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A review by brighroosh
Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston
4.0
Hurston covers a lot of ground in her autobiography! Her early life in Eatonville, then being on her own at 14, always trying to go to school. Traveling with actors; getting into Howard, then Barnard. Her "Godmother" who was her patron and who made it possible for her to study "Negro" culture in the South. Passing trials by a Southern witch doctor in a swamp, somehow avoiding harm.
Putting on a show with Bahamian music and dance. Going to Jamaica to study Voodoo.
Her prose uses simple words in imaginative ways that I enjoyed.
I got a bit annoyed reading the appendices - she was rehashing things that were in the body of the book. But I suppose that if looked at in the sense that she was "finding her voice," then the repetitious philosophizing was her journey to her final opinions on race and racism. I gathered that she felt that people should not be categorized, but treated as individuals. She basically provided her thesis about it.
The afterward by Louis Gates Jr is illuminating, as is the American Experience documentary: Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space.
Putting on a show with Bahamian music and dance. Going to Jamaica to study Voodoo.
Her prose uses simple words in imaginative ways that I enjoyed.
I got a bit annoyed reading the appendices - she was rehashing things that were in the body of the book. But I suppose that if looked at in the sense that she was "finding her voice," then the repetitious philosophizing was her journey to her final opinions on race and racism. I gathered that she felt that people should not be categorized, but treated as individuals. She basically provided her thesis about it.
The afterward by Louis Gates Jr is illuminating, as is the American Experience documentary: Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space.