Emotionally tortured artists
"I never expected God to make my life perfect. Didn't get angry at him even when I hurt the most......I'd survived by being me."
I have to share with everyone my new favorite book written by my new favorite author. The book Douglas' Women was written by Jewell Parker Rhodes and after reading the entire thing this past Saturday I have to admit I am in love. The fact that I am in such a state two weeks after my own novel was released could possibly be strange to those that don't know me, but not to those close to me. I read and write for stress relief and lately I have been under immense stress. I am not sure if I am experiencing coming of age pains or simply being tried and tested for some greater purpose but I have found myself unable to find Christal in the midst of everything going on around me.
So I pick up this book at Wal-mart during my weekly shopping trip and bring it home and it changes my life, or at least initiated a change in my life. The book is depressingly enlightening as it is written from the perspective of two very different women. Up until the last part of the book, I was deeply saddened and pitied Frederick Douglas' wife Anna (whom he referred to as an old black log). Her life sentence of spending her life with a man who was disgusted and ashamed by her made me pity her. I was indifferent to the educated and sophisticated mistress who was intent on taking Frederick away from his "oafish" illiterate wife. I devoured the book struggling to keep tears at bay, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.
What is surprising about the entire story is that the author Jewel Parker Rhodes manages to evoke a sense of empathy in the reader for Frederick, whose actions by anyone's standards are at the least selfish and at the most purposefully hurtful. Being born a black man in a time and culture that considered that fate a curse had to have been emasculating for many. Frederick's love/hate relationship with the white race is easy for many black intellectuals to understand but not explain. Still to learn how that issue affected his relationship with his wife and ultimately his shame of her is disheartening and one can't help but draw the correlations to figures in our society being plagued with the same issues lo these many years later.
As Frederick's intellect was his glory and what made him special it also acted as his curse. The simple phrase ignorance is bliss has always been one of my most used phrases. Once your eyes have been opened and you are enlightened your burden becomes that much heavier, that much more overwhelming.
As one who creates from feelings, emotion and even pain it is oftimes hard for me to turn on and off the emotions that motivate me to write. I find equal parts pain and pride in my African American brothers and especially my sistahs. The ills of slavery and being separated from our homeland still linger on in our attitudes, norms and culture a haunting reminder of the Willie Lynch papers and Carter Woodson's warnings in 'The Miseducation of the Negro'.
I have to share with everyone my new favorite book written by my new favorite author. The book Douglas' Women was written by Jewell Parker Rhodes and after reading the entire thing this past Saturday I have to admit I am in love. The fact that I am in such a state two weeks after my own novel was released could possibly be strange to those that don't know me, but not to those close to me. I read and write for stress relief and lately I have been under immense stress. I am not sure if I am experiencing coming of age pains or simply being tried and tested for some greater purpose but I have found myself unable to find Christal in the midst of everything going on around me.
So I pick up this book at Wal-mart during my weekly shopping trip and bring it home and it changes my life, or at least initiated a change in my life. The book is depressingly enlightening as it is written from the perspective of two very different women. Up until the last part of the book, I was deeply saddened and pitied Frederick Douglas' wife Anna (whom he referred to as an old black log). Her life sentence of spending her life with a man who was disgusted and ashamed by her made me pity her. I was indifferent to the educated and sophisticated mistress who was intent on taking Frederick away from his "oafish" illiterate wife. I devoured the book struggling to keep tears at bay, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.
What is surprising about the entire story is that the author Jewel Parker Rhodes manages to evoke a sense of empathy in the reader for Frederick, whose actions by anyone's standards are at the least selfish and at the most purposefully hurtful. Being born a black man in a time and culture that considered that fate a curse had to have been emasculating for many. Frederick's love/hate relationship with the white race is easy for many black intellectuals to understand but not explain. Still to learn how that issue affected his relationship with his wife and ultimately his shame of her is disheartening and one can't help but draw the correlations to figures in our society being plagued with the same issues lo these many years later.
As Frederick's intellect was his glory and what made him special it also acted as his curse. The simple phrase ignorance is bliss has always been one of my most used phrases. Once your eyes have been opened and you are enlightened your burden becomes that much heavier, that much more overwhelming.
As one who creates from feelings, emotion and even pain it is oftimes hard for me to turn on and off the emotions that motivate me to write. I find equal parts pain and pride in my African American brothers and especially my sistahs. The ills of slavery and being separated from our homeland still linger on in our attitudes, norms and culture a haunting reminder of the Willie Lynch papers and Carter Woodson's warnings in 'The Miseducation of the Negro'.
posted by Christal Jordan-Mims | 6:34 PM
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