Revisiting Alice Walker and Her Journals

Let me just say from the outset that I have read about Alice Walker's antisemitism, and it disturbs me profoundly.  If you have managed to miss this information, Caitlin Flanagan's article in The Atlantic sums it up neatly.  And I will also say from the outset that Alice Walker's post 1980's work has been much less meaningful to me, so much so that I have not kept up with her twenty-first century writing--which is why I didn't know about her antisemitism in real time.

I was at the library on Saturday when I found one of her later books on the new arrivals shelf, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire:  The Journals of Alice Walker.  It's a selections of journals from the 1960's to 1999.  I decided to check it out, even though I thought I would just leaf through it and return it.

Much to my surprise, I found myself absorbed through much of the week-end.  On Sunday, I began with her journals from the 1990's; I confess that I was looking for information about her relationship with Tracy Chapman, and there was plenty to satisfy my curiosity.  

Yesterday, I went further back in the book, back to the 1970's.  It was interesting to read about her divorce from her Jewish lawyer husband in light of the recent antisemitic turn; I didn't see any signs of antisemitism then.  I was even more interested in the pre-The Color Purple writer that she was.  She was fairly successful right away, although not in that multi-million kind of way that she became successful later.

I was also struck by a sense of reading about an economic time period that no longer exists, and I had the same experience reading Marge Piercy's Braided Lives.  It no longer seems possible to find a small but charming apartment that one can afford with just a part-time job, so that one's artistic life has room and time.  And in the 1970's, that was possible in New York City!  Now it's probably not possible anywhere, and certainly not in a major metropolitan city.

The journals didn't ultimately tell me much that was new about Walker or her work.  The essays that she published in the 1980's and early 1990's told us much about her life and personality.  I was startled to read about her love/sex/romantic life, not so much because of who she dated, but by how she managed to juggle so many people, how much time and emotional upheaval it took, and how she managed to get anything else done.  And when I thought about the trajectory of her work, I wondered if maybe she didn't get as much writing into the world precisely because of all the relationship drama.

I thought of all the women writers of the past who could have told us that the more romantic partners one has, the less other stuff one will get done.  And most of us will never listen.  And I do realize that most of us don't want to give up all our relationships for our art--what a deprived life that would likely be.  But my goodness, so much drama.

And then of course, I wondered if I am just a passionless stick, wanting to avoid all that drama.  But I know that I am not--I just don't have the patience anymore, if I ever did.

I don't regret spending time with these journals.  It took me to a younger self, back when I was trying to figure out how one becomes a writer like so many of my heroes.  Alice Walker was one of those heroes, even as I realized she was imperfect; early on I was a bit queasy at her mothering style, and now I'm disturbed by her antisemitism/anti-religions of all sorts.

It's also a bit of a relief to realize that I have become the writer I wanted to be, even as I have room to improve.  The world will likely not take notice of me in the way that Alice Walker enjoyed, but few writers will experience that acclaim these days.

And that lack of notice/notoriety comes with its own benefits too.  It's startling to realize that I prefer my life now to just about any other life, startling and gratifying.