Susan Isaacss Critique of Ntozake Shanges Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo :: Sassafrass Cypress Indigo

Susan Isaacss Critique of Ntozake Shanges Sassafrass, Cypress, and coloured          Susan Isaacs believes that Ntozake Shanges first novel, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, is lightly entertaining and enjoyable, but her writing, sometimes loses a thread and makes a mess (395). Isaacs praises Shanges style, while finding fault with some of the techniques she employs.   The main lawsuit that is introduced to the readers in Post Modern Ameri digest Fictions excerpt from Shanges novel, Sassafrass Cypress, and Indigo, is Indigo, the youngest of three daughters in the story. Indigos character borders on the mystical. She has dolls she still talks to, and a fiddle that Sister Mary Louise, a friend of Indigos, remarks, Too much of the Holy Ghost came out of Indigo and that fiddle (Shange, 44). One of Isaacss criticisms has to do with Indigos use of magic. Indigo is an avid fiddle player, she, had mastered the hum of the dusk, the crescendoes of the c icadas, swamp rushes in light winds, thunder at proud tide, and her mothers laughter down the hall (Shange, 45). The technique of mixing magic and fiddle playing does not sit well with Isaacs, who states, Its an intriguing idea, but it fails because although the author tries to give birth Indigo as a wise innocent, a mystical power, a joyous embodiment of the black spirit, the rhetoric of her musings is earthbound radical-feminist, predictable and silly...   Isaacs continues her criticism of the tone that Indigo has any magical abilities, and the use of magic as a story line and as a part of Indigos character, saying, And if Indigos black magic is real,...How can she and her people-a people with such potent magic-tolerate the evils the author catalogues so movingly? (396). Isaacs wonders about the reason for Indigos magical, mystical qualities, and continues along this track, wondering if the magic might be a metaphor, a fantasy of Indigos, or Shanges own portrayal of black folklore. Regardless of the intended portrayal of Indigos magical qualities, Isaacs believes that, it is not presented with enough clarity. The reader remains mildly fond of Indigo--people who talk to dolls can be enchanting--but it is nonetheless befuddled about her role in the novel (394).   Despite Isaacs problems with the structure of the novel, and some of the devices and techniques Shange used in her character development, she does praise Shange as a novelist, comparing her art to weaving, a skill shared by both the mother and the eldest daughter in Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo.