By the Light of My Father's Smile

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Captivating!
Review: By The Light of My Father's Smile explores the past, present, and future connection of the female characters in the novel to their father. Walker uses a multi-voiced approach in revealing the complexities of relationships both parental and romantic. The characters' speak from both life and deaths experiences revealing to the reader that issues not resolved in life must certainly be reconciled in death. Walker delivers insight and wisdom through the use of folklore, and the spiritual philosophy of an ancient Mexican/African tribe. She is able to demonstrate with clarity how male oppression of women, specifically a father's oppression of his daughter, effects a woman emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. A definite must read for the masses.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Captivating!
Review: By The Light of My Father's Smile explores the past, present, and future connection of the female characters in the novel to their father. Walker uses a multi-voiced approach in revealing the complexities of relationships both parental and romantic. The characters' speak from both life and deaths experiences revealing to the reader that issues not resolved in life must certainly be reconciled in death. Walker delivers insight and wisdom through the use of folklore, and the spiritual philosophy of an ancient Mexican/African tribe. She is able to demonstrate with clarity how male oppression of women, specifically a father's oppression of his daughter, effects a woman emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. A definite must read for the masses.

Rating:
Summary: Alice Walker but not the Best Alice Walker
Review: By the Light of My Father's Smile is qintessential Alice Walker; that is, the book examines what is wrong with a particular world, offers a solution for repairing that world and making that world more inhabitable for everyone in it. The book illustrates a shift in Walker's artistry. Although,Walker continues to examine intergenerational relationships, she centers this narrative in the spiritual rather than the earthly. What her work illustrates and what Walker herself advocates is that we are too much in the world and not with the world. We are immune to the messages that the moon, the sun, the stars, the earth and the greater spirit send us. Walker's novel offers a look at the world from the perspective of not being in it at all and discovering what we failed to look at and enjoy. It is a pleasant read but the characters are underdeveloped.

Rating:
Summary: Magical and Spiritual
Review: By the Light of My Father's Smile is yet another beautifully-wrought novel by Alice Walker. In this book, she deals with the after-life, forgiveness, and women's relationships with their fathers and men in general. The characters are not realistic, but magical and full of insights and spiritual wisdom. There are a slew of graphic sex scenes, none frivolous, which show the characters appreciative of and honoring their sexualities. A must-read for spiritual readers.

Rating:
Summary: Magical and Spiritual
Review: By the Light of My Father's Smile is yet another beautifully-wrought novel by Alice Walker. In this book, she deals with the after-life, forgiveness, and women's relationships with their fathers and men in general. The characters are not realistic, but magical and full of insights and spiritual wisdom. There are a slew of graphic sex scenes, none frivolous, which show the characters appreciative of and honoring their sexualities. A must-read for spiritual readers.

Rating:
Summary: A spiritual adventure
Review: Frankly, this kind of book isn't the type I usually read, but I loved the title. If you like novels that read like poems with lots of talk about death and "the great beyond," maybe this story is for you. It left me feeling rather depressed. With the possible exception of the dwarf lady in the church, there were no sympathetic characters. I guess I should've expected that from the woman who wrote "The Color Purple."

Rating:
Summary: New reader of Alice Walker
Review: Having only read "The Color Purple," I really felt like this was the first thing I'd read by Alice Walker. It took me a while to adjust to her indirect ways of indicating who is narrating, but eventually, I got the "sense" of it, and the story began to flow from there. This book is a great read not just for the story, which is interesting, but really for the deeper issues that the characters confront in a variety of ways.

Rating:
Summary: New reader of Alice Walker
Review: Having only read "The Color Purple," I really felt like this was the first thing I'd read by Alice Walker. It took me a while to adjust to her indirect ways of indicating who is narrating, but eventually, I got the "sense" of it, and the story began to flow from there. This book is a great read not just for the story, which is interesting, but really for the deeper issues that the characters confront in a variety of ways.

Rating:
Summary: an author's ego revealed
Review: Having only seen the movie The Color Purple on which to base my curiosity about Alice Walker, I was looking forward to a great story. Unfortunately, the first person narration switched around from character to character forcing me to think a bit more than I would like to when reading for pleasure. I found the details of the lesbian lovemaking to be more than I ever wanted to know about lesbian relationships - and the assumption that my dead relatives spy on me in my bed quite revolting. The story was unique but never 'captured' me. Nonetheless, Ms. Walker is truly one of the most daring writers of the twentieth century.

Rating:
Summary: a delightful surprise!
Review: I don't know why I thought this would be like her book of poetry, "Goodnight WillieLee I'll See You In The Morning." NOT! I was totally taken by the sensuality and depth of this work...and to think that the ancestors watch over us and seek to speak to us. An INCREDIBLE book. Spiritual tidbits sprinkled throughtout that make you stop and think. I LOVED IT!