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Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel Paperback – March 19, 2013

by Zora Neale Hurston (Author)

1,447 customer reviews

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“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie Smith

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

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At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.

Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:

It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.

One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Zora Neale Hurston was a knockout in her life, a wonderful writer and a fabulous person. Devilishly funny and academically solid: delicious mixture * Maya Angelou * There is no book more important to me than this one. It speaks to me as no novel, past or present, has ever done * Alice Walker * For me, Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more * Zadie Smith * --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product details

Paperback: 219 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reissue edition (January 3, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060838671
ISBN-13: 978-0060838676
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 1,447 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #32 in Books > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical
- #70 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > African-American Studies
- #354 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

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I am very pleased to find Zora Hurston back in print and that ...

ByKaren Fondon July 29, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A book club recommendation, I am very pleased to find Zora Hurston back in print and that this book sparked the discussion about who black women are in their complexity and their search for identity and actualization. I particularly liked the conversations of the men on the porch as I felt drawn into the fold and wondered where it was going and who would "win". And one cannot forget Janie's emerging consciousness into womanhood under the flowering pear tree.

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the love of her life

ByPaula Belinon May 24, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book mentions the 'Service of Love'. Throughout the story of Janie's life you see it over and over. Her grandmother's, her birth, first and second husband, the love of her life, as well as friends, neighbors and so on. The service of love has caused me to look at many facets of live. I enjoyed this book. It had the normal racism, etc. But, it also showed life's humanity. I recommend this book.

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Not a bad story, just difficult to understand at times.

Byholdmanateeon February 2, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Picked this one up because i needed to read it for school. Not a bad story at all. The struggles Janie go through are tragic but make her a strong independent woman set in a time where her lifestyle was generally looked down upon. The book can be difficult to read due to the southern dialect presented throughout the novel. The movie adaptation is pretty spot on with the book and is a lot easier to understand.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

One woman's epic search for self-discovery and true love

ByBuzzBeeon November 3, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a story of a black woman's search for self-discovery and for true love in a culture where men dominate. Even though slavery has been abolished in her grandmother's past, Janie still is not free to live her dreams- they are either suppressed or put on hold. After many experiences through the years (both good and bad) she is able to grow and learn.One gets a sense of how culture plays a role in her life and dreams- the author was an anthropologist and richly describes the lives and ambitions of the characters- their dealings with their own kind, their attitudes toward whites, the attitudes of the men towards woman and expectations to what their roles should be. Trying to make her way in the world, the heroine Janie seems to learn from each difficult trial; she learns how to cope and at last realizes her dream, which is sadly too fleeting. At the end she returns to her home to share her amazing experiences with her best friend and us, the reader.

At first the language of the book (the author used a lot of "black vernacular") was a major stumbling block to my understanding of the story, however, when I got used to it (and re-read the book a second time after I had read over the helpful commentaries) I was then able to appreciate it for the great book it is.

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An Absolute Classic

ByW Perry Hallon February 6, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This novel should be more highly revered as an American classic than it now apparently is. Italo Calvino defined a "classic" as "a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, then, is an absolute classic.

Zora Neale Hurston's decision to achieve verisimilitude by using the lively vernacular of African-Americans in the early 1900s American South transformed this book from a great novel to the lofty status, attributed to very few in the Western Canon, of "transcendent."

Her piercing and prismatic prose entrances the reader like Etta James singing the blues to the rhythm and flow of Janie Crawford's journey from a young teen given by her grandmother as wife to an old man (after being caught kissing a boy) to her 17-year-old self being swept away by a fast-talking and dapper traveling salesman who turned out to be an abusive, chauvinistic husband, and then to a mid-to-late 30s widow finding love, passion and zeal for life in a man named "Teacake," more than a decade her junior.

Ms. Hurston then brews up and heaves upon the reader a hellish hurricane crossing south-central Florida and breeching the banks of Lake Okeechobee. The passage from which the book's name was derived is both profound and symbolic:

“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

Another reason for the transcendence of THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is its place as pioneering in speaking out for, and celebrating the voice of, African-American women, especially those in the South. She masterfully conveyed her message that these women were oppressed not only by whites but also by others (especially men and, maybe more significantly, by other women) in their own segregated communities, and that these women should not be defined by these oppressive labels. Perhaps most telling of all is the mainstream's rejection of the novel (after its publication in 1937) because it did not play its part in "racial uplift."

And so it is that Zora Neale Hurston's novel, even today, hasn't "finished saying what it has to say."

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

BEAUTIFUL Writing

ByDamon B.on June 19, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is my second-favorite book that I've ever read. It is definitely the most beautifully-written one. As an example: "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board," (1). The plot is a little thin if you don't realize that the theme is empowerment, self-discovery, and independence, but this novel is truly a must-read. The only book that beats this one out for me is Beloved by Zora Neale Hurston, which is absolutely incredible. But it still doesn't beat this one in beauty of writing.

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My Very Own Tea Cake

ByJeriWBon August 17, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As a study in identify formation and societal expectations, Hurston's book is top-notch. It's a slow-burn at first in the mediocrity of our days, and then love literally comes to town, and Janie blossoms. Of course that makes the ending all the more poignant. I fell in love with this book the first time I read it nearly two decades ago. How was I to know the inklings I felt way back then about my life being put on hold in so many ways would end up playing out the way they did? That now, in my late thirties, I've sound my own version of Tea Cake? This book has always pulled deeply at my heart strings, and it's one I will come back to again and again.

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A perfect story to read while in the grips of hurricane Irma.

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Since I am not a native English speaker I had some difficulties to understand the slang language. It is an excellent book, but very quickly I realized that I had read it already...Read more

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Somehow I missed this in high school and college. A story all young women should read-a story of hope and survival.

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Confession: This is probably the 10th or 25th time I've read this. I've taught it several times, so that accounts for most of the readings, and might be called "Oh, you read...Read more

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