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The Complete Stories
This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction—most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime—reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hurston's tremendous range and establish themes that recur in her longer fiction. With rich language and imagery, the stories in this collection not only map Hurston's development and concerns as a writer but also provide an invaluable reflection of the mind and imagination of the author of the acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Zora Neale Hurston
188 books5,883 followersNovels, including
Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.
In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.
Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.
People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.
In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.
In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.
Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.
People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.
In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
February 25, 2020
Hurston’s recognition as a key black author of the 20th Century has had its ups and downs. For anyone wanting to get to know Hurston, this is a good place to begin. This book gathers both published and unpublished short fiction from 1921 to 1955.
While familiar with some of her work, I was grateful for the afterword by Henry Louis Gates to help put things in perspective. Gates observes that: “The dark obscurity into which her career …lapsed reflects her staunchly independent political stances rather than any deficiency of craft or vision.” It is very unfortunate that her last decade or more was away from having time for her craft, serving as a maid in Florida and dying in a county welfare home. Her “rediscovery” by many including Alice Walker and Toni Morrison occurred posthumously.
What comes through in many of these stories in her deft use of imagery. This is true whether the subject matter is founded on oral folktales or Harlem situations. In all, her language is very rich and, perhaps, off-putting to some because it captures a lack of sophistication in its application.
Here is a sample from Cock Robin Beale Street in a “discussion” between Uncle July and A’nt Dooby.
“Jest heard Miz Pendleton reading out of some kind of a book how Cock Robin was a real-true bird with feathers on him and got kilt wid a arrow. Hit’s a sin and a shame! Tahin’t a word of it so! I knowed Cock Robin well---was right dere when he got kilt wid a forty-four, and was at de funeral.
A’nt Dooby was unimpressed. “I ain’t knowed nothing ‘bout no Cock Robin gitting kilt and you must a’ sneaked off to de funeral and never told me nothing ‘tall about it.”
“Oh, dat was back dere in Memphis. I used to git around right smart before I was saved…”
Another story (The Fire and the Cloud) consists of a dialogue between Moses and a lizard as he sat upon his grave on Mount Nebo, which likely came from the oral tradition.
It would be a mistake to confuse Zora Neale Hurston with Joel Chandler Harris and confine both to history’s dustbin as being too full of racial stereotypes to be studied and evaluated. My library has retained most of Hurston’s works; I hope yours has done the same.
While familiar with some of her work, I was grateful for the afterword by Henry Louis Gates to help put things in perspective. Gates observes that: “The dark obscurity into which her career …lapsed reflects her staunchly independent political stances rather than any deficiency of craft or vision.” It is very unfortunate that her last decade or more was away from having time for her craft, serving as a maid in Florida and dying in a county welfare home. Her “rediscovery” by many including Alice Walker and Toni Morrison occurred posthumously.
What comes through in many of these stories in her deft use of imagery. This is true whether the subject matter is founded on oral folktales or Harlem situations. In all, her language is very rich and, perhaps, off-putting to some because it captures a lack of sophistication in its application.
Here is a sample from Cock Robin Beale Street in a “discussion” between Uncle July and A’nt Dooby.
“Jest heard Miz Pendleton reading out of some kind of a book how Cock Robin was a real-true bird with feathers on him and got kilt wid a arrow. Hit’s a sin and a shame! Tahin’t a word of it so! I knowed Cock Robin well---was right dere when he got kilt wid a forty-four, and was at de funeral.
A’nt Dooby was unimpressed. “I ain’t knowed nothing ‘bout no Cock Robin gitting kilt and you must a’ sneaked off to de funeral and never told me nothing ‘tall about it.”
“Oh, dat was back dere in Memphis. I used to git around right smart before I was saved…”
Another story (The Fire and the Cloud) consists of a dialogue between Moses and a lizard as he sat upon his grave on Mount Nebo, which likely came from the oral tradition.
It would be a mistake to confuse Zora Neale Hurston with Joel Chandler Harris and confine both to history’s dustbin as being too full of racial stereotypes to be studied and evaluated. My library has retained most of Hurston’s works; I hope yours has done the same.
August 29, 2023
This is a joint book review of Zora Neale Hurston’s collection of short stories in The Complete Stories (1995) and Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance (2020). I recommend you read them together.
The 34 stories in these collections span across four decades (1921-1951) and show Zora’s depth, genius, and diversity as a writer. I read the short stories in chronological order by their publication year and then read the previously unpublished stories last. I especially love how Zora was able to experiment with the form in her stories. For example, Zora is mostly known for writing about Southern Blacks in her hometown of Eatonville, FL but she occasionally wrote short stories that took place in Biblical times (“Escape from Pharaoh” & “The Seventh Veil”) or would write a Harlem Renaissance story that was written like a book in the Bible (“Monkey Junk” & “She Rock”). She also wrote stories about romantic relationships, courtroom dramas, and of course my favorite, her stories of conjure and hoodoo. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke stated in the introduction to The Complete Stories that “morality is the issue in most of her stories, which usually end happily for the disenfranchised and powerless” (xxii).
Favorite Stories in the Two Collections
-John Redding Goes to Sea (1921)***
-The Conversion of Sam (ca 1922)**
-Black Death (ca 1920s)***
-The Bone of Contention (ca 1920s)***
-The Gilded Six-Bits (1933)***
-Mother Catherine (1934)*
-Uncle Monday (1934)*
-The Conscience of the Court (1950)*
-The Seventh Veil (previously unpublished)*
-The Woman in Gaul (previously unpublished)*
*In The Complete Stories only
**In Hitting A Straight Lick with A Crooked Stick only
***In both collections
This completes my challenge to read all of Zora Neale Hurston’s works that I had not previously read (aka The Zora Challenge), but it does not end my study of the amazing Zora Neale Hurston. I will continue to read more about her through her biographies by various writers (Robert Hemenway, Valerie Boyd, and others) and her other works including her plays.
The 34 stories in these collections span across four decades (1921-1951) and show Zora’s depth, genius, and diversity as a writer. I read the short stories in chronological order by their publication year and then read the previously unpublished stories last. I especially love how Zora was able to experiment with the form in her stories. For example, Zora is mostly known for writing about Southern Blacks in her hometown of Eatonville, FL but she occasionally wrote short stories that took place in Biblical times (“Escape from Pharaoh” & “The Seventh Veil”) or would write a Harlem Renaissance story that was written like a book in the Bible (“Monkey Junk” & “She Rock”). She also wrote stories about romantic relationships, courtroom dramas, and of course my favorite, her stories of conjure and hoodoo. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke stated in the introduction to The Complete Stories that “morality is the issue in most of her stories, which usually end happily for the disenfranchised and powerless” (xxii).
Favorite Stories in the Two Collections
-John Redding Goes to Sea (1921)***
-The Conversion of Sam (ca 1922)**
-Black Death (ca 1920s)***
-The Bone of Contention (ca 1920s)***
-The Gilded Six-Bits (1933)***
-Mother Catherine (1934)*
-Uncle Monday (1934)*
-The Conscience of the Court (1950)*
-The Seventh Veil (previously unpublished)*
-The Woman in Gaul (previously unpublished)*
*In The Complete Stories only
**In Hitting A Straight Lick with A Crooked Stick only
***In both collections
This completes my challenge to read all of Zora Neale Hurston’s works that I had not previously read (aka The Zora Challenge), but it does not end my study of the amazing Zora Neale Hurston. I will continue to read more about her through her biographies by various writers (Robert Hemenway, Valerie Boyd, and others) and her other works including her plays.
November 19, 2013
I was surprised to find I really enjoyed these stories by Hurston. I haven't read anything by her since Their Eyes Were Watching God. These stories were very engaging. For a black activist and feminist, I found her stories very entertaining.
John Redding Goes to Sea was sad.
Drenched in Light was fun, and showed how humans are.
Spunk was kind of scary.
Magnolia Flower was very good, like a tall tale.
Muttsy was kind of pointless.
The Eatonville Anthology kind of gave an overview of different people and their characters.
Sweat and The Gilded Six-Bits were very good stories about human nature.
She had some stories that were specifically about slavery and took place in slave-days. She also wrote a few stories that were written in a Biblical style (very interesting) and regarded the lives of Moses, John the Baptist, etc. Worth reading.
John Redding Goes to Sea was sad.
Drenched in Light was fun, and showed how humans are.
Spunk was kind of scary.
Magnolia Flower was very good, like a tall tale.
Muttsy was kind of pointless.
The Eatonville Anthology kind of gave an overview of different people and their characters.
Sweat and The Gilded Six-Bits were very good stories about human nature.
She had some stories that were specifically about slavery and took place in slave-days. She also wrote a few stories that were written in a Biblical style (very interesting) and regarded the lives of Moses, John the Baptist, etc. Worth reading.
March 10, 2009
I've just started reading Zora Neale Hurston. I began with Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I really enjoyed it. I love Alice Walker's work, and was interested to hear that Walker contributed to the 'rediscovery' of Zora Neale Hurston's work.
One of the things I really like about Hurston's stories is her cultural approach to storytelling. She was trained as an anthropologist, was a student of Franz Boas (often referred to as the father of modern anthropology) and a contemporary of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead. Hurston dives into the beauty of cultures, weaving in her early life in Florida, Harlem in the 1920s, the fieldwork she did in the Caribbean, and time spent living in the American South. She really makes it all come alive.
One of the things I really like about Hurston's stories is her cultural approach to storytelling. She was trained as an anthropologist, was a student of Franz Boas (often referred to as the father of modern anthropology) and a contemporary of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead. Hurston dives into the beauty of cultures, weaving in her early life in Florida, Harlem in the 1920s, the fieldwork she did in the Caribbean, and time spent living in the American South. She really makes it all come alive.
February 14, 2014
muttsy , conscience of the court, john redding goes to sea, sweat & Even Now you cooking with gas....Zora had this awesome ability of showing us who we were ...I love her depictions of The south & the venacular she wrote with...this is a must read & must have!
June 16, 2020
Wow. Reading this collection was like partaking in a tasting menu at a Michelin star restaurant. Variety and subtly, surprising combinations and deft presentation. A full, and excellent literary meal. I have not encountered language like this in some time.
The introduction and afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. are added treats (should I stick with the dinner metaphor?? Consider these the aperitif and digestif).
This quote from the introduction neatly describes one of the hallmarks of Hurston’s style:
“Above all else, Hurston is concerned to register a distinct sense of place- an African-American cultural space. The Hurston voice of these stories is never in a hurry or a rush, pausing over- indeed, luxuriating in- the nuances of speech or the timbre of voice that give a storyteller her or his distinctiveness.”
Later, in the afterword, Gates, Jr. explores Hurston’s career trajectory - how she differed from and even upset her male contemporaries, the post-humous decades in which she was forgotten and her resurgence to literary acclaim. He writes that,
“And she declared her first novel a manifesto against the ‘arrogance’ of whites assuming that ‘black lives are only defensive reactions to white actions.’ Her strategy was not calculated to please.”
As a white person reading these stories, I found myself realizing that I’ve come to expect black stories to be centrally concerned with white people and whiteness. And what Hurston does, and does exceptionally, is take these expectations and shove them aside. She makes space for the black legacies, mythologies, philosophies, histories and practically dares anyone to look on that space as less than.
But it’s not a dare. No, these stories are not about defiance. To say so would cheapen them because, like all masterpieces, these literary works are primarily focused on excavating the human experience with an honest spade. This collection, then, is not a dare or a challenge, it’s an invitation to see more clearly.
The introduction and afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. are added treats (should I stick with the dinner metaphor?? Consider these the aperitif and digestif).
This quote from the introduction neatly describes one of the hallmarks of Hurston’s style:
“Above all else, Hurston is concerned to register a distinct sense of place- an African-American cultural space. The Hurston voice of these stories is never in a hurry or a rush, pausing over- indeed, luxuriating in- the nuances of speech or the timbre of voice that give a storyteller her or his distinctiveness.”
Later, in the afterword, Gates, Jr. explores Hurston’s career trajectory - how she differed from and even upset her male contemporaries, the post-humous decades in which she was forgotten and her resurgence to literary acclaim. He writes that,
“And she declared her first novel a manifesto against the ‘arrogance’ of whites assuming that ‘black lives are only defensive reactions to white actions.’ Her strategy was not calculated to please.”
As a white person reading these stories, I found myself realizing that I’ve come to expect black stories to be centrally concerned with white people and whiteness. And what Hurston does, and does exceptionally, is take these expectations and shove them aside. She makes space for the black legacies, mythologies, philosophies, histories and practically dares anyone to look on that space as less than.
But it’s not a dare. No, these stories are not about defiance. To say so would cheapen them because, like all masterpieces, these literary works are primarily focused on excavating the human experience with an honest spade. This collection, then, is not a dare or a challenge, it’s an invitation to see more clearly.
October 29, 2018
Zora Neale Hurston’s collection of short stories is a collection of in-depth character studies. Every story features one or multipe fleshed-out characers that I almost feel like I know personally by the end of each story and the whole collection. She draws inspiration for many of her stories from people she actually knew, particularly from where she grew up. “The Eatonville Anthology,” a collection of brief vignettes detailing members of the community of Eatonville, introduces us to many characters that return in other stories, and many that don’t; even the ones that don’t return make a powerful impression on the reader.
These stories and the characters in them raise questions about gender roles, racial identity, and class that make this text relevant beyond this community and specific cast of characters. Teaching this text, teachers can focus on authorial voice and language drawing from Hurston’s experience of publishing and getting criticism on her work; students then might reflect on how Hurston’s own experience reflects gendered, racial, and class-based biases, just as her characters’ stories might prompt use of these critical lenses.
These stories and the characters in them raise questions about gender roles, racial identity, and class that make this text relevant beyond this community and specific cast of characters. Teaching this text, teachers can focus on authorial voice and language drawing from Hurston’s experience of publishing and getting criticism on her work; students then might reflect on how Hurston’s own experience reflects gendered, racial, and class-based biases, just as her characters’ stories might prompt use of these critical lenses.
May 12, 2009
Wonderful gift for character development. Accents are really thick, but man, she tells a good story. I am hooked.
March 28, 2015
Loved this!
June 25, 2015
Wonderful writer! I didn't finish all her short stories but will as the summer rolls on. Great afternoon reading.
March 31, 2023
I definitely would have liked this book more if I was expected to read it quickly. I liked the writing style of the author, it had a very eerie undertone. I would be up for reading more of her books in the future. I also liked how some of short stories connected to each other and had crossovers with others.
October 21, 2026
What a fabulous read. Because this review ended up being super long, I will note here, for sure would recommend, it was so awesome. You know, normally when I read short story collections, I try to pick out a few favorites. I started that exercise, and then realized that the list was growing too long. But I do want to give some overall thoughts.
First, the introduction, afterword, and included essay, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston," were all excellent reads. I loved "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in high school, but even then, knew very little about Hurston herself. These essays shed incredible light on the life of Hurston. I had no idea that she was largely ignored in her time and for several years after until the 1970s. These essays make a compelling case that this occured largely due to the combination of her feminist and anti-integrationist, agnostic-on-Civil-Rights-Movement takes. I was quite surprised to learn this, but then you read her writing about Eatonville, her home town, you read her characters who are not defined by circumstance but by rich interiority, and it begins to compute. All the same, it was pretty shocking to learn that an author widely recognized today as one of the key figures of the American canon won little fame or riches during her lifetime, and died in poverty before a burial in a grave that didn't have a headstone. Worth reading in their own rights. (The Alice Walker essay was particularly excellent and well-written, and the Afteword also brought up an interesting notion of Hurston possessing her own kind of "divided voice, a double voice unreconciled, that strikes me as her great achievement, a verbal analogue of her double experiences as a woman in a male-dominated world and as a black person in a nonblack world, a woman writer's revision of W.E.B Du Bois's metaphor of double-consciousness'."
Beyond the biographical, her writing is as exceptional as I remembered. While the Southern Vernacular Dialect / AAVE writing gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, as I do think it forced me to pay closer attention to dialogue and intonation, I particularly recalled appreciating her descriptions of, personification of, and metaphors involving natural phenomena (and specifically water), and I was pleased to see it permeated not only through TEWWG, but much more of her writing.
I will group my favorites into four categories, and try to discuss somewhat concisely below:
She is a master of folklore. There were stories that felt like they could be in children's books and stories that could be ancient myths and stories you could tell your friends around a campfire or killing time and everything in between. In particular, "'Possum Or Pig?" and "Eatonville Anthology: XIV" were just absolute classics to me.
But then "John Redding Goes to Sea" and "Sweat" (especially Sweat) are just fabulous, earnestly-told stories. While the former still has a little bit of the male adventure-fantastical in it and the latter a more feminist underappreciated labor bite, both share a deep longing for something bigger and better, and the quest to actually go get it.
"Uncle Monday" and "High John de Conquer" show off exactly why she often gets described as an anthropologist first and an author second. She just collects Black folklore and tells it as well as can be told. In particular, the prose, especially the opening to HJDC, was as lyrical and descriptive as anything else in the collection, or for that matter, in most of literature. So good.
And lastly, the excerpts from Their Eyes Were Watching God ("Hurricane") and Moses, Man of the Mountain ("Escape from Pharaoh," "The Tablets of the Law") were probably my favorite parts of the whole collection, and made me feel an urgent need to read Moses, Man of the Mountain.
All in all, would strongly recommend, deeply enjoyed, need to read more Zora Neale Hurston, and below are some of my favorite excerpts:
“You know, papa, sometimes—I reckon my longing to get away makes me feel this way. . . . I feel that I am just earth, soil lying helpless to move myself, but thinking. I seem to hear herds of big beasts like horses and cows thundering over me, and rains beating down; and winds sweeping furiously over—all acting upon me, but me, well, just soil, feeling but not able to take part in it all. Then a soft wind like love passes over and warms me, and a summer rain comes down like understanding and softens me, and I push a blade of grass or a flower, or maybe a pine tree—that’s the ground thinking. Plants are ground thoughts, because the soil can’t move itself. Whenever I see little whirls of dust sailing down the road I always step aside—don’t want to stop ’em ’cause they’re on their shining way—moving! Oh, yes, I’m a dreamer. . . . I have such wonderfully complete dreams, papa. They never come true. But even as my dreams fade I have others.”
“Yas, son, Ah have them same feelings exactly, but Ah can’t find no words lak you do. It seems lak you an’ me see wid de same eyes, hear wid de same ears an’ even feel de same inside. Only thing you kin talk it an’ Ah can’t. But anyhow you speaks for me, so whut’s the difference?” (John Redding Goes to Sea, 10)
The brook laughed and sang. When it encountered hard places in its bed, it hurled its water in sparkling dance figures up into the moonlight.
It sang louder, louder; danced faster, faster, with a coquettish splash! at the vegetation on its banks.
At last it danced boisterously into the bosom of the St. John’s, upsetting the whispering hyacinths who shivered and blushed, drunk with the delight of moon kisses.
The Mighty One turned peevishly in his bed and washed the feet of the Palmetto palms so violently that they awoke and began again the gossip they had left off when the Wind went to bed. A palm cannot speak without wind. The river had startled it also, for the winds sleep on the bosom of waters.
The palms murmured noisily of seasons and centuries, mating and birth and the transplanting of life. Nature knows nothing of death. (Magnolia Flower, 33)
Delia’s habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders like a blown scarf. She was on her feet; her poor little body, her bare knuckly hands bravely defying the strapping hulk before her.
“Looka heah, Sykes, you done gone too fur. Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and Ah been takin’ in washin’ for fifteen years. Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!”
“What’s that got to do with me?” he asked brutally.
“What’s it got to do with you, Sykes? Mah tub of suds is filled yo’ belly with vittles more times than yo’ hands is filled it. Mah sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon Ah kin keep on sweatin’ in it.”
She seized the iron skillet from the stove and struck a defensive pose, which act surprised him greatly, coming from her. It cowed him and he did not strike her as he usually did. (Sweat, 75)
High John de Conquer came to be a man, and a mighty man at that. But he was not a natural man in the beginning. First off, he was a whisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and song. Then the whisper put on flesh. His footsteps sounded across the world in a low but musical rhythm as if the world he walked on was a singing-drum. The black folks had an irresistible impulse to laugh. High John de Conquer was a man in full, and had come to live and work on the plantations, and all the slave folks knew him in the flesh.
The sign of this man was a laugh, and his singing-symbol was a drum-beat. No parading drum-shout like soldiers out for show. It did not call to the feet of those who were fixed to hear it. It was an inside thing to live by. It was sure to be heard when and where the work was the hardest, and the lot the most cruel. It helped the slaves endure. They knew that something better was coming. So they laughed in the face of things and sang, "I'm so glad! Trouble don't last always." And the white people who heard them were struck dumb that they could laugh. In an outside way, this was Old Massa's fun, so what was Old Cuffy laughing for?
Old Massa couldn't know, of course, but High John de Conquer was there walking his plantation like a natural man. He was treading the sweat-flavored clods of the plantation, crushing out his drum tunes, and giving out secret laughter. He walked on the winds and moved fast. Maybe he was in Texas when the lash fell on a slave in Alabama, but before the blood was dry on the back he was there. A faint pulsing of a drum like a goatskin stretched over a heart, that came nearer and closer, then somebody in the saddened quarters would feel like laughing, and say, "Now, High John de Conquer, Old Massa couldn't get the best of him. That old John was a case!" Then everybody sat up and began to smile. Yes, yes, that was right. Old John, High John could beat the unbeatable. (High John De Conquer, 139-140)
Sometime that night the winds came back. Everything in the world had a strong rattle, sharp and short like Stew Beef vibrating the drum head near the edge with his fingers. By morning Gabriel was playing the deep tones in the center of the drum. So when Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west – that cloud field of the sky – to arms themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, mounting, sinking, darking. (Hurricane, 152)
Well, the present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell. So Moses sat on the rock and said, “You, Voice, you told me to lead out, and by the hardest, I did it. So I’m down here by the Red Sea with these people. You know more about ’em than I do, Lord. What must I do with them now?”
A little tee-nincy voice raised up in the back of his mind and said: “Old Rameses is dead. Ta-Phar is dead. The set who bucked against you and hated you are dead. You know one time you were the idol of Egypt. The army still thinks you are the biggest man they ever made. Moses, you can go back to Egypt and be King. You can do even better than that. You can control the army which controls the King. The Voice told you to lead out and you have led out with a high hand. You have done your duty. The Israelites are out of Egypt and they are free. If they fall into slavery again somewhere else that’s none of your business. You set them free. Moses, there is Egypt right over there and the King is dead in the sea.”
Moses sat on the rock and thought back. He had sat on this rock when he fled from Pharaoh the first time and something had shown him clearly the futility of a life of war. Right on this rock he had forsworn the sword and glory. He got to his feet and looked earnestly at the camp for a while, then he said, “Which way, Lord, which way must I lead Your people?” (Escape from Pharaoh, 192)
First, the introduction, afterword, and included essay, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston," were all excellent reads. I loved "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in high school, but even then, knew very little about Hurston herself. These essays shed incredible light on the life of Hurston. I had no idea that she was largely ignored in her time and for several years after until the 1970s. These essays make a compelling case that this occured largely due to the combination of her feminist and anti-integrationist, agnostic-on-Civil-Rights-Movement takes. I was quite surprised to learn this, but then you read her writing about Eatonville, her home town, you read her characters who are not defined by circumstance but by rich interiority, and it begins to compute. All the same, it was pretty shocking to learn that an author widely recognized today as one of the key figures of the American canon won little fame or riches during her lifetime, and died in poverty before a burial in a grave that didn't have a headstone. Worth reading in their own rights. (The Alice Walker essay was particularly excellent and well-written, and the Afteword also brought up an interesting notion of Hurston possessing her own kind of "divided voice, a double voice unreconciled, that strikes me as her great achievement, a verbal analogue of her double experiences as a woman in a male-dominated world and as a black person in a nonblack world, a woman writer's revision of W.E.B Du Bois's metaphor of double-consciousness'."
Beyond the biographical, her writing is as exceptional as I remembered. While the Southern Vernacular Dialect / AAVE writing gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, as I do think it forced me to pay closer attention to dialogue and intonation, I particularly recalled appreciating her descriptions of, personification of, and metaphors involving natural phenomena (and specifically water), and I was pleased to see it permeated not only through TEWWG, but much more of her writing.
I will group my favorites into four categories, and try to discuss somewhat concisely below:
She is a master of folklore. There were stories that felt like they could be in children's books and stories that could be ancient myths and stories you could tell your friends around a campfire or killing time and everything in between. In particular, "'Possum Or Pig?" and "Eatonville Anthology: XIV" were just absolute classics to me.
But then "John Redding Goes to Sea" and "Sweat" (especially Sweat) are just fabulous, earnestly-told stories. While the former still has a little bit of the male adventure-fantastical in it and the latter a more feminist underappreciated labor bite, both share a deep longing for something bigger and better, and the quest to actually go get it.
"Uncle Monday" and "High John de Conquer" show off exactly why she often gets described as an anthropologist first and an author second. She just collects Black folklore and tells it as well as can be told. In particular, the prose, especially the opening to HJDC, was as lyrical and descriptive as anything else in the collection, or for that matter, in most of literature. So good.
And lastly, the excerpts from Their Eyes Were Watching God ("Hurricane") and Moses, Man of the Mountain ("Escape from Pharaoh," "The Tablets of the Law") were probably my favorite parts of the whole collection, and made me feel an urgent need to read Moses, Man of the Mountain.
All in all, would strongly recommend, deeply enjoyed, need to read more Zora Neale Hurston, and below are some of my favorite excerpts:
“You know, papa, sometimes—I reckon my longing to get away makes me feel this way. . . . I feel that I am just earth, soil lying helpless to move myself, but thinking. I seem to hear herds of big beasts like horses and cows thundering over me, and rains beating down; and winds sweeping furiously over—all acting upon me, but me, well, just soil, feeling but not able to take part in it all. Then a soft wind like love passes over and warms me, and a summer rain comes down like understanding and softens me, and I push a blade of grass or a flower, or maybe a pine tree—that’s the ground thinking. Plants are ground thoughts, because the soil can’t move itself. Whenever I see little whirls of dust sailing down the road I always step aside—don’t want to stop ’em ’cause they’re on their shining way—moving! Oh, yes, I’m a dreamer. . . . I have such wonderfully complete dreams, papa. They never come true. But even as my dreams fade I have others.”
“Yas, son, Ah have them same feelings exactly, but Ah can’t find no words lak you do. It seems lak you an’ me see wid de same eyes, hear wid de same ears an’ even feel de same inside. Only thing you kin talk it an’ Ah can’t. But anyhow you speaks for me, so whut’s the difference?” (John Redding Goes to Sea, 10)
The brook laughed and sang. When it encountered hard places in its bed, it hurled its water in sparkling dance figures up into the moonlight.
It sang louder, louder; danced faster, faster, with a coquettish splash! at the vegetation on its banks.
At last it danced boisterously into the bosom of the St. John’s, upsetting the whispering hyacinths who shivered and blushed, drunk with the delight of moon kisses.
The Mighty One turned peevishly in his bed and washed the feet of the Palmetto palms so violently that they awoke and began again the gossip they had left off when the Wind went to bed. A palm cannot speak without wind. The river had startled it also, for the winds sleep on the bosom of waters.
The palms murmured noisily of seasons and centuries, mating and birth and the transplanting of life. Nature knows nothing of death. (Magnolia Flower, 33)
Delia’s habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders like a blown scarf. She was on her feet; her poor little body, her bare knuckly hands bravely defying the strapping hulk before her.
“Looka heah, Sykes, you done gone too fur. Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and Ah been takin’ in washin’ for fifteen years. Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!”
“What’s that got to do with me?” he asked brutally.
“What’s it got to do with you, Sykes? Mah tub of suds is filled yo’ belly with vittles more times than yo’ hands is filled it. Mah sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon Ah kin keep on sweatin’ in it.”
She seized the iron skillet from the stove and struck a defensive pose, which act surprised him greatly, coming from her. It cowed him and he did not strike her as he usually did. (Sweat, 75)
High John de Conquer came to be a man, and a mighty man at that. But he was not a natural man in the beginning. First off, he was a whisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and song. Then the whisper put on flesh. His footsteps sounded across the world in a low but musical rhythm as if the world he walked on was a singing-drum. The black folks had an irresistible impulse to laugh. High John de Conquer was a man in full, and had come to live and work on the plantations, and all the slave folks knew him in the flesh.
The sign of this man was a laugh, and his singing-symbol was a drum-beat. No parading drum-shout like soldiers out for show. It did not call to the feet of those who were fixed to hear it. It was an inside thing to live by. It was sure to be heard when and where the work was the hardest, and the lot the most cruel. It helped the slaves endure. They knew that something better was coming. So they laughed in the face of things and sang, "I'm so glad! Trouble don't last always." And the white people who heard them were struck dumb that they could laugh. In an outside way, this was Old Massa's fun, so what was Old Cuffy laughing for?
Old Massa couldn't know, of course, but High John de Conquer was there walking his plantation like a natural man. He was treading the sweat-flavored clods of the plantation, crushing out his drum tunes, and giving out secret laughter. He walked on the winds and moved fast. Maybe he was in Texas when the lash fell on a slave in Alabama, but before the blood was dry on the back he was there. A faint pulsing of a drum like a goatskin stretched over a heart, that came nearer and closer, then somebody in the saddened quarters would feel like laughing, and say, "Now, High John de Conquer, Old Massa couldn't get the best of him. That old John was a case!" Then everybody sat up and began to smile. Yes, yes, that was right. Old John, High John could beat the unbeatable. (High John De Conquer, 139-140)
Sometime that night the winds came back. Everything in the world had a strong rattle, sharp and short like Stew Beef vibrating the drum head near the edge with his fingers. By morning Gabriel was playing the deep tones in the center of the drum. So when Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west – that cloud field of the sky – to arms themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, mounting, sinking, darking. (Hurricane, 152)
Well, the present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell. So Moses sat on the rock and said, “You, Voice, you told me to lead out, and by the hardest, I did it. So I’m down here by the Red Sea with these people. You know more about ’em than I do, Lord. What must I do with them now?”
A little tee-nincy voice raised up in the back of his mind and said: “Old Rameses is dead. Ta-Phar is dead. The set who bucked against you and hated you are dead. You know one time you were the idol of Egypt. The army still thinks you are the biggest man they ever made. Moses, you can go back to Egypt and be King. You can do even better than that. You can control the army which controls the King. The Voice told you to lead out and you have led out with a high hand. You have done your duty. The Israelites are out of Egypt and they are free. If they fall into slavery again somewhere else that’s none of your business. You set them free. Moses, there is Egypt right over there and the King is dead in the sea.”
Moses sat on the rock and thought back. He had sat on this rock when he fled from Pharaoh the first time and something had shown him clearly the futility of a life of war. Right on this rock he had forsworn the sword and glory. He got to his feet and looked earnestly at the camp for a while, then he said, “Which way, Lord, which way must I lead Your people?” (Escape from Pharaoh, 192)
February 12, 2009
I am so grateful so many of Zora Neale Hurston's works survived. Several were burned or otherwise destroyed and Hurston died in obscurity. These are a wonderful example of her talent for capturing the Southern (Floridan) black poor people of the 1930's and 40's. Her using their dialect when speaking adds to the story and makes these people come alive. It is her masterful use of language that make me care about these people and look forward to the next story.
I'm purposefully choosing to read this collection slowly, so I can have time to reflect on each story, and extend the pleasure of reading each story for the first time.
The short biography at the end of the book, as well as Alice Walker's 1970's Ms. Magazine article reprint are great additions. I appreciated the insight into Hurston as a person each gave.
I'm purposefully choosing to read this collection slowly, so I can have time to reflect on each story, and extend the pleasure of reading each story for the first time.
The short biography at the end of the book, as well as Alice Walker's 1970's Ms. Magazine article reprint are great additions. I appreciated the insight into Hurston as a person each gave.
August 25, 2017
I used to shy away from her writing when I was younger, mainly because I couldn't understand/follow the dialect in which she wrote. As I've gotten older, I now appreciate the authenticity of her stories, with the dialect adding to that authenticity.
Some of these short stories made me laugh out loud, others made me reflect, while others stirred a flurry of emotions... some did all three at the same time.
Some of these short stories made me laugh out loud, others made me reflect, while others stirred a flurry of emotions... some did all three at the same time.
April 18, 2010
I enjoy most of Hurston's work and her stories are no different. I like the contrast of work available with portions from her novels and elsewhere. The fact that she studied Anthropology always added a level of depth and intrigue to the characters and settings in her work.
January 30, 2018
Magnificent work. Particularly considering the time and by whom it was written. As a folklorist she presents her tales humainly without being preachy, but the lessons of individuality/inequaltiy, and the ironies of society are potently and endearingly delivered.
June 5, 2008
I love love the way Zora Neale Hurston writes. She is amazing and her stories are simple but really touch the heart.
August 2, 2024
Ms Hurston's Eatonville is a much an imaginative location as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha but I suppose there are reasons she is not considered as great a Southern author as Sir William. She doesn't fit into easy categories — she's Southern but wrote most of her work in New York, and uses both places as settings; she's black but, gosh!, writes from a black perspective that isn't solely about being oppressed by the white man (can you like, believe that black people like that even exist!? >:|), and she's a woman, and you know all the baggage that goes with that descriptor. Imagine if you will, if we didn’t give a flying F about such things but actually read her stories, novels and nonfiction. You might understand for yourself why she's so good (and to be fair, plenty have). She was a human being, which is enormously evident from her writing, and her range, like George Eliot's, is what makes her great no matter how difficult that makes it for simpler folk to categorize her.
These stories are a legit addition to her ouvre. The aforementioned range doesn't apply to characterization alone, but also to form.
There is the fiction, much of which takes place in the imaginative Eatonville, the setting for her famous Their Eyes Were Watching God. When she's in this mode there's a tenderness of spirit and deep characterization of townfolk, by no means sparing anyone's faults (cuz, like, black people aren't perfect nor are they victims all of the time). The way she descibes things and fits her characters into that world is really cool and rewarding to read, it is novelistic in a 19th century way, with a dose of modernism, which might be the best kind of novel. In Eatonville white people don't have much of a role, but that's because Eatonville was a black town, founded and run by black people in the late 19th century. Intersting bit of history, aye?
Then we have her actual historical fiction, meaning ancient history, with the Moses fables of Moses, Man of the Mountain and the tale of Antiphas and Herodias, where she imbues the same heartfelt critique of society and individualism, but applies it to settings that were enormously important and poignant to her people. Moses was the best book I've read that compares biblical times to our own. It reminds us that these stories are still here for a reason and asks, who are we in the story?
Then, and this gets really exciting, we have her investigative nonfiction, her chronicling of Southern hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou culture, from a perspective that needs to be treasured because it is from someone who is curious, appreciative, and crucially, an accepted participant in the various rites and cultural events. Reading a white colonist's views of Voodoo is not much fun in my experience, but with a talented creative writer at the helm, someone who realizes that "magic" is real and subtly infused all around us (as it is in her fiction) should you only look for it, we are able to get a sense of the flavor and feeling attached to a significant world religion. The Vodou aesthetic is easily one of the coolest; Vodou is Africa the way Europe is the Renaissance, meaning it is great and vast and wholly its own. Ms Hurston is the only writer I've encountered who can convey this.
For someone who has heard good things but doesn’t know where to start this isn’t a bad place. Just know that each morsel here is expanded upon, in all three modes, in book-length works. Which is pretty awesome when you think about it.
These stories are a legit addition to her ouvre. The aforementioned range doesn't apply to characterization alone, but also to form.
There is the fiction, much of which takes place in the imaginative Eatonville, the setting for her famous Their Eyes Were Watching God. When she's in this mode there's a tenderness of spirit and deep characterization of townfolk, by no means sparing anyone's faults (cuz, like, black people aren't perfect nor are they victims all of the time). The way she descibes things and fits her characters into that world is really cool and rewarding to read, it is novelistic in a 19th century way, with a dose of modernism, which might be the best kind of novel. In Eatonville white people don't have much of a role, but that's because Eatonville was a black town, founded and run by black people in the late 19th century. Intersting bit of history, aye?
Then we have her actual historical fiction, meaning ancient history, with the Moses fables of Moses, Man of the Mountain and the tale of Antiphas and Herodias, where she imbues the same heartfelt critique of society and individualism, but applies it to settings that were enormously important and poignant to her people. Moses was the best book I've read that compares biblical times to our own. It reminds us that these stories are still here for a reason and asks, who are we in the story?
Then, and this gets really exciting, we have her investigative nonfiction, her chronicling of Southern hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou culture, from a perspective that needs to be treasured because it is from someone who is curious, appreciative, and crucially, an accepted participant in the various rites and cultural events. Reading a white colonist's views of Voodoo is not much fun in my experience, but with a talented creative writer at the helm, someone who realizes that "magic" is real and subtly infused all around us (as it is in her fiction) should you only look for it, we are able to get a sense of the flavor and feeling attached to a significant world religion. The Vodou aesthetic is easily one of the coolest; Vodou is Africa the way Europe is the Renaissance, meaning it is great and vast and wholly its own. Ms Hurston is the only writer I've encountered who can convey this.
For someone who has heard good things but doesn’t know where to start this isn’t a bad place. Just know that each morsel here is expanded upon, in all three modes, in book-length works. Which is pretty awesome when you think about it.
December 8, 2024
These stories are written in a former era, slang or country talk and black stories. Hoodoo. Voodoo. Christian like phrases.
Stories I enjoyed:
1. Fire and cloud, Moses with the lizard
2. John redding goes to thy sea
3.possum or pig?
4. Mother Catherine, p 102 reads "some are weak to do wisdom things, but during to do wicked things. " think of paul when he says he's lead to do wicked things, thorn in his side, but will die to self to follow Christ.
I'll finish other stories, which took me over a year to read this.
2.5/3 🌟 🤩
Stories I enjoyed:
1. Fire and cloud, Moses with the lizard
2. John redding goes to thy sea
3.possum or pig?
4. Mother Catherine, p 102 reads "some are weak to do wisdom things, but during to do wicked things. " think of paul when he says he's lead to do wicked things, thorn in his side, but will die to self to follow Christ.
I'll finish other stories, which took me over a year to read this.
2.5/3 🌟 🤩
August 5, 2022
(3.5) Slices of a different life—which are decidedly valuable, and I’m grateful to have read. My enjoyment was just not what I had hoped!
October 12, 2025
Each of these stories is a treasure, and treated as such by the folks who assembled the collection. The introduction and afterword add vital context to the stories and their relationship to Hurston’s life. The stories themselves feel alive—funny, sharp, and tender all at once. An invaluable capsule of a literary legend.
January 13, 2014
An excellent collection of stories bounded together to create a wonderful book. At first, I was speed reading the book, my usual way for fiction, but I had difficulty comprehending the colorful black language used. This language was so powerful that I decided to read slowly and digest every sentence. I realized it was closely related to patois, which formed the riot for my translation.
I enjoyed most of the stories, especially "Hurricane" and "The Gilded Six-Bits". Hurricane illustrated this black family/community perception of the original native of the land, Indians, and then to realized how foolish they were not taking heed of the First People of the land warning and believing the teaching of "the white man". The core of the story is love, the love that Janie and Tea Cake shared. This story showed strong affection, strong family ties, basic human intrinsic love that exited in those days, circa 1946, between people of color that is not portray in today's stories. It is just wonderful, and so amusing the way "The Honorable" Zora Neale Hurston inflicted her humor on my karma. I wish this story and others, becomes or is a part of the American Literature taught in schools, from junior high to college level.
This collection of stories are indelible in my memory. My only regret is not knowing about Ms. Hurston until after so many decades consuming traditional fiction and missing the exposure to Black American Literature. Another regret is the neglect meted over the years that caused her teachings fallen by the wayside.
I enjoyed most of the stories, especially "Hurricane" and "The Gilded Six-Bits". Hurricane illustrated this black family/community perception of the original native of the land, Indians, and then to realized how foolish they were not taking heed of the First People of the land warning and believing the teaching of "the white man". The core of the story is love, the love that Janie and Tea Cake shared. This story showed strong affection, strong family ties, basic human intrinsic love that exited in those days, circa 1946, between people of color that is not portray in today's stories. It is just wonderful, and so amusing the way "The Honorable" Zora Neale Hurston inflicted her humor on my karma. I wish this story and others, becomes or is a part of the American Literature taught in schools, from junior high to college level.
This collection of stories are indelible in my memory. My only regret is not knowing about Ms. Hurston until after so many decades consuming traditional fiction and missing the exposure to Black American Literature. Another regret is the neglect meted over the years that caused her teachings fallen by the wayside.
March 17, 2018
Most of these stories read as fairy tales or popular fiction. They're interesting in that a lot of them are curiously deracialized, only subtly invoking the oppression, stratification, and dehumanization of the land in which they are set. They don't struggle or rail at society, but merely picture people within it, and are there as tales.
Beyond the use of dialect and occasional injections of voodoo, you could almost make the characters any race and the stories would still work as general archetypes, it is only in the small details that Hurston injects locality and life, which makes them feel a bit more vibrant and less mythological. And there is a certain shock in reading stories with rich white saviours and poor black villains that don't feel stereotyped or mean, though the disconnect from actual life is jarring.
But this commitment to telling unexamined tales isn't really my bag. They feel like fun, pass-the-time stories without a lot of depth. The entertainments are slapstick or maudlin, splashy but shallow. There's an verve to it told with some style but the stories are so broad and the characters so cut-out, they don't have much heft.
I can see why they fell out of popularity with the rise of more politically urgent and biting fiction that felt more real and engaged with contemporaneity, not tales that feel they could have been old radio serials. While I appreciate the revival of a forgotten literary figure, I'm not much one for the style of these nice, unchallenging entertainments.
Beyond the use of dialect and occasional injections of voodoo, you could almost make the characters any race and the stories would still work as general archetypes, it is only in the small details that Hurston injects locality and life, which makes them feel a bit more vibrant and less mythological. And there is a certain shock in reading stories with rich white saviours and poor black villains that don't feel stereotyped or mean, though the disconnect from actual life is jarring.
But this commitment to telling unexamined tales isn't really my bag. They feel like fun, pass-the-time stories without a lot of depth. The entertainments are slapstick or maudlin, splashy but shallow. There's an verve to it told with some style but the stories are so broad and the characters so cut-out, they don't have much heft.
I can see why they fell out of popularity with the rise of more politically urgent and biting fiction that felt more real and engaged with contemporaneity, not tales that feel they could have been old radio serials. While I appreciate the revival of a forgotten literary figure, I'm not much one for the style of these nice, unchallenging entertainments.
September 3, 2018
This is an uneven mix, but there’s plenty to enjoy for fans of Zora Neale Hurston. Her anthropologist’s eye shows up in lots of the stories here, as she samples liberally from folk tales, while at the same time, describing the people telling the tales, and the communities they’ve built.
The stories often tell of the comeuppance of local bullies, some by supernatural means. Many of the pieces are very funny, and I loved the one where she imitates biblical language to tell the story of a young man from the South who goes to the big city.
Quoting a bit of that one:
< 10. And the heart of Mandolin was inflamed, and he stood before his father and said, “I beseech thee now, papa, to give unto me now my portion that I may go hence to great Babylon and see life.”
11. But his father’s heart yearned towards him, and he said, “Nay, my son, for Babylon is full of wickedness, and thou art but a youth.”
12. But Mandolin answered him saying, “I crave to gaze upon its sins. What do you think I go to see, a prayer-meeting?”
13. But his father strove with him and said, “Why dost thou crave Babylon when Gussie Smith, the daughter of our neighbor, will make thee a good wife? Tarry now and taker her to wife, for verily she is a mighty biscuit cooker before the Lord.”
The stories often tell of the comeuppance of local bullies, some by supernatural means. Many of the pieces are very funny, and I loved the one where she imitates biblical language to tell the story of a young man from the South who goes to the big city.
Quoting a bit of that one:
< 10. And the heart of Mandolin was inflamed, and he stood before his father and said, “I beseech thee now, papa, to give unto me now my portion that I may go hence to great Babylon and see life.”
11. But his father’s heart yearned towards him, and he said, “Nay, my son, for Babylon is full of wickedness, and thou art but a youth.”
12. But Mandolin answered him saying, “I crave to gaze upon its sins. What do you think I go to see, a prayer-meeting?”
13. But his father strove with him and said, “Why dost thou crave Babylon when Gussie Smith, the daughter of our neighbor, will make thee a good wife? Tarry now and taker her to wife, for verily she is a mighty biscuit cooker before the Lord.”
May 8, 2013
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2140983.html[return][return]This is, as I hoped, an awfully good collection. There are some journeyman pieces about love, lust and death in a small town; there are some awesome character sketches, a great story written in Harlem slang, and an unfinished novel telling the story of John the Baptist's execution from Herodias' point of view. I chose the quote above, from an account of a black person being wrongfully prosecuted for attacking a white man, for its eerie resonance with the racially charged trial currently taking place a hundred miles farther south. Some things take a long time to change.[return][return]The stories are topped and tailed by essays by Henry Louis Gates, but the gold nugget at the end, mysteriously not even mentioned on the contents page, is Alice Walker's account, "Looking for Zora", of how she tracked down Hurston's grave in 1973, 14 years after her death in 1959. It's an incredible tale of erasure, hidden history and exclusion.
June 27, 2009
Perfect for my transit journeys this next week. Her 'Their Eyes' still resonates from when I re-read it last fall, am delighted to have more to read of her.
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Have read 5 or 6 so far, I really like them. Have been reading anthologies of short stories and so on for the last several months, and hers are definitely among my favorite. They don't throw me around too much, they match up information provided with information required well, they have a full, rich flavor that is very accessible, there is a great story arc to each one, full characters despite the short story format: all adds up to sublime delight.
Marking as read, but there is more there for next time..
Highly recommend!
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Have read 5 or 6 so far, I really like them. Have been reading anthologies of short stories and so on for the last several months, and hers are definitely among my favorite. They don't throw me around too much, they match up information provided with information required well, they have a full, rich flavor that is very accessible, there is a great story arc to each one, full characters despite the short story format: all adds up to sublime delight.
Marking as read, but there is more there for next time..
Highly recommend!
July 13, 2011
some of the stories appear multiple times but her wording is very poetic
(FROM JACKET)This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction—most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime—reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hurston's tremendous range and establish themes that recur in her longer fiction. With rich language and imagery, the stories in this collection not only map Hurston's development and concerns as a writer but also provide an invaluable reflection of the mind and imagination of the author of the acclaimed novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God."
(FROM JACKET)This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction—most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime—reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hurston's tremendous range and establish themes that recur in her longer fiction. With rich language and imagery, the stories in this collection not only map Hurston's development and concerns as a writer but also provide an invaluable reflection of the mind and imagination of the author of the acclaimed novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God."
January 21, 2018
This collection of short stories feels like a set of elements that can each exist on their own but can also coalesce into a single impression that saturates. She is a great writer and a great ethnographer--and the combination of the two is an unstoppable force. Her equal devotion to both Anthropology and Literature (especially her beautiful weaving of the two) reflect something that I can only aspire to achieve and something of which I believe the world needs more.
For the full review and analysis, check out Paper & Whiskey
For the full review and analysis, check out Paper & Whiskey
July 17, 2018
I was really compelled by this collection of all of her short fiction, even the ones she ordered burned after her death. There's neat revisions that were published two different ways and you can see a writer who uses the fable and folk tale in her early works (they rearranged chronologically) blossom into such a confident writer who blends folk tale with her own unique way of viewing race, the role of women, and myth. Highlights were "Spunk", "Hurricane" and "High John De Conquer". I had a formative experience reading "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in high school and found this a great collection show how ZNH would stretch out an idea and try things out.
September 21, 2007
I did my big reserach project in high school on Zora Neale Hurston's short stories. As stated, I am keenly interested in different cultural "adaptations" or unusual integrations of spirituality, superstition, folklore, and Christian religion. Hurston's stories are especially interesting as she studied Voodoo and Hoodoo practices in African-American culture in the deep South. Her stories show how black Christians in the south often had mythical, magical, and sometimes frighteningly "blended" systems of belief.
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