When I finally read Their Eyes Were Watching God, I was…. surprisingly disappointed.
I had been prepared for Hurston’s gorgeous language and use of metaphor, for her depictions of the ‘Glades in Florida and the stories of the town mule in Eatonville. For nighttime porch chats and wisdom handed down by grandmothers. For her sense of humor. For nature, everywhere. I was even a little bit prepared for her use of Ebonics (from my previous attempt at the novel). What I wasn’t prepared for was her complete lack of plot and character development. Other than Janie- the main character- most of the other characters seemed to exist in 2D only. Even her great loves. They added to her journey, but did not really serve another purpose. From someone who had spent her whole life researching others, I had expected a better understanding of characters and how they added to a world.
Perhaps, this is how Zora saw her own world- as an extension of herself. Or perhaps she was just depicting one kind of girl. One type of story. It is often said that somewhere between Dust Tracks and Their Eyes lies the truth of who Zora Neale Hurston really is.
Zora at recording site in Belle Glade, Florida
In her famous essay How it Feels to be Colored Me Zora describes the different versions of herself that emerge depending on the background she is in:
Uncolored Zora, when she is in her hometown.
Colored Zora, when she is thrust against a “sharp white background”.
And Cosmic Zora, when she is sauntering down 7th Avenue in Harlem, wearing her hat at a certain angle.
There, she belongs “to no race or time”. She is the eternal feminine, part of “the Great Soul that surges within boundaries”.
“When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again.”
Zora Neale Hurston
The trouble with researching a writer is that you can never get at the truth of them. You can come close, I think. You can learn everything about their lives and their families, their likes and their dislikes, their great loves, their affairs, their hopes and their dreams (sometimes), but you can never get at the very essence of them: their souls. If you are lucky, they have touched enough people and infused enough of their work with it for it to shine through.
I am glad that for a brief moment I managed to get a glimpse into the very many lives of Zora Neale Hurston.
