The Conjure Woman and Other Tales Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)What is most interesting about these stories is both the narrative framework & the way the narrator of the stories about the black community (there are essentially two narrators) uses magic ("The Goophered Grapevine" and "Po' Sandy" especially) to usurp the authority of the white landowner (the primary narrator, who is re-telling the stories Julius has told him). Maybe it takes an understanding of African American literary traditions-- signifying, call & response, etc, to really dig in, but you can still relate without that background.
There are multiple layers of narration going on-- and once you can get through those layers, you can both enjoy the story-line and understand something pivotal about the way the African American genre works. The dialect and speech patterns are represented in a way that was criticized by some early African American writers who wanted a more "realistic" "naturalistic" and political structure. But underneath the "quaint" nature of the stories about magic & the slave/master relationship are some very subtle and very powerful images of how the slave and master influence *each other*-- that there are differences in the power dynamic than what we expect. It might be hard to get into the language-- but once you do, it's not overdone. Read the dialect the way you would learn another language; it's English, with a twist. There is also a great story on "passing," and some exploration of voodoo. This is a text that should be taught alongside Faulkner & Flannery O'Connor-- another look at the South.

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