Book: Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart: A Novel
Publisher Summary:
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy , and The Temple of My Familiar now gives us a beautiful new novel that is at once a deeply moving personal story and a powerful spiritual journey.
In Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart , Alice Walker has created a work that ranks among her finest achievements: the story of a woman’s spiritual adventure that becomes a passage through time, a quest for self, and a collision with love.
Kate has always been a wanderer. A well-published author, married many times, she has lived a life rich with explorations of the natural world and the human soul. Now, at 57, she leaves her lover, Yolo, to embark on a new excursion, one that begins on the Colorado River, proceeds through the past, and flows, inexorably, into the future. As Yolo begins his own parallel voyage, Kate encounters celibates and lovers, shamans and snakes, memories of family disaster and marital discord, and emerges at a place where nothing remains but love.
Told with the accessible style and deep feeling that are its author’s hallmarks, Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart is Alice Walker’s most surprising achievement.
Reviews:
Deborah Plant,
When asked, “What’s on your nightstand?”
“Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker. I recommend it because it is true. Now is the only time we have, and if our heart is not open, we are walking around insensitive, mindless, disconnected and very likely unconsciously perpetrating harm in some form or fashion. This book calls us to extricate ourselves from all that undermines, diminishes and obscures our personal sovereignty. It calls us to open, to reconnect with the true self that is one with the earth and all that dwells upon and around her. I would recommend it to everyone who is ready for freedom and joy.”
Deborah Plant, Editor and Presenter of Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston.
Video: Patricia Gras interviews Alice Walker about
Now Is The Time to Open Your Heart
August 2004 book review in
www.januaryMagazine.com
by Nicole Moses
Most people know Alice Walker from her bestselling novel-turned-motion picture, The Color Purple. Yet this talented and Pulitzer-Prize winning author has written many bestsellers, as well as three collections of short stories and essays, six volumes of poetry and several children’s books. Now is the Time to Open Your Heart is her latest fictional offering and perhaps her most profound work to date.
Complete with out-of-body experiences and ethereal dreams, this story would probably have had a tough time being published in earlier decades. But in the new millennium, when astral travel is all the rage and psychics are purportedly talking to entities on The Other Side — on their own television shows — this book couldn’t have emerged at a better time. Walker dedicates this story to her murdered paternal grandmother, Kate Nelson, citing the novel as a “memorial to the psychic explorer she might have become.”
An intense commentary on the human spirit and what can happen when it is neglected, Now is the Time to Open Your Heart asks the reader, among other things, to acknowledge the existence of Mother Earth and Her healing power. This theme of being healed by nature is undoubtedly the predominant theme in the book, yet Walker also touches upon other issues including relationships, the human condition, wisdom and the seemingly hopeless current state of world violence.
She writes, “When you witness the various peace talks that occur on a daily basis somewhere on the earth and you see how far everyone is from peace, and how they get no nearer the longer they talk, well, this gives an indication of the problem.” She also questions humankind by asking, “If you see a human being, really see them … how could you kill them?” She wonders, “What would happen if our foreign policy centered on the cultivation of joy rather than pain?” With an informal yet mature writing style, Walker targets a multicultural adult audience. However, her general message — get your mind and body right and your heart will follow — is a universal one that can be understood by people of all ages.
The novel is written in the third person, except for certain segments in italics where the Mother Earth concept (known in the book as “Grandmother”) speaks in first person. The story follows a woman named Kate Nelson whose existence is changing into something unknown. Past her mid-50s and already married many times, she is a loving mother as well as an extensively published and popular author. Still, something is not quite right with Kate’s life.
She is beginning to care less and less about the material world. One day she burns “several hundred-dollar bills just to demonstrate to herself that these items were not the God/Goddess of her life.” She’s no longer worried about her house and all the things about it that need fixing. In fact, she’s even contemplating selling it. In her own words, Kate Nelson is “unconvinced of the need to do anything further” with her life.
So when a recurring dream of a river spurs her to go out and find the real thing she journeys, with several other women, to the Grand Canyon to travel the Colorado River. From the very beginning of the trip, Kate undergoes a literal purging as hidden memories and repressed emotions surface, forcing her to confront them and neutralize their negativity. Eager to continue her personal evolution, she travels to South America to the Amazon on another spiritual retreat of sorts.
Under the guidance of the Devic Kingdom and a powerful shaman, Kate and several others ultimately transform themselves into newer, cleaner and more balanced versions of the people they once were. At the same time, Kate’s partner, Yolo, whom she has left behind in America, is undergoing his own spiritual metamorphosis. A trip to Hawaii, originally intended to be a regular vacation, quickly becomes much more valuable an experience than Yolo could ever imagine.
In this alternate storyline we learn about the island’s history and it’s previous rule thousands of years ago by Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani. (Who knew?) We also learn about the importance and reverence placed upon land and nature by the Hawaiian people. The story ultimately ends on a high note leaving room for the reader to imagine a more detailed ending of their own design. Both entertaining and enlightening, Alice Walker’s latest masterpiece is right on schedule: now is the time to open your heart. | August 2004
Nicole Moses is an author, a poet and a songstress. Devouring books and expressing herself creatively through words are her true passions in life. She lives in Montreal, Canada with her fiancé, James, and a scraggly monkey named Homegrown. [2004] [ Review in January Magazine]
Queen Lili’uokalani was the beloved ruler of Hawaii from January 29, 1891 – January 17, 1893. Which was not thousands of years ago. Her story is crucial to understanding how indigenous Hawaiians lost their country to US political, cultural, religious and military invasion. AW
Review Questions (from Random House Readers Guide)
1. In the preface, Alice Walker writes, “My father’s mother was murdered when he was a boy. . . . This novel is a memorial to the psychic explorer she might have become.” How does this statement affect your understanding of Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart? Do you think that any attributes of the real Kate influenced the writing of this book? Does setting a character rooted in reality at the center of the novel give it any particular resonance?
2. What does the book’s title mean to you? How does the refrain “open your heart” course throughout the story? At the beginning of the book, what do you think Kate’s heart is closed toward? How about Yolo’s? Does this change as the novel unfolds?
3. Dreams play a significant part in the book. What is it about Kate’s dream that compels her to leave on her journey? Why is it significant that Yolo begins to dream immediately upon her departure? How does the novel blur the dream world with that of reality? In which ways does Walker’s writing itself often attain a dreamlike quality?
4. How is Yolo’s voyage of self-discovery similar to the one Kate embarks upon? How is it different? How do Yolo and Kate complement each other in their relationship? Initially, why is each of them so convinced that their romantic partnership is over?
5. How do the ghosts of the past—Kate’s mother, for instance—guide her and the others around her? In which way is Kate more mindful of these internal voices than of those that speak in the present? What actions does she take to be free of these specters and shadows?
6. Describe Kate’s experience in the rain forest. How is the rain forest a living, breathing entity in the novel? How does the setting around her affect Kate’s own personal journey? Why do you think the medicina ceases to have an effect on her?
7. Compare and contrast Kate’s inner self to the façade she presents to the outside world. How is she true to herself, and how does she hide herself away? How does this sense of self compare with that of the other women with whom she comes in contact, including Lalika, Missy, and Anunu?
8. Describe the notion of the Grandmother in this novel. What forms, both literal and metaphorical, does she take? What do you think that Kate seeks from her? How does Kate come to identify with Grandmother, and in what ways does this give her peace and contentment? Knowing that the character of Kate was spurred by the author’s real-life grandmother, how does the constant refrain of Grandmother in the book resonate?
9. “Smoking had taught him about emptiness, the need to fill internal space,” thinks Yolo (p. 18). How else do he and the other characters attempt to fill themselves up? How does Yolo convey his ideas about space in his paintings? Why do you think Grandmother tells Kate, “You must live for at least two years in space”?
10. Names have a particular resonance in this book. Yolo has created his; Kate thinks of changing hers to indicate her love of trees; the hula girl Leilani is really Alma; Lalika and her friend Gloria adopt the name Saartjie. Why are names, either given or created, so important to the characters? How does changing or considering a name change enable characters to reinvent themselves?
11. What effect do the chapter titles have on the narrative structure of Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart? Why doesn’t Walker use devices like quotation marks? What does this choice lend to the tenor and tone of the story? Do you feel that there is one driving narrative voice of the novel? If so, whose?
12. What do you make of the interlude “First of All, Abandon,” which is set off from the book and isn’t told from the same point of view? Who do you think is the narrative voice of this section? What impact does it have on the novel as a whole?
13. “I saw someone with a story to tell,” says Kate of her vision of a tortured ancestor (p. 90). How does she view herself as a vessel for those stories? How can she unburden herself of her own stories through her work as a writer? In which ways do you think this mind-set parallels Walker’s experience with this particular book?
14. How are reptiles and animals important, both in the cycle of life and in Kate’s and Yolo’s journeys? What nonhuman forms does Grandmother take, and why is each of these forms significant?
15. How does concern for the environment and for the living world affect the characters? What role does water play?
16. Saartjie, also known as the Hottentot Venus, takes a paramount role in Lalika’s life. Why do you think Lalika turns to her for help? In which ways does Saartjie become an icon to her and to others?
17. The book includes characters who are Makus—women that are really men. In this way, and in others, how does Walker play with the notion of a fluid gender identity? How does she explore the notion of female power and a matrilineal society?
18. What do the others that Kate and Yolo meet on their journeys teach them about the world and about themselves? Who do you think has the most profound impact on each of them? In turn, who do Kate and Yolo influence the most?
19. “I started to understand why to myself and often to other people I have felt invisible,” says Rick (p. 152). How is this book about the artifice of appearance and the act of stripping that away? How do Yolo and Kate seek to be visible, not only to others but to themselves? Who else seeks to become visible in the book, and who do you think will be the most successful in that quest?
20. The concept of devotion plays a large role in the book. To what are both Yolo and Kate devoted at the beginning of the novel? How does that devotion change and evolve as the story unfolds? What value is placed on devotion to ancestors and the past?
21. Yolo listens with interest to the stories of the aborigines (p. 134). How does the sense of an “original people” permeate the book? What would Kate and Yolo consider their original people? How do they want to return to their roots? How does Walker twist notions of color, race, and religion in unexpected ways throughout the novel?
22. The medicina “will teach you to see through your own plots,” Armando had promised Kate (p. 180). What artificial plots have the characters constructed about their own lives? In which ways are these constructs coping mechanisms? How is this artifice detrimental to their development and their happiness?
23. Why do Yolo and Kate ultimately decide to stay together? How have their solo journeys solidified their bond? Why do you think they choose to make a public, if unconventional, display of their union?