Possessing the Secret of Joy [Paperback]

Alice Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997

Prompted by misguided loyalty to the customs of her people, Tashi Johnson, a tribal African woman living in North America, endures a severely traumatizing tribal initiation rite of passage, an experience that affects her sense of identity. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize winner Walker illustrates the truism that violence begets violence in this strong-voiced but often strident and polemical novel, a 17-week PW bestseller, which focuses on the practice of female circumcision in African cultures.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A peripheral character in The Color Purple ( LJ 6/1/82) and The Temple of My Familiar ( LJ 3/15/88), Tashi becomes the focus of this welcome new work. Tashi, who marries Celie's son Adam, submits to female circumcision partially out of loyalty to the threatened tribal customs of her people, the Olinka. As a result, she endures physical pain and long-lasting emotional trauma. Not a sympathetically drawn victim, the tortured Tashi stretches to bridge two continents and to understand why women must undergo this torture, even at the hands of their mothers, for the pleasure of men. Though she often succumbs to madness, Tashi eventually takes possession of the secret of joy. Her compelling story is every Eve's account of those "whose chastity belt was made of leather, or of silk and diamonds, or of fear and not of our own 'flesh.' " This is not a sequel to Walker's previous novels, but it easily equals, if not surpasses, their excellence.
-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671789457
• ISBN-13: 978-0671789459
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Walker is one of the most prolific writers of our time, known for her literary fiction, including the Pultizer Prize-winning The Color Purple, her many volumes of poetry, and her powerful nonfiction collections. Walker's most recent book is The Chicken Chronicles, a memoir. Her advocacy for the dispossessed has spanned the globe. She lives in Northern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book, November 26, 1999

By 

Bridget Cecil - See all my reviews

This review is from: Possessing the Secret of Joy (Paperback)

Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker, reveals a cultural tradition that is considered taboo by its society; it is left unspoken of, yet it is condoned. To someone of a different culture, this tradition is not only unacceptable but completely appalling. It is a tradition that brutally abuses and destroys its victims, the women of the society. Alice Walker presents us, specifically, with two of these women, Tashi and M'Lissa, of Olinka. Tashi can easily be seen as a victim of this cruel tradition, but M'Lissa initially appears to be the enemy, a traitor who continues to force this "initiation" upon the girls of Olinka. However, M'Lissa's character can be seen to change toward the end of the novel as her own story is revealed, and we can ultimately view M'Lissa, not as the enemy, but as a victim also. While, on the surface, M'Lissa and Tashi can be seen as two entirely different women with different motives and ideals, they actually are a great deal alike. Not only are they both women of this Olinkan society, they are both women who have lost themselves to this Olinkan society. While their ways of coping contrast, they both must live the rest of their lives in an attempt to deal with the harsh consequences of the painful and degrading tradition of female circumcision. At the beginning of the novel, the idea that Tashi could murder M'Lissa seems very appealing. Tashi lives her entire life in grief and agony because of what this woman has done to her. It seems completely justifiable for Tashi to take revenge on M'Lissa. Tashi considers herself to be dead throughout her entire life simply because she has been so completely torn from herself as a result of this massacre of her womanhood. But as the novel progresses, M'Lissa's one-dimensional character of evil begins to change and we begin to sympathize with her as we do Tashi. Walker presents us with M'Lissa's point of view, which was formerly obscure. And instead of coming face to face with a murderous enemy, we acquire the tragic story of a woman who is raised to believe female sexuality is sinful and condemned. In addition, she is told by her mother that to be a tsunga is not only a tradition, it is a great honor. M'Lissa is lead to believe that these practices are normal and admirable; female circumcision is an accepted ritual in this society. It is common knowledge to know that M'Lissa, herself, has been circumcised, but to hear her actual story paints a different picture than the one of the beast we see destroying Tashi. We, instead, see a young girl being subject to an insane and insanitary procedure. We learn that M'Lissa's mother tries to protect part of her, which leads the angry witchdoctor to show no mercy, and M'Lissa's pain is far greater than any other girl. We hear M'Lissa's words, "I could never again see myself, for the child that finally rose from the mat three months later, . . . , was not the child who had been taken there. I was never to see that child again." She also comments on her becoming the tsunga, "Can you imagine the life of the tsunga who feels? I learned not to feel." It is as if M'Lissa has completely void herself of any type of feeling as a result of feeling too much pain. She has completely lost herself. Maybe becoming the tsunga and withdrawing all her feelings is M'Lissa's way of dealing with this pain just as an abused child grows to be a child abuser. So when we rethink about Tashi murdering M'Lissa, we begin to question the murder's legitimacy. Did M'Lissa really deserve to be murdered? Could Tashi be the evildoer after all? Isn't M'Lissa, just like Tashi, dealing with the pain and suffering that results from the cruel ritual? Maybe we can't label the evildoer, but rather, consider the bumper sticker Alice Walker includes in the beginning of this novel, "When the axe came into the forest, the trees said the handle is one of us." M'Lissa and Tashi, both, are victims in this society that mutilates women, they just deal with their pain in different ways. We can imagine both M'Lissa and Tashi stranded amidst the surface of an immense sea of waves. M'Lissa is floating submissively along with the tide, yet she has no arms or legs, so she will sink to the bottom; Tashi is swimming hard in the other direction, an endless attempt to try and fight the current. Do they both lose to this mad society that brought them to hurt each other? It is sad that they can't join together in understanding of each other's pain.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Secret Shame of Female Circumcision, February 14, 2002

By 

Daniel V. Reilly (Upstate New York, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Possessing the Secret of Joy (Hardcover)

Possessing The Secret of Joy is a semi-sequel to The Color Purple, but you can jump right into "Possessing" without ever having read "Purple".

Here, Alice Walker tells the story of Tashi, a minor character from The Color Purple. Transplanted from her native Africa, she is tormented by supressed memories from her childhood; memories that are starting to wear away her already tenuous sanity.

Tashi is not only plagued by memories of the death of her sister, she is also suffering psychologically from the circumcision she subjected herself to before her departure from Africa. She undergoes some extensive therapy, conducted in part by Jung himself, to try to heal her mental scars.

I was familiar with the concept of ritual female circumcision from various newspaper articles and news programs, but I had no idea of the extent of the mutilation these young girls are subjected to. Walker handles the subject well; she describes the procedure, and the effect, both physical and mental, on the girl, all the while taking great care to present every side of the story. Her presentation of the history of this procedure is gripping, as are her theories about how it may have started. While much of the book is relentlessly grim, it is, nonetheless, a fabulously rewarding read.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This was a great novel., July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Possessing the Secret of Joy (Mass Market Paperback)

I am sixteen years old and I read an interview with Tori Amos (my favorite artist) who said that her song "Cornflake Girl" was inspired by the book "Possessing the Secret of Joy," so I picked up the book and read it. While I initially began reading it to look for lines that Tori might have used in the song, my focus soon turned to the story of Tashi, Andy, Olivia, M'Lissa, and the other characters in the book. The practice done to Tashi was hideous and I think it's good that Alice Walker is bringing the barbaric practice of mutilation to the public and trying to stop it. I let my best friend borrow this book for her school report on how badly females are treated in today's society, which is supposed to be equal, and she used "Possessing the Secret of Joy" as an example. Alice Walker helped me realize how we as women need to stand up for ourselves and speak out against anything we find wrong, whatever it may be, and Tashi's strength is prevalent throughout this excellent novel.