know mo 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done heard 'bout you just what they hope done happened."

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hung on. Dis love! Dat's just whut's got us uh pullin’ and uh haulin’ and sweatin’ and doin' from can't see in de mornin’ till can’t see at night. Dat's how come de ole folks say dat bein' uh fool don’t kill nobody. It jus’ makes you sweat.

So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again glided the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

Dey gointuh make 'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Elizabeth

Now, woman forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget.

The nighttime put on flesh and blackness.

“What? How? Why?” - The rose of the word was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.

A personal answer for all other creations except herself.

Tain't Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it's protection. 

Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated?

Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.

There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought. 

Edwin Lang

A columnist for the Globe and Mail - a prominent Toronto / Canada newspaper - said of Tiger Woods recently in light of his come-back victories that we can overlook and even forgive sins as long as, as people, their lives are heroic. Actually, he referred to Americans but I think it is something of a universal sentiment: ‘Seemingly, they don’t mind sinners as long as they are spectacular’. Zora Hurston’s book, and the first I have read of hers, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a love story seemingly amid the literal and figurative maelstrom that often accompanies those pursuing a passion. The story is about Jamie, a beautiful black women in the US South (Florida), uneducated but intelligent and idealistic and as both a woman and an individual emergent in the 1930’s when this was written. The story though is timeless and probably could be placed anywhere. Tea Cake (aka Vergible Woods) is Janie’s third husband. She fell in love with him at thirty-five, reluctantly and resistingly, some time after the death of her second husband of twenty years whom she had followed down the road at fifteen abandoning the old-man she had been betrothed to simply to maintain her virtuous standing. She said of her second husband, who had been a vibrant, charismatic and successful business man, reflecting after his death on her twenty years with him that, at twenty-four and mid-way through their marriage, she realized that she ‘wasn’t petal-opened with him anymore’ and ‘her bed wasn’t a daisy-field for her and Joe (Starks) to play in anymore’, ‘she found out one day when he slapped her face’: ‘he wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it’, and she said of their marriage that ‘Joe Starks had been someone she had grabbed up to drape her dreams on’. Janie had something of an awakening as she entered womanhood, perhaps at 14. Later on, somewhat to her surprise, she realized that ‘She hated her grandmother … (as she, Janie) had been getting ready for the journey to the horizon in search of people … it was important to her and to all the world that she find them and they find her but she had been whipped (only figuratively) like a cur and run off down and back the road after THINGS. Nanny (her grandmother) had taken the biggest thing God even made, the horizon, and her nanny pinched it into a little bit of a thing in the name of love, but it wasn’t love, it was mis-love’. Greatly influenced by Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology and whose ideas contributed to ending segregation in the USA, what comes across in Hurston’s writing is the enjoyment of life that even blacks can have, amid their customs, culture and friends - even in America: that is, she looked at her own culture and the history of her culture as things of value and expressed this in Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, although Nora Hurston had been a successful and prolific writer, she had also been opinionated. Claudia Pierpont in the New Yorker (Feb 9, 1997) called her the ‘American contrarian’ and she appeared, most likely ostracized, to have lived the last ten years of her life, poor, ill and near-penniless, and proud and unapologetic to the end. Hurston had been part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s and 1930’s – where every one seemed to have for a while the freedom to thrive – and probably part of its dissolution during the Great Depression. But as Edwidge Danticat said of Hurston and of this book in particular by quoting Alice Walker (of The Color Purple): “We are a people. A People do not throw their geniuses away”. Valerie Boyd in her 2003 biography of Zora Hurston said: ”she had developed confidence in her self, in her capabilities that was beyond sassy bravado .. she had gotten used to the feeling of peace and wanted more of it – peace, that is, an education too”. I guess in those wild days there was an orthodoxy which she violated: For an excellent review of Hurston and of her work and impact and that includes Alice Walker’s role in resuscitating Zora Hurston as an important author see McGill historian Gil Troy’s blog at <a> Review of Zora Hurston</a> . Claudia Pierpont’s long review for the New Yorker in February 1997 <a> Zora Hurston: A Society of One</a> on the profound importance of Hurston and her work. It was around page 89, what I had noted to myself as perhaps a theology according to Janie, where this went from being a good enjoyable book to a great one. Zora Hurston seems to sum up what we humans tend to get so wrong about the lives we lead and what we pursue: ultimately we are made for people, not things. Later in the book, in a moment of crisis and now as Tea Cake’s wife of two years, Janie tells him in response to his plea that she flee to safety ‘… being dead standing still and trying’ tuh laugh. But you come along and make something outa me’. And even amid the danger (a Floridan Hurricane coming off Lake Okechobee) she reflected that it was ‘worth dying, ready to die because she has seen the light’. Edwin

This was recommended to me by someone after I told them I really enjoyed John Steinbeck’s “

”. It was published in 1937 around the same time as Steinbeck book and also uses vernacular English of the time but in this case black vernacular. This is my first Zora Neale Hurston book and I am in absolute awe, what a book!

The main focus of the book is a character study of the relationship between marriage and gender roles in society particularly in how women try to find their own identities in an institution that is built to infringe on it. Through the protagonist’s three marriages we learn how consequential a relationship is to one’s life. Zadie Smith states in her introduction to this edition that “

a choice of partner stretches beyond romance, it is in the end a choice between values, possibilities, futures and lives

it is about the discovery of self through the other

I think all the marriages in this book are a very interesting discourse on patriarchal heteronormativity. One of her marriages is arranged marriage she enters for security, her second marriage is for status and upward mobility and her last marriage is only possible with financial independence she gets through inheritance. In all her marriages even the one where he treats her as an equal she is still subject to violence and other cruelties because of her gender. I think it’s a brilliant conclusion from Z.Neale that love will not liberate us from oppressive parts of marriage.

The book also serves as commentary on how women navigate romantic relationships (heterosexual ones) without losing their individuality. This book and its themes are still relevant for our contemporary times.

Marion

This was recommended to me by someone after I told them I really enjoyed John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”. It was published in 1937 around the same time as Steinbeck book and also uses vernacular English of the time but in this case black vernacular. This is my first Zora Neale Hurston book and I am in absolute awe, what a book!

The main focus of the book is a character study of the relationship between marriage and gender roles in society particularly in how women try to find their own identities in an institution that is built to infringe on it. Through the protagonist’s three marriages we learn how consequential a relationship is to one’s life. Zadie Smith states in her introduction to this edition that “a choice of partner stretches beyond romance, it is in the end a choice between values, possibilities, futures and lives, it is about the discovery of self through the other”

I think all the marriages in this book are a very interesting discourse on patriarchal heteronormativity. One of her marriages is arranged marriage she enters for security, her second marriage is for status and upward mobility and her last marriage is only possible with financial independence she gets through inheritance. In all her marriages even the one where he treats her as an equal she is still subject to violence and other cruelties because of her gender. I think it’s a brilliant conclusion from Z.Neale that love will not liberate us from oppressive parts of marriage.

The book also serves as commentary on how women navigate romantic relationships (heterosexual ones) without losing their individuality. This book and its themes are still relevant for our contemporary times.

This book had some beautiful beautiful moments. I especially liked this quote: “No hour is ever eternity, but it had its right to weep”. 

Saskia Hughes 

Sarah Sammis

D D D 

Difficult to read for a number of reasons.

Francesca Starecheski

Digital Fire

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

So good! Obvi I knew it was good going in but it was so good. That dog was evil, man.

Eli Alvah Huckabee

I grew ten feet higher just from reading this book.

erin

I get why it's a classic, I do. It's just that reading it right after The Bridge of Beyond made it pale in comparison. I'd probably have given it 4 stars if I'd read it amid a slew of old dead white men. 

Oh well.

Claudiu

I wanted to read this book for ages, I even started it a couple of times but every time I was slowing down when reading the dialogs and not enjoying it as it deserved. Until a Litsy member mentioned the audiobook read by Ruby Dee so I gave it a try. What a revelation! The way she brings to life all the words I was struggling with and Janie's story it's simply amazing! I loved it!

kaitlan

Their eyes were watching God

Colleen

4 Stars

*A raw and visceral story of one woman’s search for happiness*


There is no doubt that Zora Neale Hurston was a ground-breaking author, and Their Eyes Were Watching God shows why. Not only was she a black woman published in a time when publishing was almost entirely white men, this story was also a bit scandalous for the times. 

This is the story of Janie, a young black woman trying to find fulfillment in her life. It is a character-driven story, so much hangs on whether or not you find Janie a sympathetic character. Although she was certainly a flawed character, she felt realistic. The story has a lot of feminist tones as if follows the ridicule that Janie suffered for daring to want something different from her life.


  “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 same 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, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”

Although at times her character might seem aimless and fickle, there was nevertheless something inexorably compelling about her search for love and purpose. Her pursuit of fulfilment and her willingness to move on when necessary certainly contained lessons that are still relevant today.


  “It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.” 

As I mentioned, this is a character-driven story. Until the last bit of the story, there is not much plot other than following Janie from one stage of her life to the next. But I was never bored, and by the end, I was flipping pages quickly to see what would happen.


  “All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.” 

The writing style of Their Eyes Were Watching God is like two sides of a coin. On the one side, there are some absolutely gorgeous descriptions in this book. Hurston describes things in a way that is lush and vivid. I felt like I was in those moments of the story. On the other side though, is the dialogue. The dialogue seems to be the sticking point for many people who didn’t like this book. And I can see why. It is some of the thickest colloquial dialogue I’ve ever read. I don’t have anything against colloquial dialogue. In fact, I rather like it most of the time. Forcing every story to be spoken in the same generic, neutral English is just a continuation of Colonial conformist mindset. Not to mention, it is completely unrealistic to erase all nuances of regional speech. That being said, I did still have to reread a lot of lines. In the end, it wasn’t the colloquial dialogue itself that was bad; it was how much of it there was. This is not just a character-driven story; it is a story where much of the information is relayed through dialogue. Those gorgeous descriptions are surrounded by pages and pages of every word spoken by the townsfolk. I wish the sheer amount of dialogue had been offset by other types of writing. But if the dialogue is scaring you off from this book, then try the audiobook. This really is a wonderful, heartfelt story worth reading.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 5 Stars

At first I thought it was really slow and a little hard to get through. It didn’t really have any big plot until later in the book, but those last 50 pages made up for it. Hurston writes so beautifully and with such cleverness and understanding. This book has so much deeper meaning and makes me want to live the life that Janie had in the end. Hurston makes you feel the love between Janie and Tea Cake, and become at peace with the fear that is to come with death. It is truly a book I would recommend for everyone 🌳

Sadie Hoffman

Beatrix Haase

Had to read this for class. It was a good book but I wouldn't have picked it up if it wasn't for my class.

Maria Flowers

** spoiler alert **
           It wasn't a very enjoyable read and I wasn't on my toes throughout it either. However, it does accomplish a few things effectively. Foremost, we see Janie grow from a naive and optimistic girl into a hard-headed women who has life and it's ongoing obstacles figured out. Secondly, we are exposed to rich themes of faith, color, fleeting beauty, and false love; all of which intertwine throughout Janie's growing periods. The last thing I appreciate about the book was its touch on reality. It was not a typical love story and Janie didn't do anything too terribly exciting but maybe that's how we can connect with her. In a modern day situation, there are women who may live 20 years with her awful husband as Janie did with Joe. Janie's courage to leave the first marriage, passiveness with the second, and sacrifice for the last marriage are all realistic situations but again characterize an honorable woman with feministic qualities.
The book has several memorable quotes, but mainly all of the characters are fleeting. None stood out besides the grandmother, the second husband, the third husband, and the dog; all of which die after a few chapters. 
While the book wasn't engaging it did what it was supposed to do well: tell a love story of troubled and varying degrees of love while adding in discrimination, beauty, youth, and God.

'Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more' ZADIE SMITH 'She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her' When, at sixteen, Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to and old man with sixty acres. Jane endures two stifling marriages before she finally meets the man of her dreams - who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZADIE SMITH Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

Taylor

Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

Fraser Simons

These are the prose I’m looking for. What a well executed book in every respect. A pleasure to consume, fantastic at conveying interiority of characters, and deft at swapping tone - a rare gift. It also manages to have quite a few things to say in a straight forward, but, I think, not simplistic narrative. Setting up the story by having Janie return home and sitting down with a friend to discuss what had happened to her was pretty effective for me. I always seem to like that framing. Though, the narrative does not actually look or feel as though she’s conveying her story in that way, to her friend. It does a time jump to those events. It felt surprisingly cinematic, actually. 

My one complaint most often seems a stylistic one. I felt this could stand to further breath in some parts. As beautiful as it’s told, I didn’t feel a sense of place all that much, and that seems to be, I’ve learned, a pretty central component to my 5 star reads. I have a mind that likes specificity when setting scenes and expounding on character. Without it, the world feels nebulous. I had this problem with Wolf Hall even, where the dialogue and prose are top notch, yet it refused to paint a scene and it bugged me to no end. This isn’t quite that bad. But it certainly made it somewhat difficult to populate the world sometimes. Some people won’t be bothered by this at all, and I can see why it has so many 5 star ratings from the people In my circle here.

Geoffrey Landward

An astonishing work. Like a book-length poem

A Novel

Sarah Escorsa

I read this ages ago for an American Lit class and although I can't remember the story very well, I do remember that I didn't like the book much.

Ellie Younger

It was difficult for me to get into this book at first, but as the story moved along I lost my ability to put it down. Tragic ending, but beautiful writing

Kevin Bertolero

“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's one hell of a way to start a book.

Their Eyes were Watching God

Melody Izard

I may have read this before. I know I have seen part of a made for TV version of the story. But, well, it was worth reading, but wasn't earth shattering. I don't know why I put that much of a burden on poor Zora, but I wanted earth shattering.

Rose Stanley

This was great. Drank it down in a single day. For readability and writing talent, I'm prepared to overlook the fact that the author has one of her main characters rejoice in the name of Teacake.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

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