امتلاك سر البهجة

The Color Purple Collection #3

by Alice Walker

بعد رائعة اللون الأرجواني للكاتبة آليس ووكر، تقدم لنا رواية امتلاك سر البهجة. في هذه الرواية استخدمت الكاتبة بعض شخوص الرواية الأولى، لأنها لم تتمكن من التخلص منها، وظلت تلح عليها. ولم تطمئن كاتبتنا إلا بعد أن حاكت خيوط هذه الرواية ذات الموضوع الحرج.
لكن اطمئنان أليس ووكر كان نسبيا. فبعد صدورها اتهمت بمعادة القبيلة الإفريقية ومحاولة تزوير المقدسات، فنال آليس ما نالها من الأذى النفسي والبدني.

Genres: Fiction, Feminism, Classics, African American, Africa, Historical Fiction, Literature

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Noted American writer Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for her stance against racism and sexism in such novels as The Color Purple (1982).

People awarded this preeminent author of stories, essays, and poetry of the United States. In 1983, this first African woman for fiction also received the national book award. Her other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland , Meridian , The Temple of My Familiar , and Possessing the Secret of Joy . In public life, Walker worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There was a boulder lodged in my throat. My heart surged pitifully. I knew what the boulder was; that it was a word; and that behind that word I would find my earliest emotions.”- Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy

Tashi, an African woman from the Olinkan tribe, marries Adam, an American man, and spends most of her life in America. Witnessing her sister, Dura, die from a botched female genital mutilation (FGM) surgery, as well as undergoing FGM herself, Tashi becomes traumatized and has to be treated by psychotherapists who try to find the root of her mental instability.

This was an extremely tough read but any book about FGM is bound to be. The book questions the patriarchal societies that encourage FGM and other such restrictive practices. FGM is compared to foot-binding in China, another patriarchal practice that was used to control women.In Lisa See’s book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, the sister of the main character dies due to a bungled foot-binding procedure. It’s quite disturbing that in both cases brainwashing is in effect and women are told that these practices will make them more desirable to their husbands AND will also allow them to become welcome members of society:

“Even today there are villages where an uncircumcised woman is not permitted to live. The chiefs enforce this. On the other hand, circumcision is a taboo that is never discussed. How then do the chiefs know how to keep it going? How is it talked about?”

The book is made up of several short chapters, each concentrating on one character narrating their thoughts. It shows how everyone: spouses, friends, children, can be affected by FGM, not just the woman who undergoes the surgery.

This book is very Jungian in its approach, Jung even makes several appearances as Mzee (Swahili honorific for an elderly man), Tashi's first psychotherapist.

The most horrifying thing about this book is that FGM is still practiced in many countries. However, this book makes a statement; Alice Walker gives a voice to the women who have experienced FGM and have no voice. Walker shows how tradition can sometimes be oppressive. I was impressed by how Walker tackled such a controversial topic and with cultural sensitivity as well. I think her Jungian approach while delving into symbolism was extremely interesting. Because I've only recently gotten into Jung I feel I need to re-read this book once I've read a bit more Jung.

I took this book on vacation with me last week, I was initially very worried about reading it as it isn't exactly cheerful reading. I can't say I enjoyed reading this book but it's the type of book I'm very glad to have read.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY!"

Those words, at the very end of an emotional molotov cocktail of a novel, are not for the main character alone, even though they offer her comfort at the moment of her death. Those words are meant for the reader of the multilayered, polyphonic hymn to the human spirit. Reading the statistics is hard enough: one will be shocked to know what happens to women in societies where genital mutilation for the sake of control - under the euphemistic expression of "tradition" - is regularly practiced. But will one have a strong opinion? Will one openly speak up against barbarity and child abuse on a massive scale? Probably not.

And that is where fiction is more powerful than any report can possibly be: it makes us share the life and the pain of someone who KNOWS, someone who FEELS, someone whose life is destroyed by the wound her own people gave her in order to "follow custom".

There is no grey zone between right and wrong in some cases. This is one of them. Deliberately mutilating young girls to take away their ability to feel sexual pleasure is a crime against humanity, and it comes with so many side effects that they alone are a horror story to retell: endless pain during menstruation, difficulties to move properly, extreme pain during sexual intercourse, high risk of complications during pregnancy and especially childbirth, infection, incessant bleeding and so on. Some girls die of the procedure itself.

What it does to the psyche is Tashi's story.

It left me raw, hurting inside for all the women around the world who suffer from male weakness and insecurity, who suffer from their families' fear of their independence, choice and pleasure.

There is no excuse whatsoever, religious or tribal or patriarchal, for genital mutilation.

As one of the characters points out at one point in the novel: if men paused to imagine a ritual that forced upon them a ritual penis amputation at the age of ten or eleven, leaving only the tiniest hole to urinate under severe difficulties, then they would know what is done to women.

But they would still not know what it is like to be raped and broken up after having gone through that humiliating and incapacitating procedure, and they would not have to give birth after having destroyed the natural conditions under which birth is meant to take place.

Possessing the secret of joy, a human right!

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

For I saw the healthy green leaves of my America falling seared to the ground. Her sparkling rivers muddy with blood.

There are many faces to the African diaspora, many consequences of survival after trauma, many layers of love. Yet how does a survivor find joy when she lives daily with the results of a strained past? These are some concepts explored beautifully in this novel through the character, Tashi, or Evelyn, or, as some chapters elude to her: Tashi-Evelyn/Evelyn-Tashi. To understand her many names is to understand the many dimensions of an immigrant and trauma survivor. Alice Walker strengthens both the African and African-American historical and emotional experiences in this novel and this is always something I cherish from an African-American author (sort of what Hughes did in An African Treasury).

I found myself transfixed by the story. This is a grim story told with the kind of poetic elegance that follows the graceful pacing of poetry. Tasha, a woman facing trial for murder, operates as a multi-faceted character who fights to survive the many stings of trauma. The chapters are intentionally brief, the prose intentionally lucid, the structure simply stunning. Each character has the chance to present a brief point of view, which helps with clarity and also with an angled view of the main character: one sees why she and Adam (her husband) have a complicated love life, one understands the friendship with Olivia, Tashi's struggle with motherhood, her bond with Mbati, and more. Most importantly, I left with a clear view of Tashi, an understanding of her sorrow and the tragedy that forms her life.

I picked up this novel because I wanted to revisit Alice Walker's fiction, after having read and loved her nonfiction and poetry, including: In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose and The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker. As I read this, I recalled a nonprofit video I watched (can't remember the name of the organization) where they tried to depict the act of female genital mutilation with paper cutouts (art). It was non-intrusive and impacting, the kind of video that needs to be replayed for the world to see. (To understand more of this gender-biased ritual, see my review of this memoir from a survivor: Do They Hear You When You Cry.)

[Julie Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this book up for a dime on a bookshelf full of unappealing books outside of a library. I believe that I took it because I knew that Alice Walker is a reputable writer, but I didn't even read the back cover. It's been sitting on my shelf for a few years and I'd completely forgotten about it. I picked it up two nights ago and WOW...

The subject of genital mutilation has been dormant in conversations in my world lately, and I welcome the opportunity to be awakened to important concerns in the world today as I've been sidetracked with issues of little relevance to anyone...

I had a professor that claims she was a princess of Yoruba. She opened the discussion of female circumcision, cringing every time it was called "genital mutilation" by us naive westerners. She defended the practice, told us we didn't understand the culture, tried to make us feel ignorant. I continued to stress the word "mutilation" in my comments anyway. I wondered for just a minute if I were really just a stupid judgmental American (probably) that had no valid concern for the women in Africa and elsewhere who endure this brutality--after all, this was an actual African princess with whom I was arguing. But then I remembered that I'm equally horrified by bullfighting and accept no vindication for the "sport" in the name of "cultural difference." So my opinion has remained firm.

I wonder what this professor would think about this novel? She wanted to silence our discussion on the topic by shaming us. She also maintained that there was no sexism in Africa until it was introduced by the white colonialists. These ideas so conflict with this story that I desperately want to have a discussion with people who really know. Has Alice Walker been to Africa? Is she misinformed or has she done her research? Can one African tribe be so drastically different from another but still practice this same "initiation" ceremony? Anyway, these are the questions I have since finishing this novel last night. I'll be delving into some nonfiction right away.

Overall, this is a beautiful and poetic treatment of a vile subject. Makes you wince and cower, covering your wide open eyes. One of the ways in which I was personally touched after reading this was that I feel like I need to just love being me and resist the things that might interfere with that possibility.


Update 2008: I still remember this story every time I visit my friend's farm. The chickens! Oh, the horrors!

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

I have said this before: there are certain books which hit you with the force of a sledgehammer, insinuate themselves into your blood, devastate every atom of your psyche, and haunt you for days even after you close the pages. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker is such a book.

This is the story of Tashi, a minor character in the author's more famous novel The Color Purple. However, as Ms. Walker herself says, it is not a sequel. It is Tashi's own story, which can be read quite independently of the above-mentioned book. Like mythology and folk stories, each character has her or his own story - and they may not always necessarily match everywhere. I think in telling Tashi's tale, Alice Walker digs deep into her original tradition: that of the storyteller-shaman of the aboriginal culture.

Tashi is a member of the Olinkan tribe, converted to Christianity by Black American missionaries Samuel and Corrine along with her mother. She is in love with Adam, the adopted son of the missionaries: however, she chooses to leave him as an act of assertion of her African identity and go back to her tribe, and submit to the tribal face-scarring ceremony and genital mutilation. Adam hunts her down to her village and brings her back to America. But even living with him as his wife Evelyn, Tashi is torn between her two identities, scarred for life physically as well as psychologically. And through this troubled character (a masterly creation!), the author raises important questions about the identity of a black woman - as African, and as a female.

The book in its dedication says: "This Book is Dedicated in Tenderness and Respect to the Blameless Vulva". Female sexuality, and its physical manifestation in the vulva are the centre of the narrative. Genital mutilation is a barbarous act devised by the male-centric society to deprive woman of pleasure in the sexual act and as a consequence, any agency in copulation. She becomes merely an object of pleasure and reproduction. And sadly, it is women themselves who condone and even promote this act, as depicted in the character of M'Lissa, the tsunga, or tribal surgeon, who carries out this heinous act with sharp stones and rusty needles.

Dura, Tashi's elder sister who died under the knife, is a constant presence in her psyche which contributes to her mental imbalance which breaks out as violence against all and sundry. She can be seen as a metaphor for the silent multitude who fall prey to patriarchy. Contrasted with this is Lissette, Adam's one-time girlfriend who purposefully chooses to have a son by him out of wedlock.
A similar contrast is presented through Benny, Adam and Tashi's mentally challenged son, and Pierre, Lissette's brilliant son by Adam. The book is nothing if not a bunch of walking metaphors.

Tashi's violence, which is in part fuelled by a terrifying recurring dream of her being trapped in a dark tower, finally ends in its logical culmination. (Carl Jung makes a veiled appearance in the tale as Tashi's analyst - is her final act of violence a dark take on Jung's ideas of individuation?) At the grand finale, when she attains the stature of an icon, the meaning of her terrifying dream is unravelled by Pierre, an anthropologist now (revealing that would be a real spoiler). It is then that the following statement is made by Raye, Tashi's psychiatrist: "Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to the women and to the earth."

For me, this one sentence sums it all up. Only, I wouldn't limit it that way. Religion, nationalism, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism... whatever be the name, all the systems and philosophies which has propelled mankind's march towards so-called "civilisation" has been an assault on women and the environment. And this novel documents it through the tortured experiences of one woman.

Told in short segments, through the minds and fantasies of its protagonists, many a time slipping into fantasies and allegory, this is one book you can't afford to miss.

[Debbie "DJ" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read years ago, but still remember this powerful read. Walkers description of female genital mutilation is so disturbing, it is indelibly imprinted in my mind.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated Walker putting a human face on a culture that adopted the practice of “female genital mutilation.” But it bothers me some that she created a fictional culture, the Olinka tribe, to play out the drama of a people that has long adopted the practice. Trying for a universal or pan-Africa perspective I suppose, while avoiding painting a particular real culture to serious social commentary. The book kicks off a quote about Tashi from “The Color Purple”, who as a young immigrant in America chose to have her face scarred by Olinki tradition “to make her people feel better” and to seek the female initiation ceremony as well:
Tashi was happy that the initiation ceremony isn’t done in Europe or America … That makes it even more valuable to her.

It is the same Tashi who leads us back to her family remaining in Africa, long after the political chaos that drove her mother to take her to California as a young girl. She wants to marry her Afro-American partner Adam in the traditional way, including the female circumcision process. We learn about how it is the elder women who are the perpetrators of the crude amputation under a hallowed and mythologized rite of passage. How the men who run the patriarchy justify the system to limit the dangers of female pleasure seeking too much like that reserved for men.

The story unfolds by alternating sections from Tashi or Adam’s perspectives at different points in her life journey. Tashi’s impact of painful intercourse and ultimate aversion to sex is anguishing to experience. Under analysis her dreams reveal a personal accounting of her fate as blended with tribal mystical tales. She tunes into an early memory of the suffering of the girls undergoing the process and a death of one who was dear to her. Tashi’s choice of action to resolve her terrible state is harrowing to experience. Maybe empathy for her emblematic life in this story is the only way to get Walker’s readership to walk this tough walk through all the angles on this widespread cultural practice. Definitely educational, but it was a bit too didactic to fulfill most of my aims in reading novels.

When this was published in 1992, the estimate was 100 million women worldwide who have experienced varying degrees of what is officially termed by the World Health Organization as “mutilation.” In the thorough Wikipedia article on the subject, the estimates are now closer to 200 million. Thus, we in the West can’t just conceive of it as an arcane practice that we don’t want to think about and hope will soon be phased out. I guess I am a cultural imperialist for entertaining those notions. Rates go down only slowly with economic development and education in societies (for example the rate in Egypt among teenaged girls fell from 97% in 1985 to 70% in 2015). Reasons women cite for the practice in 2016 surveys included: “social acceptance, religion, hygiene, preservation of virginity, marriageability and enhancement of male sexual pleasure”. Although many of the nations where the practice thrives are predominately Muslim, this may just be an historical coincidence:
FGM's origins in northeastern Africa are pre-Islamic, but the practice became associated with Islam because of that religion's focus on female chastity and seclusion. There is no mention of it in the Quran.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Possessing the Secret of Joy because it inspired what’s arguably Tori Amos’ best known hit, Cornflake Girl, off her sophomore album Under the Pink. Women betraying women is one of that record’s main themes, so I went into this novel hyper-aware of that particular aspect, and other than that one nauseatingly graphic chapter (which clearly went on to inspire the 1996 deep cut Blood Roses), it’s what horrified and affected me most. The practice of female genital mutilation may have been instituted by the patriarchy, but it’s women that uphold it, and this novel makes you reckon with the illusion of sisterhood. It’s the mother that takes her daughter to be mutilated, just as she has been, and her mother before her—an oppressive, barbaric, religious, misogynist tribal custom that feeds female generational trauma.

“If you lie to yourself about your own pain, you will be killed by those who will claim you enjoyed it.”

The story follows Tashi/Evelyn, a minor character from The Color Purple, who has left Olinka and now lives in the US with her American husband Adam, Celie’s son… but Tashi/Evelyn, as evidenced by her going by two names, one African and one Western, feels deeply torn between the two cultures, and chooses to undergo female circumcision to feel closer to the African community she left behind. She witnessed how the procedure killed her older sister, but instead of counting her lucky stars that she made it out intact, Tashi feels as if she is betraying her roots, and goes back to have it performed after already having experienced the joys of female pleasure. As a result of the severe physical and emotional trauma that ensues, she spends the rest of her life battling madness, and in time, through psychotherapy rooted in the Jungian tradition, she finds that under her overwhelming grief, there is a searing rage. Ultimately, it’s this anger that drives her to action, and back to life—at the cost of it.

“I wanted my own suffering, the suffering of women and little girls, still cringing before the overpowering might and weapons of the torturers, to be the subject of a sermon. Was woman herself not the tree of life? And was she not crucified? Not in some age no one even remembers, but right now, daily, in many lands on earth?”

While it can be read independently of The Color Purple (stylistically, they are as different as can be), I personally had a much better experience with this novel the second time around, when I read the full loosely connected trilogy. Coming off it fresh, I had an easier time following the fragmented narration: It’s a short book, yet it’s divided into twenty parts and even more chapters, with multiple POVs, time-jumps, and a very ambitious scope, making important and valid points about African colonization and the diaspora. Possessing the Secret of Joy is visceral and unflinching, and by combining fact and fiction, Walker gave a voice to the voiceless, writing about a vile subject with lucid, poetic prose.

“These settler cannibals. Why don’t they just steal our land, mine our gold, chop down our forests, pollute our rivers, enslave us to work on their farms, fuck us, devour our flesh and leave us alone? Why must they also write about how much joy we possess?”

—————

My other reviews for the The Color Purple trilogy:
1: The Color Purple · ★★★★★
2: The Temple of My Familiar · ★★★½
3: Possessing the Secret Of Joy · ★★★★

February 2025 selection for ...Like a Good Book Club

[Monika · Rating 5 out of 5]

At present, amongst the various problems that are looming eerily around the world, one of the most problematic ones is romanticization. A doctor is fighting for us, romanticise her/his profession. A teacher is teaching amidst all odds, talk about it for days saying how perfect the person is. Now, I am not asking for not celebrating humanness. I intend to bring to fore the idea that all of us are flawed in one way or another. Instead of romanticising, why not celebrate the good while also looking at the bad with a critical lens? The African continent gave me one such lesson. I was in awe of the continent and I often felt repulsed by colonial subjugation. While I am not celebrating colonialism, there is a silver lining in every aspect of life and one of those aspects in the case of colonialism is that it brought to forefront the mutilation of female body in the name of patriarchy (not necessarily an African thing).

Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker revolves around a minor character, Tashi, from The Color People, who falls in love with Adam, Celie's son. The Tashi of Possessing the Secret of Joy is nothing like the Tashi of The Color Purple. Her proud walk, her innocence, her love for Adam - everything is questioned in Possessing the Secret of Joy. Tashi's sister, Dura, succumbs to the genital mutilation and although she is aware of her sister's death, Tashi still goes on to get her genital mutilated, which is essentially the removal of clitoris, because she feels that it is the only thing that can connect her to the Olinka community.

In parts, the language of the novel is quite similar to the language of The Color Purple wherein, the narration is so straightforward that one need not pause to unravel the meaning. However, considering the subject matter, it is extremely difficult to call it a breezy read because of its simple language. The novel is told through multiple perspectives and one needs to keep a close eyes on the words so that it does not slip away from the grasp of the reader. Like Tashi's question in the novel about why should only the colonised change for the coloniser, the novel refuses to unfurl itself to the reader so much so that even the straightforward narration seems like a peril which at times the reader might want to shred off.

Also on Instagram.

[Ellinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was shocked when I read this book. I had previuosly read another book on female "circumcision", Desert Flower by Waris Dirie. Desert Flower is non-fiction and should probably have made an even deeper impression on me. But Possessing the Secret of Joy, though fiction, was the one that truly unsettled me.
When Waris Dirie was "circumcised" she was a little girl, she was forced and she didn't really know what was happening. Tashi however already has had sex, is living a life in America far away from her home country with a loving husband and still decides to undergo the procedure to honor her roots. She later has a baby who is retarded because of problems while giving birth caused by the narrow opening of her vagina. She then aborts another baby because she wouldn't be able to give birth in a natural way but also doesn't want a Cesarean as she is afraid to be cut open again. Tashi undergoes therapy but in the end kills the tsunga who circumcised her and is herself sentenced to death.
The story is told from various perspectives and not is to follow in the beginning. It is truly captivating, though, and often hard to stomach. The book is a must-read. It gives so much insight into how the women in certain cultures are the ones continuing this Tradition, how they legimitate this ritual by religious beliefs and condemn others who didn't undergo the procedure.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the early Nineties, there was a story in our local newspaper about female circumcision that was published because of the release of Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. It was a practice I had never heard of before, and I was both horrified and fascinated. I read it as soon as I could. Now, after more than 15 years, I still remember how emotional this book was. (I don't know what possessed me to think of it today.) With Possessing the Secret of Joy, Walker proves that fiction can often make a point more powerfully than non-fiction. By putting the reader inside the heads of different characters and making the reader experience their experiences, Walker manages to make a difficult subject seem very immediate.

To be honest, the only reason this book gets 4 stars instead of five is because of a stupid scene with a French woman giving birth who has an orgasm when the baby comes out. That scene almost made me throw the book through the window.

[Octavia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excerpt:
I use to think my mother thought about me. But I identified with her suffering so completely it was I who always thought about, indeed was haunted by, her suffering; and because I believed she and I were one, I made the part of her that was me think about me. In truth, my mother was not equipped, there was not enough of her self left to her, to think about me. Or about my sister Dura, who bled to death after a botched circumcision, or about any of her other children. She had just sunk into her role of "She Who Prepares The Lambs for Slaughter".

This Collection is truly a Must-read. If you decide again reading this one on its entirety, then I highly recommend reading Novels #1and 3. The Final chapter of this novels is Phenomenal 💙 .

[Karine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disjointed, character-driven story telling in which the plot itself is a mystery that is slowly revealed by numerous, inter-related characters at various points in time. When the puzzle finally comes together, it still feels like pieces are missing. Connections between female circumcision in Africa, sexism, political oppression, and AIDS are powerfully argued, but the motivation behind characters' actions are often obscure.

[Rebouh Abderezak · Rating 3 out of 5]

ستتصارع كثيراً مع هذه الرواية، مع المعنى وليس الشخصيات فالشخصيات والاحداث محبوكة جيداً لكن عن المعنى، ختان المرأة/سود/إفريقيا، اوووف ربما كانت أليس ووكر الكاتبة الوحيدة القادرة على كتابة هذه الرواية، هل وفقت في ذلك؟ - لا أدري... مازلت أتصارع...

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Religion is an elaborate excuse for what men has done to women and to the earth."

In this novel Alice Walker looks at the horrifying practice and consequences of female genital mutilation, according to the author's note at the end of book is believed to have been inflicted upon between ninety and one hundred million girls and women alive today. The practice varies from simple excision of the clitoris to a full-scale removal of the labia, thus denying the victim sexual pleasure,.

Tashi, the main protagonist of this novel, made a brief appearance in 'The Colour Purple' as an African woman living in America who returned to Africa to have the operation as a gesture of solidarity with the women of her village, 'Possessing the Secret of Joy' is her story.

I must admit that the book's fractured and non-chronological structure initially made it a little difficult for me to differentiate between the various voices, especially as many of them seem had differing names, an African and an American one. Equally as a European I struggled to comprehend why any female would feel the need to return to Africa to undergo such a barbaric experience just to somehow feel whole. However, once I had overcome these obstacles the story had me totally gripped if extremely uncomfortable.

This book raises some interesting questions because alongside genital mutilation it also touches on a possible origin for AIDS and the use of chimpanzees in medical experiments.

"There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth."

Personally I felt that Walker spent a bit too much time sensationalising the actual operation that the plot suffered a little but I fully understand why she felt the need to do so. This is an important message that needs to be made especially when you realise that 'tradition' is being misused as a reason to justify it and it's often men who insist on it's continuance .

"Men refuse to remember things that don't happen to them."

[jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

i am, doubtless, doing a grave injustice to this book, which will be probably rectified the moment i read reviews and secondary material on it. but i have a prejudice against alice walker. she seems to me, for an accumulation of reasons none of which sits discreetly in my mind, identifiable, a sloppy writer. say this book. the story is powerful and powerfully told. but then there's a whole lot of anthropology thrown in, and some etymology, and some sort of grand historical theory of patriarchy and the submission of women, and when you scratch the surface a tiny little bit you realize that it's made up. i didn't scratch the whole surface, so it's entirely possible that some of it -- the core of it? -- may not be made up. but when i scratched i found sloppiness or unabashed invention (some invention is openly acknowledged in the postscript) and, well, i am not sure i liked it.

i could be persuaded, but, right now, i don't see why alice walker needs to come up with an invented nomenclature (say) for stuff that truly exists. she doesn't offer any reason and i don't see a reason myself.

so this is what took the book south for me. the first part is beautiful, but then, well, i stopped being engaged, because i felt i was being taken for a ride, and i become unconvinced with everything. what is the relationship between adam and lisette all about? what is its narrative purpose? how do people (reviewers, etc.) know that tashi is treated by carl jung? are the clay figurines for real? do women really leave refugee camps because otherwise they'd be asked to work? what?

nice treatment of post-traumatic mental pain, and powerful, powerful indictment of genital mutilation. i thought i knew about it but i didn't know a thing. genital mutilation must stop.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second reading of this book. The first was nearly 20 years ago and all I really recalled was thinking I should hold on to the book because I would read it again.

Since I am a very different person now that when I was in my early twenties - I experienced this book very differently. The first read was an introduction to genital mutilation, let alone it's different forms, the cultural significance, the consideration of the psychological ramifications for anyone involved - I was amazed and pained and not sure what was true and what was literary license.

The second time I felt more affinity for the characters themselves and not just the situations they were in.

I was struck that I didn't even remember the reference at the end to the AIDS epidemic and vaccines. And 20 years ago, researching the topic was not easy. Today, with the all knowing, far reaching internet, I was able to gather alot of information supporting and challenging the theory. There's another extremely charged topic! Something to keep an eye out for new information (not that I would expect to see the topic addressed in any mainstream media.

Alice Walker is a wonderful writer that layers her stories with meaning and emotion. She tackles difficult and politically and culturally sensitive topics. Her books beg to be read more than once.

[Ikram Laradji · Rating 5 out of 5]

"لكن هذا الذي أعرفه: لا يوجد جحيم ليخافه الإنسان أعظم من الذي على الأرض."
أليس والكر من كاتباتي المفضلات، و اللون الأرجواني من أقرب الروايات إلى قلبي، و أنا أقرأ هذه الرواية كنت أتساءل: كيف يكتب شخص ما نصا بهذه الحميمية عن قضية ليست قضيته ؟؟؟
كان عمر الكاتبة عشرين عاما عندما سمعت بختان الإناث أول مرة، لكن المشاعر في الرواية توحي أن الكاتبة كانت هي نفسها تاشا أو دورا أو ميليسا، ذابت الشخصيات و لم يبق سوى الشعور المرير بالانتهاك، و البقاء في تلك النقطة، لا يمكنك التحرك، تفقدين شيئا ما في ذلك الكوخ القذر، تفقدين الطفلة التي كنتها.
من خلال شخصية تاشا، نرى حوالي مئة مليون امرأة في إفريقيا و الشرق الأوسط، تاشا التي بقيت حبيسة برج ما داخل عقلها هي امرأة من لحم و دم و عظم، امرأة معذبة نتيجة الطقوس التي مارسوها عليها .
هذا النص بديع جدا، مؤلم جدا و حقيقي جدا .

[Fatima ♡` · Rating 3 out of 5]

ما معنى امتلاك سر البهجة ؟
أين يمكن العثور على السر ؟
وأين علينا البحث ؟!!

ليس علينا البحث بعيداً
ليس علينا البحث خارج ذواتنا إطلاقاً
لأن سر البهجة متأصل فينا
هو المكوّن الرئيسي لأرواحنا

نعم
المقاومة هي سر البهجة ،،!
أن ننهض بعد سقوطنا
أن نكسر تلك القيود التي نشأنا وهي تطوقنا !!
أن نتجاوز ذلك السياج المليئ بالثقوب !!

المقاومة
ولكلٍّ منا تعريفه الخاص عن المقامة !!
ولكننا لا نختلف أبداً على أنها السر
سر البهجة
من يملك القدرة على المقاومة
فهو بالتأكيد يمتلك
سر البهجة

[Kym Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when it came out in the early 90s. As I began rereading it, I now understood why I cringed and was saddened by the contents of this story.

The woman is excised to rid her of her masculinity (her clitoris). The female initiation in the Olinkan culture was genital mutilation, which was supposed to help women keep themselves clean and pure. But the procedure was not only unsanitary, but whatever type of tool was available to them to use butchered a young girl's genitalia.

This story is told through the innocence and traumatized lens of the main character Tashi (Evelyn). When Tashi was a little girl, the deep sadness and loneliness she felt when her sister Dura died from bleeding to death was something that no one talked about, and the silence was deafening. Tashi marries Adam, and they move to the United States. Surprisingly and miraculously, they have a son, Benny (Bentu Moraga).

Tashi is later accused of killing Mother Lissa, who did the procedure of genital circumcision on Tashi, and her sister Dura who bled to death because of this mutilation. Tashi's husband Adam testified that Tashi (Evelyn) is someone whose whole life was destroyed by the enactment of a ritual upon which her body had not been equipped to understand. People do not want to hear what their children suffer, and the telling of that suffering itself is taboo. Adam went on to ask if they understood better than the condition women suffered from the unnatural constrictions of the flesh their bodies that had been whittled and refashioned into. It is similar to that of every man in the courtroom having his penis removed.

The various characters, Lisette, Pierre, Olivia, Mzee, Mbati, Raye, and Tashi's mother Catherine, were an integral part of Tashi's mental state and development. Tashi Evelyn is eventually found guilty of the crime and executed. RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY!

[Aleeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the toughest book for me to finish. It was recommended to me by several friends whose judgment in books reflected mine, but I kept putting it off. The novel's subject, female genital mutilation, cannot be sugar-coated, nor should it be. Alice Walker does a unbelievable job of kicking your apathetic butt into gear. You will be angry, unbelievably angry. Angry enough to figure out what you can do to stop this, frustrated that the practice is still going on and tolerated by societies wholly dominated by men. I am not an emotional reader, leaving teardrop stained pages, but I dare you to be unmoved by this story--whether you are male, female, black, brown, white, asian or latina. The pain and fear are palpable. Here is the hardest part: YOU MUST READ IT TO THE END. If you do, your reward will be learning how to possess the secret of joy no matter what.

[Cleo R · Rating 5 out of 5]

*10

[Leopoldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Posiblemente está más cerca del 4.5 que del 5. Una novela que, a mi parecer, le faltó apenas un pequeño algo para ser perfecta.

Intensa, conmovedora, de un ritmo narrativo imparable, poderoso. Alice Walker es un prodigio indiscutible.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I say. These settler cannibals. Why don't they just steal our land, mine our gold, chop down our forests, pollute our rivers, enslave us to work on their farms, fuck us, devour our flesh and leave us alone? Why must they also write about how much joy we possess?

I can't wait to read something like this that was written in reaction to Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. If I had to take a drink every time another treacle-tart infantalization brought upon by the complete refusal to both learn a new language and actually talk to people crossed my path, a cat's nine lives wouldn't be enough to keep me alive till the end of 1200 pages. There's enough interesting material when it comes to the crossroads between WWI and WWII in terms of the specifics of the hell already known and the hell yet to come, but if you're going to mix it with a condemnation of any kind of imperialism, be a dear and include all types of imperialism, including that of heteronormativity and cisnormativity and so much else. If that seems like too much, take the stance of Walker's book: highly specific in scope, inherently balanced in humanization, and actively working against every kind of attempt to transform a human being into a metaphor. If that seems like too much as well: boo hoo.

Returning to the main book at hand after some contextualization via my other simultaneous reads, this is a book that I'm not sure about. I've delved enough into social justice movements to recognize the stereotypes African Americans and Africans have and/or have had about one another, so the fact that Walker chose to completely make up words for the communities and the practices that she ultimately grounded in one of the most falsified continents in existence doesn't inspire confidence. There's also the matter of FGM being one of those topics that fit nicely into the category of divide and conquer and into its subcategory save-the-nonwhite-women-from-the-nonwhite-men, so whomever Walker's target audience is, it's certainly not me. Beyond these concerns, what I can appreciate is the scalpel the author takes to yet another silent pain born and bred via the artificial processes inherent in 'normality'. The Color Purple was better, both in weight of humanization and narrative arc, but it was nice to see Tashi again in places that TCP never set foot in. Europe, for one. I don't know why I like reading about black people in places other than the US, but I do. It gives me fuel for fodder when it comes to those who argue that no one in their fave Victorian or WWI England show could have very been black, at any rate. I have a 10k strong population to throw at people for that latter situation.

Walker's one of a number of WOC authors for whom I have one book read and at least one more waiting in the wings. I'd like to think that I'll read more of her and others such as Hulme, Kogawa, hooks, Hương, but I'm not going to force it, especially now that I've read so many during the 2016 Year of Reading Women of Color that there's a good chance I'd run out within a year or two if I kept it up. I don't add books to the old to-read list like I used to, for better or worse. The most I can do is get through the ones I have left and take refuge in a Walker when a West is on the loose.

If every man in this courtroom had had his penis removed, what then?

[Meen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my heart, my heart, my feminist heart. There are very few authors who affect me as deeply as Alice Walker does.

And FGM infuriates me more than any other misogynistic cultural practice. I'm most assuredly not a cultural relativist. If a culture (including religions) perpetuates the subordination of females, it is simply abominable. Males must develop ways of germinating (*haha*) self-worth beyond the ones that base status on one's ability to possess and dominate females (and other males).

Alice Walker's linguistic gifts are stunningly beautiful, but I also like the wisdom that I find in her work. Some lines that I underlined:

They behave this way not because I'm black but because they are white.

If you lie to yourself about your own pain, you will be killed by those who will claim you enjoyed it.

If Jesus has died for you, how can you find fault with anything else he did? / Some people fault him for claiming to die for them...

a kind of insanity that...the pampered oppressed always feel
(LOVE that concept of the pampered oppressed!)

...his eyes gone grave with love and incomprehension
(Tashi's son when she was abusive to him. Those eyes. Devastating.)

World wars have been fought and lost; for every war is against the world and every war against the world is lost.

What is the fundamental question one must ask of the world?
...the answer was always the same: Why is the child crying?

Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to woman and to the earth...

I could not bear a life without belief. But this I know: There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth.

...it is only the cruelty of truth, speaking it, shouting it, that will save us now.

RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY!

...human compassion is equal to human cruelty and...it is up to each of us to tip the balance. (from the afterwords)

[Amena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opening line - 'I did not realise for a long time that I was dead.'
#PossessingTheSecretOfJoy * "My wife is hurt, I say. Wounded. Broken. Not mad. Evelyn laughs. Flinging her head back in deliberate challenge. The laugh is short. Sharp. The bark of a dog. Beyond hurt. Unquestionably mad. Oddly free." *

Driven by emotion rather than intellect Tashi (Evelyn) undergoes female circumcision in her teen years. Despite the subject matter, this is surprisingly easy to read yet raw at times. The procedure, amongst other things, drive Tashi to insanity. The entire novel is narrated by the characters with each chapter titled under them. As a reader you don't get confused at all - the narrative works well in its complexity. The novel also jumps back and forth in time providing an added dimension. *

The dangerous effects of genital mutilation on ones mind, health and happiness are frightening. 4.5 🌟

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book close to its first publication date. I will reveal my total ignorance here--I did not realize that the subject of this book was 'real', as in actually happening, until I was more than halfway thru the book. That realization was quite a shock! In my defense, probably 98 percent of the US population at the time had never heard of female circumcision (as it was then called).

In light of that, perhaps one star of my rating might be attributed to the torrent of emotion released within me at this tragic revelation. But I challenge any clear-thinking human to read this book and not be profoundly moved.

[Xandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Tashi from The Color Purple, the African woman who undergoes female genital mutilation as a teenager, a traditional practice intended to control her sexuality, leaving her emotionally and physically scarred. It’s a pretty tough read, with scenes that sear themselves into your brain and, although it falls short of perfection, needs to be commended for tackling a sensitive topic not often addressed. The Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi, who underwent female genital mutilation as a young girl, talks about this practice in her books and I’d be interested to see how her perspective on the matter compares to Walker’s.

[Monya · Rating 3 out of 5]

روايه موضوعها الأساسي قضية ختان الإناث في افريقيا .... نحن الآن في العام 2021 ولا يزال بعض الجهله يمارسون هذا الإجرام بحق بناتهم !!!
الختان ليس إلا نوع من أنواع استعباد جسد الأنثى ..
هذا الجسد الذي يؤرق كثيرين من أصحاب النفوس المريضه !!
جميل وانساني جدا أن يقوم أحدهم بتبني الحديث والدفاع عن قضية لا تهمه ولا تهم مجتمعه مثل كاتبة العمل آليس ووكر ... هذا برأيي ما يميز الإنسان الرحيم عن الكائن العادي هو يستطيع أن يشعر بألم غيره بل و يدافع عنه .