The last time I read The Color Purple was back in the 1980’s, before the Spielberg movie came out (which was the middle of the decade). Reading it again, an older (and slightly wiser?) man, I can understand why Spielberg chose to give it the chocolate box treatment, something that, at the time, seemed inappropriate to what I thought was a work of gritty Southern realism. I now realise that was never really what the novel was.
It’s a fine novel, beautifully written. But it’s deeply sentimental in terms of the arc of the story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it precludes the writing of a great novel.
I think a Celie is a possibility though. I just don’t think there’s much to say about her beyond what we stereotypically know already. Of course, being neither female nor black I suppose I would say something like that.
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