'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker, read by the Author

This is a book that I count as one of my favourites and it has characters that are alive and colourful, events both tragic and heart-warming. It speaks of more than one thing and different things to different people. I have never seen it as 'anti-men' as some critics have and the language, though crude at times, is never used as a 'shock' tactic. Rather, the language is appropriate to the people who utter the words and write the letters that constitute this book.

Yes, some leeway must be given over some of the discrepancies that occur over the period the book covers (for example some secondary characters are not as old as they should be at the end of the novel) and the ending can be seen as somewhat coincidental (though that is far from the correct word) but, I think, it serves Walker's beliefs well; that, ultimately, God, in whatever guise, will take care of things.

The audio book, which was actually the first I purchased and listened to, is read by Alice Walker herself and she does an excellent job at it. I've read some reviews that say she is too languid in her reading but I do not believe that to be the case. I think her pacing to be relaxed and easy in that she allows us to take all the language and events in without rushing ahead of the listener. It also would be detrimental, I think, were she to be talking rapidly as this is not a book full of 'action'.

Walker reads the letters primarily as the character who wrote them and has slight variations for most character's dialogue. It is a sometimes subtle variation but it is enough to help distinguish one person from another whilst also giving them a separate voice in themselves.

Walker is also able to bring her understanding of the history of the people she writes about to the table and her voice is filled with it. She is a natural storyteller and this, her most famous work, is, perhaps, the story she was born to tell.

Listening to the book is a different experience to reading it (which I've done several times over the years); a new understanding comes with the hearing of it, almost as if this were a story made to be told, rather than read, like the tales of old. The characters are more real than I imagined them and maybe that's because, as a Briton, I am not attuned to the voices of America or its history as an American would be.

Walker's story is one of faith, friendship, hope and love and, whatever the medium, is one that I think should be experienced as a reminder to the reader/listener of the good that can come out of the bad.

I recommend both the book and the audio version immensely.

 

'The Color Purple' is available from Whole Story Audio Books and from Clipper Audio.