852. Possessing the Secret of Joy

Possessing the Secret of Joy
Alice Walker
1992

Around 290 pages

Well, we spun the List wheel and unfortunately it landed on female circumcision again. Not that it's a subject that should be ignored. But is there a single more upsetting subject on the planet?

Our main character is Tashi, who actually appeared as a minor character in The Color Purple. Tashi lives the fictional African country Olinka, which still practices female genital mutilation. Tashi wants to go back to Olinka and have the procedure done as an adult to connect to her African roots. 

This is actually our last Walker novel on this List, so we are saying goodbye to her right after Toni Morrison. And like Toni Morrison, Walker is capable of breaking my heart into a billion quarks in ten sentences. I immediately clicked with the style of this novel, and particularly enjoyed the panther story at the beginning that effectively sets the tone for the rest of the novel.

And what else is there to say about the main message of the novel? As Walker eloquently points out, torture is not culture. The only reason I'm not giving this five stars is because it's not a story that I want to revisit or dwell on. But Walker sure got her point across!

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Walker has faced multiple accusations of antisemitism due to her praise for British conspiracy theorist David Icke and his works, which contain antisemitic conspiracy theories, along with criticisms of her own writings.

UP NEXT: A Heart So White by Javier Marias

810. The Temple of the Familiar

The Temple of the Familiar
Alice Walker
1989
Around 420 pages

I love novelists that create their own multiverse. Walker features the leads of The Color Purple as background characters, which is a nice touch.

This is a more ambitious narrative than her previous work. We get the interwoven stories of Arveyda, a musician in search of his past; Carlotta, his wife who lives in exile; Suwelo, a black professor of American History who realizes that his generation of men have failed women; and Fanny, his ex-wife about to meet her father for the first time.

Walker is a beautiful writer, although I have to admit this leaned more into the stream of consciousness side of things that I tend to dislike. I actually enjoyed her previous work more, which focused on fewer characters and wasn't so scattered. And once again, we get supremely unlikable characters, but that's just her style.

So worth reading but not her masterpiece.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Walker has published 17 novels.

UP NEXT: The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai 

730. The Color Purple

The Color Purple
Alice Walker
1982
Around 305 pages

I understand the criticism of the novel and the movie, that it might feed into the negative stereotypes about African American men. The men in the story are horrible people. But is it really the responsibility of Black women to correct all of society's assumptions about Black men? Let Celie tell her story the way she wants to tell it, even if it is a relentlessly depressing one.

Celie is a 14-year-old girl whose only confidant is god, because her father forbids her from telling anybody else about his sexual and physical abuse. She has two children by her father, and is married off to a farmer named "Mister," even though he asked for her sister Nettie's hand. Mister is another abusive monster, but his mistress, Shug Avery, forms a connection with Celie. Yay, lesbian literature!

This is a powerful book and Alice Walker is an extremely talented author. It is a bummer that the Black stories that get the most attention are the ones that full of trauma and misery. But like I said, that's not Alice's fault or responsibility, and she did an amazing job getting your heart to break for Celie.

Predictably, the film adaptation is directed by a straight white guy.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Number 17 on the American Library Association's 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books.

Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, making Walker the first black woman to win the prize.

UP NEXT: A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White