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A review by maidenknightbradamant
The Third Life Of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I was not self aware enough to understand _why_ i stopped reading this book about a third of the way through, even though in retrospect it was obvious: it was only a few chapters after the most horrendous act of violence in the book. _Why did this stop me?_ I wondered. _I’ve read and watched much worse_. But unlike Hannibal or Dexter or whatever, this novel doesn’t glorify violence, and the violence doesn’t come from a place of alien apathy or dressed up in the aesthetics of an addiction. The violence is purely and deeply human, coming from a completely comprehensible place. It is not mysterious or grand, but mediocre and ugly.
Walker refuses to hyperbolize the nature of evil, in a way that reminds me a lot of Arendt. And like with Arendt, you get the impression that she also sees one’s humanity as mutable. It can be _revoked_, not by the actions of others, but by one’s own inaction, one’s own unthinkingness. This unthinkingness manifests in Walker’s book as a lack of what the elder Grange calls “soul,” but which we could also call “integrity” (and indeed, Walker does in her addendum.) It is the state of somebody who has given up the task of thinking, of pushing towards the good. Brownfield does this, as does Judge Harry, as does Josie(?), as do most of the racist whites in the story.
In Brownfield’s case, this is clearly a result of a life of consistent dehumanization. He has been shown only a life of unthinkingness, told only that he is incapable _of_ thinking, of action, of goodness, and so this is gradually what he comes to believe about himself. The silver lining of this harsh picture is that it tells us that nobody’s inhumanity— not even, it is implied, the racist whites— is pre-ordained. It is always something which can & should be fought against. And… I guess that has to be enough.
Walker refuses to hyperbolize the nature of evil, in a way that reminds me a lot of Arendt. And like with Arendt, you get the impression that she also sees one’s humanity as mutable. It can be _revoked_, not by the actions of others, but by one’s own inaction, one’s own unthinkingness. This unthinkingness manifests in Walker’s book as a lack of what the elder Grange calls “soul,” but which we could also call “integrity” (and indeed, Walker does in her addendum.) It is the state of somebody who has given up the task of thinking, of pushing towards the good. Brownfield does this, as does Judge Harry, as does Josie(?), as do most of the racist whites in the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Racism, and Domestic abuse