Year: 1987 (1982)
Publisher: Bokförlaget Trevi
Language: Swedish (Translator Kerstin Hallén)
It has been a while since I last read an epistolary novel. In fact, I had almost elevated to a truism the idea that the genre itself belonged in the beginning of the 20th century or, if still exercised, was chiefly intended to provide an archaic or comic effect best suited for children's books such as "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4" or the Swedish smash hit "In Ned's Head". But to every rule, if indeed this is a rule, there are exceptions. "The Martian", by Andy Weir, "We Need to Talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver, and "An Eye Red", by Jonas Hassen Khemiri are some notable 21st-century examples.
One of the most well-known epistolary novels, “Purpurfärgen” ("The Colour Purple") by Alice Walker, however, is not a fin-de-siécle creation but was published in 1982. The novel constitutes a fictional diary or series of letters that the young African-American girl, Celie, in the American South begins to write to God in an attempt to make sense of a profoundly miserable and hopeless universe. Her mother dies, leaving her with her abusive father who frequently rapes her and twice impregnates her. Before long, he gives her away in marriage to another wife-beating man who is more interested in her younger sister, Nettie, but has to settle for her. She is again beaten and abused, not only by her several times older husband but also by his adolescent children from an earlier marriage. After Nettie runs away from their father and is not heard from again, Celie has absolutely nothing left.
This is when the turnaround germinates. With the help of newly forged and unexpected friendships, Celie slowly begins to create room for herself in this world. A wonderful journey, which will take decades, commences.
"The Color Purple" could almost be considered a Bildungsroman, but it is nothing of the sort. It is quite clear that this is more than a story about one girl. This is a story about an entire revolution. Black women's uprising against male and white oppression. The events, characters, and environments were never intended to be realistic. They are all there to tell the story about a widespread awakening that Walker was trying to not only describe but rather to instigate.
A quick analysis of the characters provides a lot of information. Each of them serves a singular purpose in the story. Broadly speaking, it can be summarised as "black woman = good, man or white = bad." Celie is the embodiment of the oppressed black woman. She is uneducated, abused, unattractive, and bereft of all self-esteem. Her transformation is the transformation of black women as a collective.
Each of the key female characters around Celie symbolises some desirable quality in a black woman. Nettie is education. Shug Avery is wealth and beauty. Sofia is independence and courage. Mary Agnes is talent. In combination, they paint the picture of the competent, strong, and free African-American woman. And symbolically, they all need to come together to set the oppressed woman free.
The diary format works reasonably well although Celie’s idiosyncratic use of the English language sometimes makes the text difficult to follow. As I consumed this title in its Swedish translation, I had reason to consider the challenges that the translator must have faced. The black voice of southern US has no immediate counterpart in the Swedish language and so Kerstin Hallén had to create a unique voice for Celie in the Swedish version. The English syntax and grammar are designed to reflect the way a person like Celie would talk, not necessarily how she would write, which would make it unusually suitable for an audiobook. In the Swedish version, Hallén has opted for an imagined rural dialect, possibly from her own native Jämtland. Contrary to the English original, Celie’s lack of education is mirrored in spelling errors in the Swedish version. However, the spelling, including the errors, remains consistent throughout the book, and despite Celie’s struggle to spell basic words, she still manages to spell the notoriously difficult state name of Tennessee accurately in her diary. This technique, as with everything else in the book, is clearly designed to convey a message and build dramaturgy rather than to be credible or authentic.
Humble to the fact that my knowledge of American literature, and especially Black literature, is best described as rudimentary, I will not try to put "The Color Purple" in a broader context. In my own reading, Alice Walker takes the place as a worthy heir to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Even though "The Color Purple" is set in a historical context at the beginning of the 20th century, I imagine that Walker wants us to recognise the modern-day struggles of Black women in the United States. The emancipation journey once embarked on by the African-American community in the 19th century is far from complete. Novels, essays, academic papers, news reports, and everyday conversation and actions are necessary to maintain direction and momentum. As long as racism, bigotry, men’s violence against women exist, Alice Walker’s classic novel will sadly remain relevant.
