Bookie Mee » African-American

Bayou by Jeremy Love (Vol 1)

mee — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:06:31 +0000

Bayou is an online comic by Jeremy Love, which first appeared at Zuda Comics, and later out in print as the first printed book format work to be released by the online website.

The story is a mixed of fantasy and reality, reality which is based on the oppressed era for Black people (1930s America). Our heroine, a little girl named Lee, has her world turned upside down when her white girl friend is missing and her father is accused of kidnapping her. Trying to find her friend to save her father, she goes on a journey, meeting many colorful characters and facing lots of dangers.

I first heard of the comic from Nymeth and had been thinking about it, since I fell in love with the art straight away. Somehow I missed her saying that you can read the comic online (doh!). Luckily she mentioned it again during the last Dewey’s read-a-thon and I quickly went to the website to read it.

I’m so happy that it’s available online so I could satisfy my curiosity for a bit. The artwork is fabulous. Great great stuff. Unfortunately with the speed of my Internet connection, I needed to wait for a few seconds to load each page. Not the best way to read a graphic novel, for sure. I forced my way through, but with some extra effort on my part. It did diminish my full enjoyment of the comic, so I’m hoping that I can get my hands on the physical copy for the next volumes.

If you have excellent Internet connection, please, go for it! Unlike normal comics, Bayou was made to fit into computer screen, so you don’t have to drag the picture up and down like if it follows the traditional vertically longer book format. Make it full screen to get the full-blown excellent artwork :)

I struggled a bit with the Southern accent at times, but that’s probably just me. All in all, Bayou is a fantastic graphic novel. It’s heart-wrenching at times because you know some bits were true in real world, yet the fantasy elements make it such a great adventure story in itself.

Before you get all disappointed because you expect giant bunnies roaming around the world (I know I did), the bunny appears only once in dream. But what a fantastic bunny :)

2009, 256 pp

Challenges: Graphic Novels (book #20)

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The Color Purple by Alice Walker

mee — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:09:48 +0000

The story in The Color Purple is told through a series of diary entries and letters. Somehow this worked well for me, since I could have short attention span sometimes, and reading diary entry or letter means it’s hardly longer than 2-3 pages at a time. The narrator, Celie, is a black woman who lives in 1930s in Southern United States. Since the diary entries are all Celie’s, the book is practically told in dialect, something that resembles “broken English”. It took some pages getting used to, but I got it pretty soon.

Celie is a poor uneducated woman who, at fourteen, repeatedly raped by a man she calls Pa and impregnated twice. The children were taken away from her and she was forced into marriage with a man who’s equally abusive. The only person she loves, her sister names Nettie, was separated from her. Later on the letters in the books are recorded from both Celie and Nettie, even though each doesn’t know if the other would read it.

The Color Purple discusses issues of degradation, poverty, sexism, racism, abuse, lesbianism (things in book that usually get banned..) But also about friendship, God, hope, and empowerment. I’m most interested in the relationships of the women in the book. From wife, mistress, ex-wife, girlfriend, step mom/daughter, sister, to nanny. The men are mostly portrayed as abusive, and therefore these women have at least something in common so they stick together and watch each other, even though it sometimes doesn’t start very smooth at the beginning.

I like the narration, how it feels so honest and down-to-earth, because the narrator, well, is a simple person. I get to like the simplicity of Celie’s observation of the world, her opinions and views about things, how she just hopes for the best and does everything she can to survive. The book is not at all heavy, but it’s touching and heartbreaking. I teared up at the end.

I think The Color Purple is a very important book. It touches on important issues without being preachy. It opens your eyes to ways of people’s lives that you may not be familiar about. At the end of the book, you’d feel that you are privileged to be allowed a glimpse into these amazing people’s lives. That they’re really alive somewhere, flesh and blood, and not just characters in a fiction book, which brings me to share the interesting dedication from Alice Walker at the beginning of the book:

To the Spirit:
Without whose assistance
Neither this book
Nor I
Would have been
Written

and at the end:

I thank everybody in this book for coming.
A. W., author and medium

She’s a medium, really? I would have believed her. The characters were so real, it is as if they were coming as spirits to her.

The Color Purple is one of the most frequently challenged book according to ALA because of its explicit content. It’s no. 6 in the top 10 of most challenged book of 2007 with reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language. I’m reading this for Banned Book challenge 2009 (and other challenges). Just a note from me, I don’t think the book is over-the-top sexually explicit apart from the very first page. It’s sort of started like an explosion, but calmed down more after that. And now that I think about it, there wasn’t any offensive language that I could remember of. It’s just that I can easily think of other books that contain more sexual content and offensive language that are not banned. I guess people are wary about the whole topic more than anything else.

Memorable Quotes

“But it ain’t easy, trying to do without God. Even if you know he ain’t there, trying to do without him is a strain.” ~ Celie, p174

“… have you ever found God in a church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in a church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.” ~ Shug, p174

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” ~ Shug, p177

“People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. … It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.” ~ Shug, p177

“Not if it make us crazy. It hard enough to git by without being a fool.” ~ Sofia, on Reefer, p198

“Now. Is this life or not? I be so calm. If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.” ~ Celie, p257

Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pages: 261
Publication year: 1982

Awards
1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award

First line
You better not never tell nobody but God.

Last line
Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.

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Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

mee — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:00:19 +0000

Kindred utilizes the devices of science fiction in order to answer the question “how could anybody be a slave?” A woman from the twentieth century, Dana is repeatedly brought back in time by her slave-owning ancestor Rufus when his life is endangered. She chooses to save him, knowing that because of her actions a free-born black woman will eventually become his slave and her own grandmother. When forced to live the life of a slave, Dana realizes she is not as strong as her ancestors. Unable to will herself back to her own time and unable to tolerate the institution of slavery, she attempts to run away and is caught within a few hours. Her illiterate ancestor Alice succeeds in eluding capture for four days even though “She knew only the area she’d been born and raised in, and she couldn’t read a map.” Alice is captured, beaten, and sold as a slave to Rufus. As Dana is sent back and forth through time, she continues to save Rufus’s life, attempting during each visit to care for Alice, even as she is encouraging Alice to allow Rufus to rape her and thus ensure Dana’s own birth. As a twentieth-century African-American woman trying to endure the brutalities of nineteenth-century slavery, Dana answers the question, “See how easily slaves are made?” For Dana, to choose to preserve an institution, to save a life, and nurture victimization is to choose to survive.

Easy to read, an eye-opening book about slavery of black people in the States. This is great, I went from stories about old Chinese culture, Geisha of Japan, muslim laws in Saudi Arabia, old tradition of Palestina, genital mutilation in Somalia, to slavery of blacks in 18th century US. I should read more and more :)

I somehow had to compare Kindred with The Time Traveller’s Wife, because both are based on time travelling, although in completely different way (and no resemblance of the story as well). Kindred is lighter read (and write) on the chronological events, because the character goes so far back in time that it doesn’t directly affect anything on her own time. Now, Time Traveller’s Wife is VERY COMPLEX and crazy. I can’t imagine the amount of work for the writer and the editor to manage all those little details. The writer is a genious. (Cross ad for the book hey? :)

~ Finished on 7 January 2007