The Color Purple - Alice Walker

"See my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
His body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way"
      ( Fast Car - Tracy Chapman )

   The lyrics of Chapman's song (one time partner of the author ) portray only one aspect of this fabulous Pulitzer award winning novel from 1982. That would be the bleak, abusive background that the sisters Celie and Nittie find themselves in.  However if I am to list out the themes that nurture this novel - Domestic Abuse ; Racial Abuse ; Ethnic Living ; Going Back to Africa ; Free Love and Free Marriage ; Lesbianism ; Feminism ; Learning to live and love ; Maturity ; Success, Revenge and Forgiving - it becomes clear that this is more than a book based on domestic violence.

Domestic abuse, one of the primary themes, and the one which led to all the other circumstances, are presented in quite harrowing detail here.The circumstance that Celie find herself appear to be so hopeless,  the reader feels its weight and prepares for a outright narration of suffering, abuse and despair. Yet, this environment of abuse is only the launching pad for what is to unfold. For all the hopelessness, that appear so dense and permanent at start, the authoress appears to show that kindness does reward, and for all the never ending ups and downs that life brings, a life that is to be lived in and experienced , is yet rewarding. Other than Celie, the other characters - Albert, Shug, Sophie, Mary Agnes, Harpo - all age and make better people of themsleves over the forty years or so, that is in scope. None of them are faultless, none of them not cruel at some stage, and none of them repenting at some stage to become better persons, learning from their mistakes. Love is to be celebrated in all its various formations, with formal boundaries treated with disregard. The detail of the communal living is represented in such naturalness, the reader cannot help but take comfort in the earthy, homely, accepted environment of the extended family that Celie finds herself in, as it matures. People change, love them for what they are as long as they don't wrong you, the book seems to say.

"I be calm.

If she come, I be happy. If she don't, I be content.", things Celie as she thinks of her lover, while the latter is away having her latest fling. This is the nature of the relationships right through the book.

Yet, this is but half the novel. The novel unravels so much else. The relationship between the "white" and the "colored" and how each look at the other with disdain, and mistrust is another major theme.

The episode where  abject injustice is done to Sophia, after all the provocation  which led to the incident, elaborate on the Black and White relationship back in the 40s and the 50s. This episode detail how intolerable it has been for a white to see a black living a comfortable life,  and how cruel justice can be as to break the back of a life.  The author makes it a point to infer that forgiveness would be a long time in coming,  while not sounding proud of it.

“It’s times like this make me know us didn’t make this world. And  all the colored folks talking bout loving everybody just ain’t looked hard at what they thought they said” 

The problem with Africa is looked at, in a more wider view. How the Africans themselves sold their strongest people as slaves- "Today the people of Africa - having murdered or sold into slavery their strongest folks- are riddled by disease and sunk in spiritual and physical confusion. They believe in the devil and worship of the dead" (quote) -  how "Hard Times" were the consequences as stated by the Whites, while being unable to accept the damage they did to Africans.

The Native Africans' own version of the evolution the concept of Adam and Eve make an interesting reading of its own, and kindle the urge in the reader to do some digging up on their beliefs. In fact I found this part so interesting, a few quotes are in order.

 -“The first man that was white. Not the first man. They say nobody so crazy they think they can say who was the first man. But everybody notice the first white man cause he was white.”

And the other, of how they see the white man.

-“They tried to explain to the missionaries that it was they who put Adam and Eve out of the village because they was naked. Their word for naked is white. But since they are covered by color they are not naked. They said anybody looking at a white person can tell they naked, but black people can not be naked because they can not be white.”

On a minor, note of trivia, the Africans believed that Yam was a sure way of preventing blood related disease. Whether this is the origin of the belief would be another interesting point to pursue.

In conclusion, this is a novel that has such a wide span. I saw some reviews in Amazon, identifying this as "Anti-Black Male" - whoaah !!! and I went like, is that all you got from this novel ? This is a novel that can be lived in, and possibly mulled over for at least for a couple of days, for its brutal honesty.  There is also a Sinhala translation of this book, and also a Spielberg produced movie, based on this novel, starring Whoopie Goldberg, which will probably me by next stop with regards, to this book.