Push Critique

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-push-by-sapphire/

http://www.anovelreview.com/2010/07/book-review-push-by-sapphire.html

http://ringothecat.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/push-by-sapphire/

I chose blogcritics.org review of Push because it was positive, even describing the novel as ‘pure poetry’, and was different from my own opinions. I also used anovelreview.com and ringothecat.wordpress.com.

Blogcritcs.org felt that the novel being written in the vernacular helped the story telling and ‘did not breed contempt’ whereas I felt that this style just portrayed Precious as a typical poor, uneducated African American girl living in “the ghetto”, Harlem. I felt that Precious’ character was quite extreme and did not like how one person could have so many problems in their life, however, upon further research I did find out that the story was based on a real one; but I still felt the novel portrayed such a typical stereotype of African Americans. They also praised the language uses as ‘melodious, memorable and outlandish’, which is very true of the novel, but fails to take into account the shock value of the language and metaphors used. Surely the fact that Precious is only sixteen and using expletives such as ‘fuck’, ‘coon fool’ would be shocking and something that would unexpected for someone so young. However, her circumstances do allow for her to use these terms.

The review however, does focus on Precious’ abuse and fantasy escape, something that I did not particularly appreciate when I was reading the novel. Through this it does show that Precious is a survivor, something the review mentioned, but it also shows that she is strong enough to carry on and push, to make something of her life. The review mentions: ‘in her [Precious] dreams she is milky white, cute and has long hair that makes her lovable…’, however the review failed to see that this showed Precious’ dislike for herself, and while the review briefly says that Precious is a victim, it predominantly portrays Precious as a strong, courageous girl, who bounced back from abuse at the hands of her parents, who learnt to read and write; neglecting the personal struggle to accept herself, something that I don’t think she is able to do until the end of the book when she writes: ‘in his beauty I see my own’.

I felt that blogcritics.org read Push on face value and picked up on some of the more obvious points, whereas another review I looked at, anovelreview.com, saw Precious a little deeper, and while I still disagreed with the review, I could agree with their points. For example it says Precious is ‘self-sufficient’, but unlike blogcritics.org who saw this self-sufficiency in terms of being able to escape into fantasy from the abuse, anovelreview.com saw this by the way Precious went about ‘taking the change from food stamps to purchase a notebook for class’ and ‘sells bottles and cans to repay a 50-cent loan to a classmate for potato chips’. I feel this is a better portrayal of Precious as it shows her as more than a victim and more than a ‘survivor’, but as a dedicated hard worker.

A last thing I found interesting was on another review for Push that mirrored slightly with my own opinions. It raised an interesting point; ‘if Sapphire wasn’t black, we’d call this novel tendentious (bias), if not racist’. This is interesting because it does raise the question as to how the novel would have been interpreted had there been a few minor changes to it; as well as questioning why the two other reviews I looked at, enjoyed the book so much. It also implies that if Push had been written by a white man it would not have had the same impact on the reader.