1.10.2006
The Color Purple
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple
I must have seen the movie a thousand times. Almost everyone I know can quote a line, a memory or a song from its script. It’s almost impossible to watch anything Tyler Perry has brought to life, and not see its inflection weaved throughout his stories. It is a cinematic masterpiece whose heart wrenching story has captured the hearts and souls of countless devotees for more than twenty years. Most recently it is a Broadway play. But before any of this, it was simply a voice trying hard to make its way into the world through its muse and author Alice Walker.
What makes good fiction good fiction? What makes a story move beyond the pages of a book and become living breathing entities we can touch and feel? What makes them real? These are the questions I ask each time I find myself before a computer pecking away. These are the answers I must receive and/or discover if I am ever to become the writer I dream. And that dream has little to do with monetary success as much as it has to do with my ability to act as a reliable medium for the voices trying to come through; a medium that doesn’t challenge what he hears, but, accepts it as it is; a medium that doesn’t attempt to direct the flow but rather, goes with the flow. If I can accomplish this, then, maybe someday I can produce something as miraculous as The Color Purple.
Alice Walker was truly a medium. She listened to Celie. She understood Celie. She became Celie. She allowed Celie to be Celie, no cover-up, no excuses, no political correctness. Because of this we were able to fully explore Celie’s psyche and watch her as she grew from a weak, timid, permissive little girl, raped by her father, shunned by her mother, sold off into marriage, beaten and humiliated by her husband to a strong, independent, charismatic force that believed, forgave, loved and moved on when others might have withered away and died. The idea that I felt I knew Celie and Nettie and Sophia and Mr. and Shug is no accident, simply because Alice allowed herself first, as the medium, to know them. And so it is only right that I too, upon digesting this novel, would know them as well. What an adventure. What a gift. What a blessing it must be to shut up, and listen. Shhhhhh...
As a writer, a struggling one (in every sense of the word), I spend so much of my time playing God——telling my characters how to think, what to feel, what they want and from whom they want it——I barely allow them time to think, breathe and function on their own. Because I believe they are my creations I offer them no will of their own; in retaliation almost all of them refuse to comply and as a result I often find myself lost for words, unable to pinpoint their feelings and quite incapable as a writer; a position that leaves me surfing the net for idle purchases, instead of fulfilling their individual prophecy. In life I have a tendency to avoid stiff, one dimensional, cardboard cut-out characters, so it is only natural in my writing and readings I tend to ignore these characters as well. And now, I know why, I’m not listening.
Having spent the last three days reading The Color Purple all I can say is Alice Walker laid it down in this novel, just as James Baldwin did in Another Country. Both have a way of capturing the essence of the human spirit and presenting it in such a way you can’t help but notice it, and see it for what it is: good, bad or indifferent. And one day, having fully learned the art of medium-ism, I too will stand among the greats. Wish me luck.
|
I must have seen the movie a thousand times. Almost everyone I know can quote a line, a memory or a song from its script. It’s almost impossible to watch anything Tyler Perry has brought to life, and not see its inflection weaved throughout his stories. It is a cinematic masterpiece whose heart wrenching story has captured the hearts and souls of countless devotees for more than twenty years. Most recently it is a Broadway play. But before any of this, it was simply a voice trying hard to make its way into the world through its muse and author Alice Walker. What makes good fiction good fiction? What makes a story move beyond the pages of a book and become living breathing entities we can touch and feel? What makes them real? These are the questions I ask each time I find myself before a computer pecking away. These are the answers I must receive and/or discover if I am ever to become the writer I dream. And that dream has little to do with monetary success as much as it has to do with my ability to act as a reliable medium for the voices trying to come through; a medium that doesn’t challenge what he hears, but, accepts it as it is; a medium that doesn’t attempt to direct the flow but rather, goes with the flow. If I can accomplish this, then, maybe someday I can produce something as miraculous as The Color Purple.
Alice Walker was truly a medium. She listened to Celie. She understood Celie. She became Celie. She allowed Celie to be Celie, no cover-up, no excuses, no political correctness. Because of this we were able to fully explore Celie’s psyche and watch her as she grew from a weak, timid, permissive little girl, raped by her father, shunned by her mother, sold off into marriage, beaten and humiliated by her husband to a strong, independent, charismatic force that believed, forgave, loved and moved on when others might have withered away and died. The idea that I felt I knew Celie and Nettie and Sophia and Mr. and Shug is no accident, simply because Alice allowed herself first, as the medium, to know them. And so it is only right that I too, upon digesting this novel, would know them as well. What an adventure. What a gift. What a blessing it must be to shut up, and listen. Shhhhhh...
As a writer, a struggling one (in every sense of the word), I spend so much of my time playing God——telling my characters how to think, what to feel, what they want and from whom they want it——I barely allow them time to think, breathe and function on their own. Because I believe they are my creations I offer them no will of their own; in retaliation almost all of them refuse to comply and as a result I often find myself lost for words, unable to pinpoint their feelings and quite incapable as a writer; a position that leaves me surfing the net for idle purchases, instead of fulfilling their individual prophecy. In life I have a tendency to avoid stiff, one dimensional, cardboard cut-out characters, so it is only natural in my writing and readings I tend to ignore these characters as well. And now, I know why, I’m not listening.
Having spent the last three days reading The Color Purple all I can say is Alice Walker laid it down in this novel, just as James Baldwin did in Another Country. Both have a way of capturing the essence of the human spirit and presenting it in such a way you can’t help but notice it, and see it for what it is: good, bad or indifferent. And one day, having fully learned the art of medium-ism, I too will stand among the greats. Wish me luck.
