Their Eyes Were Watching God

I am currently reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This is what it says on the back cover:

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American Literature, Nora Neal Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watch 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 a 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.

About the author: Zora Neal Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage remain unparalleled. Her many books include Dust Tracks on a Road; Jonah's Gourd Vine; Mules and Men; Seraph on the Suwanee; Moses, Man of the Mountain; and Every Tongue Got to Confess.

I'm just getting started with the book, but so far I'm enjoying it. It took me a little while to adjust to the phonetic spellings of the southern dialect. For example, when the main character is telling her friend about the day she ran away from slavery she describes it like this:

"She flounced on off and let her wintertime wid me. Ah knowed mah body wasn't healed, but Ah couldn't consider dat. In de black dark Ah wrapped mah baby de best Ah knowed how and made it to de swamp by de river. Ah knowed de place was full uh moccasins and other bitin'snakes, but Ah was more skeered uh whut was behind me. Ah hide in dere day and night and suckled de baby every time she start to cry, for fear somebody might hear her and Ah'd git found. Ah ain't sayin' uh friend or two didn't feel mah care. And den de Good Lawd seen to it dat Ah wasn't taken..."

I'm enjoying getting caught up in the world of these charaters, this time period.
I just wish I had more time to just get lost in my reading instead of having to scramble for stolen pockets of time between so many other things...




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