Alice Walker.

Donna Haisty Wincholl. Alice Walker. New York: Twayne, 1992. 152 pp. $21-95.

Jacqueline de Weever. Mythmaking and Metaphor in Black Women's Fiction. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. 194 pp. &35.00 cloth/$l5.95 paper.

Although neither Jacqueline de Weever's Mythmaking and Metaphor in Black Women's Fiction nor Donna Haisty Winchell's Alice Walker deliberately creates controversy, both do focus many of the areas of debate which have surrounded African American literature and women's writing. Both books are meant as general overviews of a particular body of fiction: de Weever's book an overview of mythic patterns in seventeen novels by seven African American women writers, and Winchell's book an overview of Alice Walker's life and writing. Yet there the similarity ends, for while Winchell's book seems content to make general statements about the themes of Walker's novels or to summarize other critics' interpretations of Walker's texts, de Weever presents new and original readings of the novels she discusses. And while Winchell's central thesis is that Walker's texts (like her life) move from fragmentation to unification, de Weever emphasizes not unification or closure in texts but the openness of myth and metaphor.

At opposite ends of the spectrum, then, in terms of their conclusions, these books together present the tensions evident in much criticism of African American literature and women's writing. Winchell's totalizing and frequently simplistic thesis tends to homogenize Walker's life and denies her works their specificity, whereas de Weever's broad and general thesis -- that African American women use myth and metaphor, sometimes revising it, sometimes inverting it, sometimes deconstructing it -- at times seems inconclusive and vague. Of the two strategies, de Weever's is the more successful, but neither book finds a balance between oversimplification and overspecificity; neither presents an argument which does justice to the complexity as well as the specificity of the works they discuss.

Winchell's book is a very readable basic introduction to Walker's life and writing. It contains useful and accurate summaries of the plots and themes of Walker's first four novels, two collections of short stories, two collections of critical essays, and some of her poetry. It also has a very helpful annotated bibliography and a chronology of Walker's life. However, because much of this critical and biographical information is available elsewhere, the book seems mainly meant to be a compilation of research, rather than an addition to the scholarship. Moreover, since Winchell presents quick overviews of the themes of the works and relies heavily on other critics' interpretation of Walker's texts, those seeking new and insightful readings may find the book disappointing.

Even as a general summary of Walker's work, however, Winchell's book has some limitations. Most importantly, it tends to gloss over textual and critical controversies in favor of its totalizing argument: Walker's personal movement from despair to hope. Walker's early life was traumatic and difficult; the daughter of a poor and abusive father, she was educated during a time when no African American women writers were available to her as literary models. According to Winchell, Walker was able to triumph over these obstacles and became a writer by discovering "how much of life is a matter of perspective." At forty, Walker would write in her journal:

In some ways, I feel my early life's

work is done, and done completely.

The books that I have produced

already carry forward the thoughts

that I feel the ancestors were trying to

help me pass on. In every generation

someone (or two or three) is chosen for

this work.... Great Spirit, I thank you

for the length of my days and the

fullness of my work.(x)

Winchell's book charts Walker's movement from suicidal disunity to optimistic integration.

Walker has discussed her writing as both a means of survival and a way of healing herself, so for Winchell it comes as no surprise that Walker's characters, like Walker, are in search of healing and wholeness. Walker's female characters "achieve psychological wholeness only when they are able to fight oppression," whereas her male characters "achieve psychological health and wholeness only when they are able to acknowledge women's pain and their role in it"(x). This movement toward wholeness occurs within individual works (such as The Temple of My Familiar), but it also occurs in the development of Walker's fiction as a whole. Early works such as the collection of short stories In Love and Trouble or the novel The Third Life of Grange Copeland tend to emphasize characters' "often fruitless battles for physical security and psychological health" (43). Winchell contrasts these works with later ones such as the collection of short stories You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down or the novels Meridian and The Color Purple, which include characters who are more active and successful in taking control of their lives and destinies. These later works are more in harmony with Winchell's vision of the mature Alice Walker, "the latter-day-hippie, in her dreadlocks and yogi pants, throwing open her door and reaching out in an all-encompassing gesture to draw in life in all of its varied human and nonhuman forms" (107). This is the New Age Alice Walker, Walker the enviromnentalist, the vegetarian, the animal lover who believes that in a perfect universe "freedom and justice would extend to nonhuman animals as well as to human ones" (111).

Winchell seems well aware that this New Age Alice Walker may be a bit difficult to swallow: "Unfortunately Walker, the would-be savior of the planet, at times looks rather foolish and eccentric as she munches seaweed straight off the rocks on the beaches of California or lies across a path in a national park talking to the trees or considers changing her name to Treeflower or Weed " (113). Yet this is a rare moment of evaluation; for the most part Winchell maintains a non-judgmental attitude toward Walker's life and work. Contradictions and controversies, when they arise, are soon dispensed with. In discussing The Color Purple, for example, Winchell focuses on Celie's and Albert's movement toward wholeness, but does not consider the characters who are not so successful. The destiny of a character as important as Sofia is dispensed with in two sentences: "She eventually goes to jail for striking the white mayor, surviving there only by masking her own natural aggression and pretending instead to be the meek and submissive Miss Celie. When at the end of the novel Harpo and Sofia are together again, they revert to the roles that they are most comfortable with . . . " (95-96). However, readers of The Color Purple know that Walker, through Sofia, raises the question of whether aggressive resistance to racism is a viable strategy in a society which is overwhelmingly racist, and that this is not a question which the novel answers completely. Winchell glosses over this ambiguity in favor of her reading of the novel as a movement toward wholeness. She also glosses over ambiguities and contradictions having to do with Walker's attitude toward her male characters and toward lesbianism.

Nor does Winchell dwell on the contradictions of Walker's own identity. Walker recognizes the African American and Native American strands of her ancestry, but has more difficulty acknowledging the white blood in her veins, the blood of her great-great-grandfather who raped an eleven-year-old slave -- Walker's great-great-grandmother. Winchell also avoids dealing with conflicts in Walker's philosophy, although Winchell does acknowledge them. Walker's search for unity, for example, would take her to China in 1983, where she and a traveling companion would feel most at peace sitting in the middle of T'ien An Men Square. Winchell notes the irony of this in light of the events of June 1989, but only comments that "Walker's optimism about the future of the planet must have been sorely tested ..."(14). Tested, but presumably not found wanting. Winchell's thesis will not allow her to acknowledge the possibility of retrenchment, contradiction, pessimism, or ambiguity in Walker's psyche or her works. In fact, Winchell will not even acknowledge the conflict between Walker's vision of the world and the reality of history and events as they are actually lived.