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The Temple of My Familiar (1989)

by Alice Walker

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: The Color Purple Collection (2)

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2,498256,452 (3.81)63
A visionary cast of characters weave together their past and present in a brilliantly intricate tapestry of tales. It is the story of the dispossessed and displaced, of peoples whose history is ancient and whose future is yet to come. Here we meet Lissie, a woman of many pasts; Arveyda the great guitarist and his Latin American wife who has had to flee her homeland; Suwelo, the history teacher, and his former wife Fanny who has fallen in love with spirits. Hovering tantalizingly above their stories are Miss Celie and Shug, the beloved characters from "The Color Purple".… (more)
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» See also 63 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 25 (next | show all)
In drie onderling verbonden verhalen worden de belevenissen van evenzoveel uiteenlopende koppels beschreven.
  Vrouwenbibliotheek | Dec 30, 2024 |
In drie onderling verbonden verhalen worden de belevenissen van evenzoveel uiteenlopende koppels beschreven.
  Vrouwenbibliotheek | Dec 30, 2024 |
I have tried and failed many times over the several months I've been reading this book to describe effectively all that this book is and does, so I concede now that nothing I write in this review will do it justice. This book is a well-crafted consideration of human connection to each other and the world as a whole, systemic oppression and its emotional and physical effects, the way time/history shape the stories we tell and the stories we live, and ultimately healing. The nonlinear plot made the story feel more emotionally realistic for me, and the characters kept me rooted in the story, so I never felt lost. By the end of the book, I felt that this story is, in many ways, a declaration of what I assume to be Walker's personal philosophy. While I don't agree with every aspect of this philosophy, I do believe there is a lot that can be learned from it. I hope to make time to reread this book in years to come in order to continue learning from it. ( )
  AngelReadsThings | Nov 30, 2024 |
OMG, did I ever hate this book. I loved The Color Purple, so I thought I'd like this.

It jumps around like crazy and includes new characters far more often than it refers back to ones we've already met. I got so sick of trying to keep track of characters that I finally threw it down in disgust. Irritating and a waste of time. ( )
  jennievh | Sep 18, 2024 |
Alice Walker is reputedly one of the most well-known, yet most difficult post-modern authors to read, and The Temple of My Familiar makes both of these reputations known. Why is it difficult? In an effort to present life, and I mean life as in the history of man (and other creatures) in this world throughout time, there's no doubt that the result of this feat would be a difficult read. Walker's novel travels in a non-linear way through time, covering South America, North America, Africa, and England, among others. With such an all-encompassing focus on "human" history, Walker can focus neither on one time period or one character.

Walker achieves this by use of a different ordering principle than we normally use to recognize time, i.e., past lives. She takes fantastic liberties with the presentation of the past and human origins, telling a matriarchal creation story where the men attempt the emulate the perfect art form of female childbirth and pregnancy. Walker also presents an arboreal past that is possibly an evolutionary history, and the most utopic of all the worlds in the novel.

With these stories and multi-faceted characters, Walker communicates that in every other person, there is a piece of ourselves and our histories, that from within one person, our entire past exists. She communicates the Jungian philosophy of the collective unconscious being connected back through time and culture in significant ways. It is with this that one of the characters, Mary Jane, claims that "we all touch each other's lives in ways we can't begin to imagine."

Such off-the-wall stories and complicated concepts add to the difficulty of the read while at the same time encouraging the readers to swallow a world that is so unlike their "normal" ones. This world of magic realism, an art form perfected by Walker and fellow writer, [b:Toni Morrison|6149|Beloved|Toni Morrison|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165555299s/6149.jpg|736076], is one that makes for a refreshing and engrossing read. The characters are unforgettable, the historical and visual backdrops breathtaking. Names like Carlotta, Fanny, Hal, Lulu, Suwelo, and Lissie will forever remain portraits of amazing people that live in my mind beyond Walker's intricate telling.

Suwelo himself speaks of the "rare people...[who are:] connected directly with life and not with its reflection." It is this ultimate person that I believe Walker wants to present, create and/or reach with the readers of this story. With this, Walker's confusing journey becomes almost a dramatization of how she feels the universe itself works. ( )
  irrelephant | Feb 21, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 25 (next | show all)

» Add other authors (8 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Walker, Aliceprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Hewitson, JenniferIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Se hai mentito su di Me, / hanno mentito su tutto.
Lissie Lyles
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To Robert, in whom the Goddess shines
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In the old country in South America, Carlotta's grandmother, Zede, had been a seamstress, but really more of a sewing magician.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

A visionary cast of characters weave together their past and present in a brilliantly intricate tapestry of tales. It is the story of the dispossessed and displaced, of peoples whose history is ancient and whose future is yet to come. Here we meet Lissie, a woman of many pasts; Arveyda the great guitarist and his Latin American wife who has had to flee her homeland; Suwelo, the history teacher, and his former wife Fanny who has fallen in love with spirits. Hovering tantalizingly above their stories are Miss Celie and Shug, the beloved characters from "The Color Purple".

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Book description
In The Temple of My Familiar, Celie and Shug from The Color Purple subtly shadow the lives of dozens of characters, all dealing in some way with the legacy of the African experience in America. From recent African immigrants, to a woman who grew up in the mixed-race rainforest communities of South America, to Celie’s own granddaughter living in modern-day San Francisco, all must come to understand the brutal stories of their ancestors to come to terms with their own troubled lives.

As Walker follows these astonishing characters, she weaves a new mythology from old fables and history, a profoundly spiritual explanation for centuries of shared African-American experience.
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