Reviews for The complete stories

The average rating for The complete stories based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-25 00:00:00 Wolfgang Gerber 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 This book gathers both published and unpublished short fiction from 1921 to 1955.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.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-11-18 00:00:00 Pat Tadd 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.