luxemburg89
3rd September 2007, 16:54
In my opinion one of the finest books I have ever read. The Washington Post wrote of it: 'So charged with pain and beauty that the novel becomes poetry.' No matter what I think of the Washington Post I cannot disagree with that description, nor is there anything that really sums up this book. The writing is fantastic, it is probably the pick of all her novels, each one an outstanding example of poetic prose.
The novel follows the struggle of Pecola, an impoverished black girl with abusive parents, to become beautiful. To become beautiful she must find blue eyes - that symbol of white beauty so desired by the society she exists in. The story is told through the eyes of her friend, equally impoverished but with loving parents, and follows the lives of the key characters leading up to, and beyond, Pecola's search for blue eyes. But blue eyes are not enough, Pecola needs to have the bluest eye.
All I can say is read this book - anyone who has been a child will relate to it - and I think most people on this website were probably children once...though some of the OIers seem to have been born middle-class and middle-aged.
The novel follows the struggle of Pecola, an impoverished black girl with abusive parents, to become beautiful. To become beautiful she must find blue eyes - that symbol of white beauty so desired by the society she exists in. The story is told through the eyes of her friend, equally impoverished but with loving parents, and follows the lives of the key characters leading up to, and beyond, Pecola's search for blue eyes. But blue eyes are not enough, Pecola needs to have the bluest eye.
All I can say is read this book - anyone who has been a child will relate to it - and I think most people on this website were probably children once...though some of the OIers seem to have been born middle-class and middle-aged.