Because I Loved The Color Purple

Film and book. From the book:

"Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he’d have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing niggers want to think about they God is that his hair kinky.

That’s the truth, I say.

Ain’t no way to read the bible and not think God white, she say. Then she sigh. When I found out I thought God was white, and a man, I lost interest. You mad cause he don’t seem to listen to your prayers. Humph! Do the mayor listen to anything colored say? Ask Sofia, she say.

But I don’t have to ast Sofia. I know white people never listen to colored, period. If they do, they only listen long enough to be able to tell you what to do.

Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.

It? I ast.

Yeah, It. God ain’t a he or a she, but a It.

But what do it look like? I ast.

Don’t look like nothing, she say. It ain’t a picture show. It ain’t something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found It. . . .

She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can’t miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my high.

Shug! I say.

Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That’s some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves’em you enjoys’em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that’s going, and praise God by liking what you like.

God don’t think it dirty? I ask.

Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love–and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.

You saying God vain? I ask.

Naw, she say. Not vain, just want to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.

Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

Yeah? I say.

Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.

You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.

Yes, Celie, she say, Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to get attention we do, except walk?

Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase the old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) Not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing."

I am a Connoisseur of Dedications

Usually, reading the dedication in a book is like scrubbing a harshly gunk-encrusted pan- time-consuming and, really, not rewarding at all.  It must be nice, you think, to have a book dedicated to you.  I think, it would be nice to dedicate a book to someone I love.  But, alas, or, really the opposite of alas, there are too many loves of my life to dedicate any book I might be lucky enough to have published to.  It would end up one of those multi-page dedications or post-story auxiliary dedications, both of which are just garish.  Honestly.  It makes the author seem so hopelessly pessimistic that they'll never be published again.  

This sort of thing is what makes a good dedication all the more beguiling.  In some cases, it can set the entire, lovely tone for what will, of necessity, be an entirely lovely book!

And so, my lovelies, here follows some of the best dedications I've seen.  I hope you enjoy them.

From The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint Exupery):

To Leon Werth

I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up.  I have a serious reason: he is the best friend I have in the world.  I have another reason: this grown-up lives in France where he is hungry and cold.  He needs cheering up.  If all these reasons are not enough I will dedicate the book to the child from whom this grown-up grew.  All grown-ups were once children- although few of them remember it.  And so I correct my dedication:

To Leon Werth

When he was a little boy

From Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman):

You know how it is.  You pick up a book, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again, the author has dedicated a book to someone else and not to you.

Not this time.

Because we haven't yet met/have only a glancing acquaintance/are just crazy about each other/haven't seen each other in much too long/are in some way related/will never meet, but will, I trust, despite that, always think fondly of each other...

This one's for you.

With you know what, and you probably know why.

From Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones):

This one is for Stephen

The idea for this book was suggested by a boy in a school I was visiting, who asked me to write a book called The Moving Castle.

I wrote down his name, and put it in such a safe place, that I have been unable to find it ever since.

I would like to thank him very much.

From The Color Purple (Alice Walker):

To the Spirit:

Without whose assistance

Neither this book

Nor I

Would have been

Written.

Edit: Add

TO MY WIFE AND MY COUSIN: Because there I was with an empty gun and you, Roy, supplied the ammunition and you, Anne, directed my aim.
-Thieves Like Us. By Edward Anderson

To Francesca, may we always flee lions together.
-Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik

TO LUCY BARFIELD

My dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be

your affectionate Godfather,

C. S. LEWIS
-The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe


"For Colin Firth--You're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends."

~Shannon Hale's Austenland

To all those who lead monotonous lives.
-Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary

The Time Traveler's Wife

I just finished reading this book.  It's weird, because I know that it was good for my writing, but the whole story was extremely painful.  The author wrote beautiful descriptions and actually maintained my interest through longs segments lacking dialogue, which usually causes my mind to wander, but why did she have to be so sad?  The title basically tells you what the story's about: a man who spontaneously time travels, and his wife, who waits for him.  But her entire life becomes waiting for him, even after he's died.

Which you know is going to happen pretty early on.  It just was so awful.  I finished the book and sobbed and sobbed because it was a terrible ending- to leave her waiting for one last meeting with her dead husband.  Love conquers time, my ass.  Time conquers love, more like.

The writing is lovely, though, so I'm sure it's very good for the aspiring author...

M' Pirate!

Here she is!: Mallay!

I'm better dressed now, but I'm not going to pay for another portrait ^^*  I actually just got a free captain's jacket for service in the navy.  Hoorah for the navy!  (I am the worst pirate evuh....)  I'm actually an admiral in the navy in Yohoho Puzzle Pirates.  I also belong to a pirate crew but it's no fun being ordered around!  The navy seems more lenient, which is just weird.

Portrait of a Morning Glory!

This is my favorite short comic!  By Megumi Tachikawa, creator of Saint Tail.  Based on The Little Mermaid!  Soooo cute!!!

Portrait of a Morning Glory Cont.

Portrait of a Morning Glory Cont.

Portrait of a Morning Glory Cont.

When you don't have internet...

You don't post very often! But it's back now- yay! Dodd fixed my computer so she's smooth as a dream (non nightmare kind...).

So, there's going to be a Legend of Zelda movie (See trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGR6eeB37cw). It looks like it's going to be based on Ocarina of Time too. Oh, my nerd juices are a'flowin'. Ganondorf looks kind of silly though... (http://www.legendofzeldaseries.com/main.php?page=fanmovie.html)

I wish there was more info on the Percy Jackson movie or the ReBoot trilogies. I saw the trailer for the sixth Harry Potter though, and it looks AMAZING. Even though I don't really remember those scenes in the book... I only read that one once, so maybe I'll go through them all again.

But I have to get through season five of Buffy and two of Angel so that I can get to "Once More with Feeling" before I go to Japan. I must!!! See me clench my fist and throw it to the heavens (in a non-pelting way...).