Seraph on the Suwanee

Rating:
Summary: Seraph on the Suwannee
Review: "Seraph on the Suwanee" provides interesting dialog details into the lives of the "Florida crackers" (i.e. poor southern whites) in the early 20th century, but at times, it's difficult to follow where this story is going.

The novel follows the marriage of Jim and Arvay Meserve. The novel paints Jim Meserve as an ambitious and resourceful, yet also chauvanistic and sometimes violent man. The central character is the wife, Arvay, who is timid, uneducated, and (overly) sensitive. Told from Arvay's point of view, the problem with the story is that it is essentially one-sided and is more like the story of her life from her point of view. Only toward the later 1/3 of the book is she given a challenge and a mild conflict emerges when she is challenged to prove herself worthy of her husband. Here is where I think the novel fails-we never really see any growth, development, or maturity in Arvay throughout the novel. It is only in the last couple of chapters that she has a "self-awakening" experience caused by the death of her mother. This "self-discovery" and the following reconciliation with Jim is weak and disappointing in my opinion. I enjoyed the book, Hurston is simply a great story teller-- she paced it appropriately, injected lively dialog, believable characters and situations, and provided colorful imagery. However, I think I would have enjoyed this story if it were two-sided; I found myself wanting to know more about Jim, his background, his thoughts and motivation.

Rating:
Summary: Seraph on the Suwannee
Review: "Seraph on the Suwanee" provides interesting dialog details into the lives of the "Florida crackers" (i.e. poor southern whites) in the early 20th century, but at times, it's difficult to follow where this story is going.

The novel follows the marriage of Jim and Arvay Meserve. The novel paints Jim Meserve as an ambitious and resourceful, yet also chauvanistic and sometimes violent man. The central character is the wife, Arvay, who is timid, uneducated, and (overly) sensitive. Told from Arvay's point of view, the problem with the story is that it is essentially one-sided and is more like the story of her life from her point of view. Only toward the later 1/3 of the book is she given a challenge and a mild conflict emerges when she is challenged to prove herself worthy of her husband. Here is where I think the novel fails-we never really see any growth, development, or maturity in Arvay throughout the novel. It is only in the last couple of chapters that she has a "self-awakening" experience caused by the death of her mother. This "self-discovery" and the following reconciliation with Jim is weak and disappointing in my opinion. I enjoyed the book, Hurston is simply a great story teller-- she paced it appropriately, injected lively dialog, believable characters and situations, and provided colorful imagery. However, I think I would have enjoyed this story if it were two-sided; I found myself wanting to know more about Jim, his background, his thoughts and motivation.

Rating:
Summary: Another good novel by Ms. Hurston.
Review: At first I thought I would not like this book but the further I read, the more I began to like it. It was a different level of reading knowing that an African-American author had written this novel with main characters who were white people, other than the reverse. This book was very well-written. I have enjoyed all of Ms. Hurston's books that I've read and will always consider her the #1 pioneer African-American female author.

Rating:
Summary: Thematically disconcerting, but often brilliant and funny
Review: Hurston once told the author Carl Van Vechten (who, although white, wrote best-selling works--both fiction and non-fiction--about blacks) that she had "hopes of breaking that silly old rule about Negroes not writing about white people." Her last major work, "Seraph on the Suwanee," fulfilled that hope; her lead characters are an impoverished upper-class Southerner, Jim Meserve, and his Southern "cracker" wife, Arvay.

The first 70 pages or so are among the slyest Hurston ever wrote--it's impossible not to chuckle at the description of Jim and Arvay's courtship, especially his handling of her psychosomatic catatonic fit. The novel takes a sharp turn, however, once the couple are married and have three children. Part soap opera, part morality tale, Jim and Arvay's story begins as a clash of the Titans and ends like "The Taming of the Shrew."

As Jim becomes wealthy and rises in social status, Arvay's insecurity increases, and she worries that "he had never taken her for his equal. He was that same James Kenneth Meserve of the great plantations, and looked down on her as the backwoods Cracker." She feels increasingly out of place around their educated, well-off neighbors and even her children. For his part, Jim fears that all his efforts at providing comfort and security to Arvay have come to naught: "He didn't make her out at all. Didn't she want him anymore?" And he feels that Arvay expresses her "love like a coward." What plagues the couple more than anything else is simply an inability to communicate.

Yet it's unclear what message Hurston is trying to convey; at times the "lesson" seems a little creepy. Although Jim never abuses Arvay (in many ways, he's a dashing prince to her Southern Cinderella), the mental and social "tests" to which he subjects her are, at the least, emotionally vexing. Hurston seems to feel that the real problem is Arvay's refusal to mature with her surroundings instead of Jim's expectation that Arvay should appreciate what he's done for her and their family. He clearly loves his wife, but wants her to change. (Sound familiar?) Ultimately, the barometer for success in their relationship is Arvay's ability to redefine herself on Jim's terms, and one wonders if Jim's last name, Meserve, is meant as a wicked pun. (A cynic might argue, hyperbolically, that it's a short skip to the premise of "The Stepford Wives.")

Hurston wrote "Seraph" in 1948, when she had become increasingly conservative, both politically and socially. She was a zealous Republican, she once asserted that "the Jim Crow system works" (although she later claimed she was quoted out of context), and she condemned the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education. She also joined the Florida Negro Defense Committee largely because she felt the group did not view blacks as "victims"--similar to the way that she seems to lack sympathy for Avray's lack of confidence. One is tempted, then, to read the novel through this prism. Fortunately, however, the book's message is a little more ambiguous than I make it out to be; in the end, "Seraph" describes the emotionally excruciating path necessary to achieve a mutually sympathetic relationship. Whatever the meaning, it's a great story: sometimes funny, often brilliant, and absorbing like a train wreck: you can't take your eyes off Arvay and Jim even when you see they're heading for a collision.

Rating:
Summary: Thematically disconcerting, but often brilliant and funny
Review: Hurston once told the author Carl Van Vechten (who, although white, wrote best-selling works--both fiction and non-fiction--about blacks) that she had "hopes of breaking that silly old rule about Negroes not writing about white people." Her last major work, "Seraph on the Suwanee," fulfilled that hope; her lead characters are an impoverished upper-class Southerner, Jim Meserve, and his Southern "cracker" wife, Arvay.

The first 70 pages or so are among the slyest Hurston ever wrote--it's impossible not to chuckle at the description of Jim and Arvay's courtship, especially his handling of her psychosomatic catatonic fit. The novel takes a sharp turn, however, once the couple are married and have three children. Part soap opera, part morality tale, Jim and Arvay's story begins as a clash of the Titans and ends like "The Taming of the Shrew."

As Jim becomes wealthy and rises in social status, Arvay's insecurity increases, and she worries that "he had never taken her for his equal. He was that same James Kenneth Meserve of the great plantations, and looked down on her as the backwoods Cracker." She feels increasingly out of place around their educated, well-off neighbors and even her children. For his part, Jim fears that all his efforts at providing comfort and security to Arvay have come to naught: "He didn't make her out at all. Didn't she want him anymore?" And he feels that Arvay expresses her "love like a coward." What plagues the couple more than anything else is simply an inability to communicate.

Yet it's unclear what message Hurston is trying to convey; at times the "lesson" seems a little creepy. Although Jim never abuses Arvay (in many ways, he's a dashing prince to her Southern Cinderella), the mental and social "tests" to which he subjects her are, at the least, emotionally vexing. Hurston seems to feel that the real problem is Arvay's refusal to mature with her surroundings instead of Jim's expectation that Arvay should appreciate what he's done for her and their family. He clearly loves his wife, but wants her to change. (Sound familiar?) Ultimately, the barometer for success in their relationship is Arvay's ability to redefine herself on Jim's terms, and one wonders if Jim's last name, Meserve, is meant as a wicked pun. (A cynic might argue, hyperbolically, that it's a short skip to the premise of "The Stepford Wives.")

Hurston wrote "Seraph" in 1948, when she had become increasingly conservative, both politically and socially. She was a zealous Republican, she once asserted that "the Jim Crow system works" (although she later claimed she was quoted out of context), and she condemned the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education. It's difficult, then, not to read the novel through this prism. Fortunately, however, the book's message is a little more ambiguous than I make it out to be; in the end, "Seraph" describes the emotionally excruciating path necessary to achieve a mutually sympathetic relationship. Whatever the meaning, it's a great story: sometimes funny, often brilliant, and absorbing like a train wreck: you can't take your eyes off Arvay and Jim even when you see they're heading for a collision.

Rating:
Summary: Redemption through Strength
Review: I love Seraph on the Suwanee. Hurston captures the struggles of accepting oneself and accepting love like no other author I have read. It's a great story about, in my opinion, a woman's struggle to find strength in herself and through that, be able to accept and give love to others. It's not quite as entertaining as Their Eyes Were Watching God, but is still incredibly interesting and inspirational.

Rating:
Summary: Not on par with Hurston¿s other works
Review: One of the reviewers below stated that admirers of Hurston "won't be disappointed" by this book. I beg to differ: I've read pretty much everything Hurston has written, and I think she is without a doubt one of the best American (and perhaps world) writers of the twentieth century. But "Seraph" was a great disappointment. Hurston simply overreached with this one. By the time I had finished reading it, I found myself wondering what the point of this book was. The story follows the marriage of a Florida couple over several decades. The husband is ambitious and forceful, yet also arrogant and sometimes violent, while the wife is timid and (overly) sensitive. Told from the wife's point of view, the problem with the story is that it essentially goes from a more or less realistic give-and-take between the two to an account of how she tries to prove herself worthy of her husband (there is little in the way of growth on his part by the way, e.g. he never expresses any regret for having acted like a brute during the early years of their marriage). Thus, "Seraph on the Suwanee" basically reads like a romance novel. It's true that anthropologist Hurston provides some interesting details into the lives of the "Florida crackers" (i.e. poor southern whites) in the early 20th century, but this is hardly enough to compensate for the novel's weaknesses. It's hard to believe that the literary genius who wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (among other excellent books) could produce such a lackluster work

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is my all time favorite novel. Although I already have several copies of this book, I'm buying another copy today.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is my all time favorite novel. Although I already have several copies of this book, I'm buying another copy today.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid
Review: Zora Neale Hurston never fails. SERAPH ON THE SUWANEE, Hurston's lengthiest novel, portrays the lives of Arvay and Jim--a couple who love each other very much, but never seem able to communicate with each other. And Hurston's background as an anthropologist proves helpful again because this novel features some very interesting and detailed accounts of the lives of the white "Florida Crackers." Fans of Hurston won't be disappointed with SERAPH.