Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston

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ceallaighsbooks's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Sometimes in his dreams he was a prince, riding away in a gorgeous carriage. Often he was a knight bestride a fiery charger prancing down the white shellroad that led to distant lands. At other times he was a steamboat Captain piloting his craft down the St. John River to where the sky seemed to touch the water. No matter what he dreamed or whom he fancied himself to be, he always ended by riding away to the horizon, for in his childish ignorance he thought this to be the farthest land.” — from “John Redding Goes to Sea”

TITLE—Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
AUTHOR—Zora Neale Hurston
PUBLISHED—1920-1935; 2019

GENRE—short stories
SETTING—early 20th c. America
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—folktales & retellings/reimaginings, language & idiom, Black American history & culture, literary writing, subversion of sociocultural expectations and stereotypes

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—Genevieve West, in the Introduction, quoting Julius Lester: “…folklore is like water… A folktale assumes the shape of its teller.”
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The brook laughed and sang. When it encountered hard places in its bed, it hurled its water in sparkling dance figures up into the moonlight. It sang louder, louder; danced faster, faster, with a coquettish splash! at the vegetation on its banks. At last it danced boisterously into the bosom of the St. John’s upsetting the whispering hyacinths who shivered and blushed, drunk with the delight of moon kisses.” — from “Magnolia Flower”

There is obviously a lot of scholarship and literary criticism out there about Hurston’s works, as is going to be the case with any author of classic literature, and there are endless elements to discuss in her works from her depiction of Black history and culture in the South and in the various Northern cities that saw a great deal of Black migration in the early 20th c. to her use of language and idiomatic speech—and tons of other things her works are so multifaceted and have so much depth—BUT what I particularly love about her works are the strong folkloric elements.

There’s such a strong feeling of otherworldliness and spirituality in her writing while still featuring characters that seem to brush almost eerily close to capturing the complex reality of human nature to the point where you wonder if these stories aren’t more Truth than Fiction. But I also love the diversity of subject and style too with none of the stories feeling repetitive but all having that distinct Hurston feel fleshed out in a different direction or merely explored in a new light.

My favorite story from this collection was “John Redding Goes to Sea” but I also loved “Drenched in Light”, “Magnolia Flower” (a beautiful folktale / fable story), “Sweat” (felt a little gothic), “The Back Room” (very atmospheric, a little Fitzgerald-y), “She Rock” (mock-biblical style), and “The Fire and the Cloud” (an incredible retelling of Moses’s last days). I have so many more Hurston books left to read too I’m SO excited. 🥰 I think Tell My Horse and Dust Tracks on a Road will be next.

“Oh, yes, I’m a dreamer. I have such wonderfully complete dreams, Papa. They never come true. But even as my dreams fade, I have others.” — from “John Redding Goes to Sea”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // domestic violence, animal death (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
  • everything else by Zora Neale Hurston 
  • Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark
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