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Title: Moses Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0-06-091994-9 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 January, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A witty, accessible retelling of "what Africa sees in Moses"
Comment: In the introduction to this 1939 novel, Hurston says that Africans (and, by extension African Americans) revere Moses "not because of his beard nor because he brought the laws down from Sinai" but "because he had the power to go up the mountain and bring them down. . . . [W]ho can talk with God face to face? Who has the power to command God to go to a peak of mountain and there demand of Him laws with which to govern a nation? . . . That calls for power, and that is what Africa sees in Moses."
Hurston incorporates the African tradition into her retelling of the Exodus story, along with that tradition's humor, colloquialisms, wit, irreverence, and apocryphal embellishments. The result is probably her most accessible work, an undemanding read that still reflects a mirror on such issues as politics, slavery, and feminism. The novel is remarkably faithful to the original, but Hurston's Old Testaments heroes and their adversaries are fleshed out as lethargic, selfish, dithering, conniving, as well as joyous, loving, and (above all) human. Moses's brother Aaron and sister Miriam, for example, are depicted as much a hindrance to the movement as a help.
Moses himself is presented warts and all. As expected, he's the savior who leads a slave nation from captivity to the freedom of a Promised Land, the wise prophet who brings law and government to an unruly and divided people. Still, Hurston's Moses observes that "the first law of Nature is that everybody likes to receive things, but nobody likes to feel grateful. And the very next law is that people talk about tenderness and mercy, but they love force. If you feed a thousand people you are a nice man with suspicious motives. If you kill a thousand you a hero." And Moses does kill--not only Egyptian soldiers hot in pursuit, but 3,000 of his own people: defenseless, drunken revelers paying homage to a golden calf (Exodus 32:28), an unforgiving and ruthless act that never fails to jar modern sensibilities.
It's often a marvel when an author can take a well-known story and make it seem fresh. Cecil B. DeMille 1956 movie has heightened modern-day familiarity to the point of farce (although Hurston's original audience was certainly aware of DeMille's first film version, released in 1923). Nevertheless, Hurston manages to make this timeworn story new again for modern readers.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant examination of race, class, politics, conviction
Comment: This is a brilliant novel. Hurston retells the story of Moses through the lens of black history and of her own day; the reader can see Hitler in Pharoah, the ghettos of Europe and America in Goshen. The Hebrews of Hurston's tale are European Jews under National Socialism and American Blacks under slavery. Moses becomes in this context a figure of contemporary hope. His being suggests that it's possible for someone to lead those in need of leadership out of trouble and to change the world. (By the way, if you get a chance, take a look at J Kristeva's book "Revolution in Poetic Language.")
Hurston's novel is particularly relevent in today's world of spin politics and soundbites. To read this book is to better understand the news you're stuck with being fed.
Rating: 5
Summary: Poetic & Topical
Comment: A poetic, topical book that puts a contemporary twist on historical and spiritual (and political) issues pertaining to human rights and human potential. Highly recommended. Readers young and old should also pick up Hurston's "Tell My Horse: Voodoo And Life In Haiti And Jamaica."
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Title: Jonah's Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060916516 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060973595 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060916486 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Dust Tracks on a Road : An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060921684 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 19 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Tell My Horse : Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060916494 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
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