Possessing the Secret of Joy

by Alice Walker | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0671789422 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Tarna of Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on 7/27/2011
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Tarna from Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Wednesday, July 27, 2011
First published 1992. First Pocket Books printing June 1993. A Pocket Book Star Book. Pocket Books, New York. Paperback, 288 pages.
Cover illustration by David Shannon is based on a photograph by Robert Allen, and shows the hand of the author touching Carl Jung's alchemical or philosopher's stone, carved by Jung in 1950 and standing today in his garden in Bollingen, Switzerland.


This is one of the paperbacks my father has brought me from one of his trips to Canada. I love the cover and the first paragraph which is truly powerful: 'I did not realize for a long time that I was dead.'
Haven't read the book yet but this much I know: It's a story of Tashi, an African woman who's moved to America and feels torn between two cultures. Apparently, she the chooses to undergo female circumcision, female genital mutilation (FGM).
The rest of the book is still to be read. So far I've liked what I've read.

Journal Entry 2 by Tarna at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Friday, July 29, 2011
Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to women and to the earth, says Raye, bitterly.
That's one way of summing up Possessing the Secret of Joy. The story is appalling but yet beautiful somehow. And most of all, the story is important and needs to be told at least as long as female circumcision is common practice in any culture.
I so like the way Alice Walker writes. There are several narrators and different points of view in this story, and all those different voices are really needed. I loved the book. It is great. And on some wishlists...

Journal Entry 3 by Tarna at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Saturday, July 30, 2011

Released 12 yrs ago (7/30/2011 UTC) at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Surprise! I hope your wishlist is up-to-date.

Journal Entry 4 by CandyDarling at Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Thank you so much! I read The Color Purple a year ago and LOVED it, so I'm really happy to have the chance to read Possessing the Secret of Joy too!

Roxane Gay: Theses on the Feminist Novel
"If there is a quintessential feminist novel, it might be Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. At the beginning of part two of Walker’s novel, Tashi, the novel’s protagonist, screams, “Can you bear to know what I have lost?” Hers is a difficult question because by the end of the novel, when we do know as much as we can know of what Tashi has lost, the truth is nearly impossible to bear. We cannot bear to know what she has lost."

Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.