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A review by kevin_shepherd
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
5.0
I fell in love with Zora Neale Hurston - anthropologist, writer, filmmaker, heretic - in the autumn of 2021.
As an author and public speaker, Zora was not above taking our religious institutions to task.
“You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity… It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such.”
Did I mention she was a heretic?
“I do not pretend to read God’s mind. If he has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege… Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down.”
Politically, she favored diplomacy over military intervention…
“We [the United States] consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.”
…and philosophically, she challenged our stereotypes and embraced our shared humanity.
“…I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with all the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.”
In spite of all she contributed and accomplished, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final years working as a housemaid. She died in poverty and relative obscurity on 28 January, 1960.
Dearest Zora, our differences not withstanding (as in black/white, conservative/liberal, theist/atheist, living/deceased) I am so looking forward to spending more time with you.
As an author and public speaker, Zora was not above taking our religious institutions to task.
“You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity… It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such.”
Did I mention she was a heretic?
“I do not pretend to read God’s mind. If he has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege… Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down.”
Politically, she favored diplomacy over military intervention…
“We [the United States] consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.”
…and philosophically, she challenged our stereotypes and embraced our shared humanity.
“…I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with all the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.”
In spite of all she contributed and accomplished, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final years working as a housemaid. She died in poverty and relative obscurity on 28 January, 1960.
Dearest Zora, our differences not withstanding (as in black/white, conservative/liberal, theist/atheist, living/deceased) I am so looking forward to spending more time with you.