Finished: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston). Beautifully written story about the self-evolution of an African American woman in the early 1900's in the south, despite the expectations and limitations placed on her by her family, her husbands, and her community. The opening passage sucks you in with it's loveliness:

   "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail on forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
    Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly."

I do love that! Moving on from that, written in immaculate vernacular, we hear the story of Janie Crawford as she goes from being 17, forced to marry a well-to-do, older man with "land" by her grandmother...to Janie the 40ish woman who approaches her third marriage to the younger, more vital man, Tea Cake with a zest for life she's never known. Janie's grandmother first squashes Janie's curiosities about life and all it can be when she decides Janie should have what she, a former slave, never had...the respectability to sit up on the porch like a lady and watch the world unfold. Sadly, that's not at all what Janie wants. She wants to participate in life not watch it go by! Bored, mistreated, and stuck in a loveless marriage, Janie runs off and marries her second husband, Joe Starks, when he comes by her property one day and woos her with the adventure of heading to a new town that is just starting up in Florida. Joe Starks is a driven man who takes Janie to Eatonville, Florida and when he finds it's not exactly "starting up" the way he heard...well, he starts it up. He spends money, buys land, recruits people, builds a store, builds a post office, earns the fear and respect of the town people, and becomes mayor of the town. So...Janie becomes Mrs. Mayor Starks and rather than being in on a grand adventure, Joe basically wants her to be the prim and proper mayor's wife and help him run the store. He belittles her in front of other people often for her mistakes, and basically stifles her personality and her joy for life. Once again, Janie is unhappy, unloved and unfulfilled. Joe and Janie have no children, and as she reaches 40, he's into his 50's and unhealthy. After his death, Janie is a rather wealthy woman, and she knows exactly what the town men who come courting her want...her money and her land. However, when the unknown, and 15 years younger, Tea Cake comes to town with his irresistible grin and his outgoing personality, he woos and charms Janie until she agrees to go off and marry him. And, much to my surprise as a reader, he really wasn't after her money. As a matter of fact, Janie closes up shop and moves off with Tea Cake to the Everglades of Florida, leaving her money in the bank. Tea Cake is determined to make his living with hard work and support Janie, and he wants her there with him. Janie has never felt so alive in body and soul, and for the first time, she knows what it means to be loved physically and emotionally. Tea Cake and Janie have their ups and downs for the couple of years they are there...but mostly their ups. A hurricane in the "glades" becomes their undoing as they don't heed the warnings and try to ride it out before running at the last minute to escape the wall of water created by Lake Okeechobee. In saving Janie's life, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog and within a few weeks, he's got the rabies symptoms something fierce. In his delirium, he tries to shoot Janie, and she's forced to shoot her beloved Tea Cake instead. After she is acquitted, she heads back to Eatonville to her home, where she ignores the gossiping magpies rocking on all their porches just waiting to hear how Tea Cake ran off with her money and ruined her. Instead, she tells her poignant tale to her best friend, Pheoby and then goes upstairs to air out her house. She relives the first moments she shared with Tea Cake in that house before they left town and she knows he made her alive for the first time in her life and he'll always be with her as she carries on. A very well written book, with some lovely passages and phrasing. And, the vernacular of the conversations was very easy to get the swing of, to where soon I was thinking how I was reading, if that makes sense. Now, does this book belong in the Top 100 list where it has been sitting, waiting for me to read it? I'm just not sure! I've read so many good books, that I feel like this one might be slightly over-rated. For instance, in terms of books about African American strife, slavery, bigotry, tragedy....I would rank Beloved, The Help, Native Son, Invisible Man and Gone With the Wind higher. I'll have to ponder this one a bit and let is sink in to figure out if it belongs in the Top 100 of all time. I imagine it will fit there, though. :-) One more passage...this time when they were waiting out the hurricane:

"The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."