Word: walker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When Carlotta reappears at the end in a hot tub, telling Suwelo how she became a new-age musician, it is hard to believe she can have any important role to play. Yet Walker says the four "all vaguely realize they have a purpose in each other's lives. They are a collective means by which each of them will grow...
PART of the problem is that the characters serve only as mouthpieces for Walker's ideas. They never develop any personality of their own. The novel is written as long strings of storytelling by the characters. but they all take the same tone and they all deliver the same, or at least complementary, messages. Walker called the book a "wisdom tale" and it is indeed didactic, at the expense of character...
...fill out the roster of voiceless messengers from Walker, there are a host of stereotypical minor characters. An aged British aunt spits out attacks on the Victorian era on her deathbed. A poor little rich girl buys a yacht to rescue Carlotta and Zede from prison, and, after wandering through the jungle in pink boots, she makes a new identity as an art teacher in Africa. Her rich parents, she claims, have "personally assasinated six rivers and massacred twelve lakes." A vicious guerilla fighter with a heart mothers a child and dies of grief when the father takes the daughter...
...Walker said Temple is about a spirit which is all-encompassing and present on the earth, like the god in The color Purple, "but more so." Her new book seems to be a more explicit account of this spirit, which Lissie is responsible for describing...
MAYBE this book is no Color Purple. It should still be possible to appreciate it for what it is, and at times it is a good story, an entertaining read. It is certainly no worse than many pop novels, and Walker has not lost her power to keep the reader interested...