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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2003 - 05:55 pm: | 
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Hello All,
Two of my favorite books of all time is back in print: God's Country by Percival Everett, and The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker.
God's Country was the first book that I read by Percival Everett and it remains my favorite. I had tried for years to get Carey to read this book. For many years the book was out of print. Now it's back in a paperback edition. I can't recommend it highly enough!! It's a western centered around a slow-witted, stupid white cowboy and a black man that pals around with him. It's poignant and hysterical!!
The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker is in my opinion, is almost a better book than The Color Purple. Walker managed to create just about the most despicable character ever in Brownfield Copeland. I'm going to buy a copy because my old paperback copy has been passed around and worn out!
Now I got to get back to the stove. I smell my open face peach custard pie in the oven. Check out these two books and get back with me and tell me how right I am! *LOL* |
Anita
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 12:01 am: |
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Thumper:
Shame on you! Go on and admit that "The Third Life of Grange Copeland" is Alice's best work. I still see Mem, Brownfield, and that nasty, crusty Josie. What an adventure! I still read the book every year around Christmas. (Christmas is a cool time to be up "Norse.")
What I love most about the book is the spirit of redemption. I never gave up on any of the characters. "The Third..." is a book worth a new thread of discussion. |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 01:48 pm: |
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Hello Anita,
You called me out. *big smile* YES, THE THIRD LIFE OF GRANGE COPELAND IS A BETTER BOOK THAN THE COLOR PURPLE!! I feel better now. What can I say, Alice Walker hit the ball out of the park on her first try. It's also Walker's only book that don't seem to have an agenda or moral that its trying to preach. The book is solid storytelling at it's best, with highly developed characters. Walker wrecked the joint with this book! |
Florence
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 05:31 pm: |
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Thumper, perhaps your admission that you're a sucker for "traditional" family oriented tales set in the deep south and muggy with high drama is why you're so grossly missing the mark here.
There is no critic in their right mind who would say that "Third Life of Grange Copeland" is a superior book to "The Color Purple". Either in technical properties, structure and definitely not in character development. It's not even close. "Third Life" is Walker's one and only book to be out of print for nearly 20 years!
That alone speaks volumnes when one realizes that every other fiction book she's written has always been in print and been a bestseller. "Grange" has been re-released six times (including two years ago) and has went out of print each and every time!
I'm not saying "Grange" isn't good. I think it's a really good first novel that adequately established Walker as a literary author and obvious feminist rather than just another "negro writer emerging from the civil rights movement".
Add to that the fact that all writing has an agenda and that Walker's themes and agendas of feminism, anti-racism and the separation of the sexes are fully on display in "Third Life of Grange Copeland" as well as her old stand by theme of redemption, which is present in all her books. Notice the redemption of "Mister" in Color Purple that was not present in the film version, but quite heartwarming in the novel.
As a major Alice Walker fan and an academic who considers Walker's "agendas" and "human rights" prostrating" the very thing that elevates her above the rest of the crop, I simply couldn't resist posting an objection to your claims, which are probably owing to the fact that you have not read every single Alice Walker book before announcing that "Third Life" is a superior book to "The Color Purple".
Ooops. Maybe you're just trying to get people to purchase "Third Life". That would be admirable.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 05:59 pm: |
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Hello Florence,
We are going to have to, respectfully, agree to disagree on this one.
I hate to do this to you, but contrary to your post, with the exception of her poetry books, I HAVE READ EVERY SINGLE ALICE WALKER BOOK! And I still stand by my assessment of The Third Life of Grange Copeland. Sure, her themes are the same but, and surely you will agree, that in her latter works Walker's agenda was blantantly obvious. With The Third Life of Grange Copeland, the themes are not blantant at all. I dare say, the novel is more story driven than politically motivated. That can not be said with Temple of My Familiar and definitely not Possessing The Secret of Joy.
Character development: Florence, you must be kidding. Walker's creation of Brownfield was superb. Really. She created an evil person without making him cartoonish and unrealistic. That's one hell of a line to walk in creating a character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
As to the movie The Color Purple, I wholeheartedly agree with you. The film did not go into the redemption of Mister. But, if you watch the second DVD of the new The Color Purple DVD set, Spielberg explains that he actually filmed it and latter decided to cut it since he saw the movie as being Celie's story and not Mister's. As I said, I'm with you, and I would have loved to have seen the deleted scenes in the movie.
Florence, of course I'm trying to get people to buy and READ Third Life. *big smile* That's my whole purpose of starting the thread. *big smile*
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Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 10:32 am: |
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Read Alice Walker's book THE SAME RIVER TWICE for her take on how the movie did her book (also for how she got rooked out of her 3 percent of the gross) |
Mike Evans
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 01:37 pm: |
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Thumper,
The Third Life.... & her first collections of short stories & essays are Walker's best works in my opinion. I've read that first novel a few times since the early 70's and everyone I've passed it along to thought it was a better book than Color Purple [ someone conveniently lost my hardcover copy]. God's Country is also another fine novel from the guy you called "a freaking literary genius." |
Snake Girl
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 03:07 pm: |
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Boy is this interesting.
I guess because I'm a person who has actually been "vaginally circumsized"...Walker's book "Possessing the Secret of Joy" is probably my all time favorite book by her. It's incredibly well written and researched and isn't preachy in the least.
It was also the very first novel in world history to be written about a condition that affects 100 Million Black Women and girls...right now.
After that book I would place "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" (Non-fiction) as her finest, followed by "The Color Purple" and "In Love and Trouble".
**I didn't enjoy "Temple of My Familiar" because I felt Walker tried to do too much with it and tried to follow up "Color Purple" with a book that was more universal...but less intimate.
I purchased and read "Life of Grange Copeland" two years ago and thought it was a fine book, although, I agree with Florence, Walker's writing had not yet ripened fully as it had by her 3rd novel--"Color Purple". Also, people are forgetting that the "Color Purple" employed a daring never before used structural technique...a novel written constructed through letters to God. The folk language was impeccable. The scenes in Africa breathtaking and quite profound.
Characters such as Shug Avery, Sophia and Albert were so true and unforgettable that they each could warrant a full and complete novel all on their own.
And the freedom that Walker had attained by them to explore racism was broader so that she actually had room to essay the unique ways inwhich racism effects "black women" and not the men. Along with "Bluest Eye", this also made "Color Purple" revolutionary, because "RACE" up until then was always portrayed as a dilemna facing "the black man!"....females supposedly had it easier (which we all knew was a crock).
Other than Brownfield and Josie--I don't really recall the characters of "Grange" by name or even by deed. The scene where the pregnant white woman is at the park river and someone gets killed or something is the most powerful and memorable scene in the book. I thought Brownfield's character was as real as Celie's character, equal in intensity, but he was not really in as magical company as Celie was.
Still, as I started out mentioning, it all depends on how different people are able to relate to different books. Perhaps "Third Life" makes male readers feel less uncomfortable than "Color Purple" did...and as I illustrated, my own life experience puts "Possessing the Secret of Joy" at the top--because with 100 million black women infibulated--that was a topic--an "agenda"--that DESERVED a book. Alice Walker remains one of the most important novelists on earth because of her caring for women.
I will dig out my copy of "Third Life" and read it again. I liked laughing at Josie's sloppy behind.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 09:31 pm: |
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Hello Snake Girl,
I have to strongly disagree with a couple of points you made in your post.
1.) While the structure Walker used for The Color Purple was PERFECT for telling the story, it is by no means literally revolutionary. While it demonstrated, expertly, Celie, loneliness and isolation, it was no more than a chapter break. It gave the same information that many novels did when the chapter break was no more than a date and time, i.e. Paris, January 14, 1923. In that its main purpose was to one, give the reader a chance to take a break; two, move to another aspect of the story; and three, show the passing of time. Now for my money, the true innovation has been to tell a story with a main character that has no participation in the narrative. Example, A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley used this technique. Or even as far back as the movie Citizen Kane where Charles Foster Kane does not narrate any of the movie yet he is the main character. That is innovation.
2.) Racism from the black woman point of view: Walker was not the first author to visit this theme, nor was she the first to base a novel upon it. Right off the bat, my mind is on Passing by Nella Larsen, Blacker The Berry by Wallace Thurman. And what about Zora? How did Walker explore territories of racism that these authors, these books do not?
I'm not trying to decreasing the significance of The Color Purple. But, let's try to keep it in perspective.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 09:33 pm: |
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Hello Mike,
Thanks Mike. I thought I was the lone voice out in the wilderness there for a minute. *smile*
Yep, I love Everett! The man does not receive the prestige or attention that he deserves. |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 09:38 pm: |
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The literary form Alice Walker utilized in writing the Color Purple was not original; it's a genre that has a name: "belles-lettres." |
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