Banned Book Review: The Color Purple

It's September 30th here. And has been for twenty hours and fourty minutes. Ergo, I feel safe in putting this up.

The Color Purple is number seventeen on the list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009.

Sad to say, I likely would never have read this book if it hadn't been banned. In fact, it was the Banned Books Week event on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books that first brought the title to my attention. I will forever remain indebted to the wonderful SBs, and forever saddened that a work of this power will likely remain restricted from public consumption for many years to come.

This is not an easy book for me to read. It's stark and compelling, and the delivery - letters and diary entries that often begin with 'Dear God', detailing the harrowing and often unspeakably painful life of main character Celie - drives the tale's messages home so effectively that when I first finished this book I spent several minutes crying on my mother's shoulder. I am not a woman who cries easily.

Celie suffers immensely in her life, and much of the sheer power of The Color Purple comes from her initial helplessness, her slow realisation that this is not the way she should be treated, and her blossoming as a woman who belongs to and answers to nobody but herself. It is a long, extremely painful journey for both her and the reader, and I cannot praise Alice Walker enough for having the bravery to not pull her punches.

The Color Purple is mostly about Celie, but no small amount of the story's realism comes from the way the lives of the people around her are woven into the tale. Her younger and supposedly more attractive sister Nettie, her husband Mr. ___, the entrancing and wild Shug Avery, Mr. ___'s son Harpo and his two wives, Sofia and Mary Agnes, and the missionary family who took Nettie in... they all have compelling personalities and tales of their own, giving depth to Celie's own life and her letters.

This is a book about life, love, sexuality, racism, and becoming one's own person. I'm only sad that so many people who should read this book will never get the chance because of the same narrow-mindedness that is so soundly decried on it's pages.