Of Gardens and Unfortunate Events

I have just read Alice Walker’s book of “womanist prose” (her term) ‘In Search of our Mother’s Gardens’, alternately with Lemony Snicket’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events.’ What a reading combination, you’d say ☺.

Well, they were both very good reading. Alice Walker’s writing style is simple, yet profound and with unexpected and very welcome twists. She has this way of letting you feel that you’ve already read what she has written in other writer’s works, and then she’ll completely take you by surprise and drop a line of two which will make you stop and think deeply for more than a few minutes. I specially liked her expositions on the problem of race and discrimination among blacks themselves. I never thought that terms such as “dark-skinned blacks” and “lighter-skinned blacks” exist among their circles. It was truly shocking to learn that “lighter-skinned blacks” often pick-on their “dark-skinned” brothers and sisters. Black men prefer “lighter-skinned” black women. Imagine. They were considered more superior, luckier and with more graces, when actually they were most likely products of the act of rape of a white man of a “negro” slave. Imagine again. The “blackest” women with the flat nose and big bones and who wore traditional African garbs were often laughed at, considered humiliating for the whole race for their appearance and refusal to take in American culture. When in fact, Alice Walker asserted, they are the truest essence of being black. They must be duly respected because they are representations of black history, their struggle and their unique nature and culture. I know I am sometimes guilty of wanting to look at more “lighter-skinned” blacks than the “dark-skinned” ones (think Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Halle Berry hehehe). But I never thought that the blacks themselves are the guiltiest of all of this penchant, which when involving them particularly, already manifests strong racism and discrimination of their own race.

As to the “unfortunate” books, I can’t wait to get hold of books 7,8 and 9. The plot is getting interesting. The kids have transformed from being truly unfortunate in 1-3 to being whiz and kick-ass kids in 4-6.