Welty, Eudora

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Painted lives
To the Lighthouse
This delicious emotion, this impure rhaspsody of which he was ashamed, but in which he revelled
The Essence of Things
Who's Afraid

To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf , and Eudora Welty (Introduction)
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156907399

Book Description

Subject of this extraordinary novel is the daily life of an English family in the Hebrides. “Radiant as [To the Lighthouse] is in its beauty, there could never be a mistake about it: here is a novel to the last degree severe and uncompromising. I think that beyond being about the very nature of reality, it is itself a vision of reality.”-Eudora Welty, from her Introduction.

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Virginia Woolf is one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, and To the Lighthouse is perhaps her crowning achievement. The story of the Ramsay family and the guests visiting their summer house in the Hebrides, Woolf?

Customer Reviews:

Painted lives.......2007-06-01

An extraordinary book, at once light as air and dense with meaning. From the smallest happenings (a family gathered at a seaside house) seen in two brief glimpses (a long summer afternoon before the first world war, and a single morning ten years later), Virginia Woolf distils a profound meditation on love and loss, hope and disappointment, and human relationships, especially the precarious and limiting balance between men and women. But it is impossible to summarize in a sentence what Woolf achieves in two hundred pages, so let me just pick on three specifics: art, thought, and time.

ART. The Harcourt Harvest Book paperback edition has a beautiful cover, apparently a tinted turn-of-the century photograph of a beach with the sea and a lighthouse beyond. It is a perfect evocation of the period and of lazy summers by the sea. Yet the credits say it is adapted from a photo by a much later artist, Herbert List; presumably the period air and the uncanny overtones of Seurat's "Grande Jatte" are the work of the designer, Liz Demeter. I mention this partly because a book's cover is like incidental music; it creates the context in which you start reading, and this is perfect. But also because visual art also plays an important part in the book. One of the guests of the owners of the house, the Ramsays, is Lily Briscoe, an unmarried woman in her thirties. We first see her as she is painting in the garden: "Lily's picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her little Chinese eyes and her puckered-up face, she would never marry; one could not take her painting very seriously." So of course we take her for a mere amateur; and Lily similarly puts herself down, conditioned by a climate which denied creativity to women except as wives and mothers. But when we get to look closer at Lily's picture we see that it is extremely advanced for its time, and her thought processes are as rigorous as anything we hear from the paterfamilias Mr. Ramsay, a once-celebrated philosopher. Indeed in the glorious closing chapters of the book, it is Lily, struggling to express balance and feeling in paint, who comes closest to giving meaning and permanency to the whole family history. One recalls that one of Virginia Woolf's closest friends in the Bloomsbury Group was the art critic Roger Fry, who coined the term post-impressionism. Lily, far from being a minor character, stands as the alter ego of Woolf herself, achieving in touches of paint a very close analogy to what the author manages so marvelously in words.

THOUGHT. But fine as Virginia Woolf's visual descriptions are, her main medium is not sight but thought. The two days at the seaside are described entirely through the minds of various individual members of the family and their guests. There is occasional dialogue, but no third-person narrator. A paragraph may start with the thoughts of one person about another, switch smoothly to the mind of that other person, and then return to the first again. And often the thoughts of the first character will change significantly between one moment and the next. Affection can switch suddenly to anger and back again; Woolf knows that most emotions, especially given the complex ties that bind families, can seldom be contained by a single label; through her apparent contradictions, she builds up a truth that is richer than could have been attained by consistency alone. Again, I think of the visual arts and the multiple viewpoints of cubism, but though a modern writer, Woolf is not a modern-ist; her technique is concealed, not flaunted; she is not a "difficult" writer in the sense that Joyce or even Faulkner are. As a results, her portraits come through with great warmth, especially that of Mrs. Ramsay, willingly adopting a supporting role to her curmudgeonly husband (or almost willingly -- with Woolf that is important), but blessed with a radiance of personality that illuminates the entire book, even when she is not at the center of it.

TIME. Most novels tell a story that unfolds gradually over the course of time; this doesn't. The outer sections of the book take place virtually in real time; the action happens at about the same speed as it takes to read about it. But for all intents and purposes, these sections are static compared to the ten-year duration of the narrative as a whole. Only one thing happens in either of the outer sections that could really be called an event, and that involves two minor characters whose relationship to the Ramsays is never clearly specified. But that does not mean lack of movement. The rapidly shifting juxtapositions and viewpoints build up a dense texture of relationships and feelings that reach a certain stability at the close of the first (and longest) section, but leave you wanting more. In painting terms again, one might call this opening a still life -- except that the various figures in it are now linked by quasi-electrical charges, so that the balance between them is not static but dynamic, presently in equilibrium but capable of further motion. In effect, you could close the book at this moment and write your own narrative. Instead, Virginia Woolf does something quite extraordinary. In the ten short chapters of the twenty-page interlude entitled "Time Passes," she takes on the role of narrator for the first time, and tells what happens in the next few minutes, the remainder of that night, the ensuing nights, the changing seasons, the course of the War, and the passage of years. She writes of impersonal things -- the house, the garden, the wind, the sea -- throwing in small nuggets of personal information almost as afterthoughts. When the Ramsays finally return, much has changed, and the former golden days seem tarnished. But by the end of this marvelous novel, Virginia Woolf has burnished them to a new shine, less brilliant perhaps, but deeper and more lasting.

To the Lighthouse.......2007-05-31

The book is a poetic third person narration, that takes place on the Isle of Skye around WWI. The book begins as Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay take a summer trip to the Isle, along with their bevy of children. So, begins the story of a lives entwined,and told at a pace of varying rhythms and point of views. One might say that the pages hold a search for meaning in a world of chaos. Life cycles are central, to the themes of preservation and life. The ligthouse itself, sometimes seeming mysterious and ellusive, transitions by the story's end. James, taking note of the contrast in perspective recognizes that "nothing is one thing". In this story, even the wind and furnishings are given a haunting voice. As the house is being packed and cleared , the wind asks "Will you fade? will you perish?" The objects answer, "We will remain."

This delicious emotion, this impure rhaspsody of which he was ashamed, but in which he revelled.......2007-05-24

An excellent book.
It unrolls much like Mrs. Dalloway-- even the opening sentences have similar cadences-- an average day filled with the push and pull of emotional tides for an array of characters. The writing occasional sparkles (as in the title of the review from page 25, or the insults that 'bespatter her unrebuked' on page 32), but it is no better or worse than Mrs. Dalloway.

That changes on page 125, with "a downpouring of immense darkness" that lowers "a swaying mantle of silence" onto the house that formerly buzzed with life. This is the beginning of the astoundingly good 20 page interlude between the two sections. The seasons change, and the house hovers, teetering on the edge of the abyss, poised to "plunge to the depths to lie upon the sands of oblivion;" but the tide turns, and the house is "rescued from the pool of Time," and is reborn in the summer day of the 3rd section.

The final section has its moments (Mr. Ramsey's `heavy draperies of grief', burdened with the knowledge that `we perished. Each alone.'), yet still lacks a bit of the punch of the other two.

"What then was this terror, this hatred? Turning back among the many leaves which the past had folded in him, peering into the heart of that forest where light and shade so chequer each other that all shape is distorted, and one blunders, now with the sun in one's eyes, now with a dark shadow, he sought an image to cool and detach and round off his feelings in a concrete shape." 185

The Essence of Things.......2007-04-26

To the Lighthouse, published in 1927, is a landmark Modernist novel.

Written from multiple perspectives and shifting between time and characters, Woolf is not really concerned with plot. Instead, she paints a psychological portrait of the members of the Ramsay family and their friends, at their summerhouse in the Hebrides. To the Lighthouse is divided into three parts.

In the first section, (The Window), the character of Mrs. Ramsay is the lens through which most of the perspectives are focused, and her son's (James) desire to go "to the Lighthouse" is the catalyst from which the chapter takes shape.

In the next section, (Time Passes), told by an omniscient narrator, Woolf dramatises the decay of the summer house over a period of ten years, and the fate of various characters is divulged. This section has some powerful visual images that expound Woolf's skill as a writer.

In the third and final section, (The Lighthouse), the remaining family and friends finally get to the Lighthouse, and the novel becomes a meditation on love, loss, time and creativity.

To the Lighthouse is a difficult read. But if you can understand the nature of the stream-of-consciousness technique and Woolf's goal of representing the essence of experience, then you will be able to glean a better understanding of the narrative. To the Lighthouse creates internal landscapes, and the main technique is invoking memory and various associations on the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

This book will take time and patience. But if you keep working at it and savour ever word, then you will be in for a rewarding literary experience.

Who's Afraid.......2007-04-01

Though this is an incredibly difficult read, it's worth it if you have the time and patience. The story is in three parts, the first being a family planning a trip to a lighthouse, the second being a tragedy that occurs, and the third being the actual trip to the lighthouse. The story asks the questions, "Is man the sum of his experiences?" and "Is time the succession of a line of lampposts?" I won't tell you the answers that Woolf provides or that I agree with them (she was certifiable and reading this book gives a glimpse into that tragic mind), but I will tell you that in between the sometimes laborious but skillful symbolism there is often a passage of beautifully poetic stream-of-consciousness prose.
As the masterpiece it is, 5 stars are not enough.

J. Lyon Layden
The Other Side of Yore

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Going home, again
Families and communities
The Quiet Optimist
A Rewarding Experience
Concise and clear

The Optimist's Daughter
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Eudora Welty: A Biography

ASIN: 067972883X
Release Date: 1990-08-11

Amazon.com

The Optimist's Daughter is a compact and inward-looking little novel, a Pulitzer Prize winner that's slight of page yet big of heart. The optimist in question is 71-year-old Judge McKelva, who has come to a New Orleans hospital from Mount Salus, Mississippi, complaining of a "disturbance" in his vision. To his daughter, Laurel, it's as rare for him to admit "self-concern" as it is for him to be sick, and she immediately flies down from Chicago to be by his side. The subsequent operation on the judge's eye goes well, but the recovery does not. He lies still with both eyes heavily bandaged, growing ever more passive until finally--with some help from the shockingly vulgar Fay, his wife of two years--he simply dies. Together Fay and Laurel travel to Mount Salus to bury him, and the novel begins the inward spiral that leads Laurel to the moment when "all she had found had found her," when the "deepest spring in her heart had uncovered itself" and begins to flow again.

Not much actually happens in the rest of the book--Fay's low-rent relatives arrive for the funeral, a bird flies down the chimney and is trapped in the hall--and yet Welty manages to compress the richness of an entire life within its pages. This is a world, after all, in which a set of complex relationships can be conveyed by the phrase "I know his whole family" or by the criticism "When he brought her here to your house, she had very little idea of how to separate an egg." Does such a place exist anymore? It is vanishing even from this novel, and the personification of its vanishing is none other than Fay--petulant, graceless, childish, with neither the passion nor the imagination to love. Welty expends a lot of vindictive energy on Fay and her kin, who must be the most small-minded, mean-mouthed clan since the Snopeses hit Frenchman's Bend. There's more than just class snobbery at work here (though that surely comes into it too). As Welty sees it, they are a special historical tribe who exult in grieving because they have come to be good at it, and who seethe with resentment from the day they are born. They have come "out of all times of trouble, past or future--the great, interrelated family of those who never know the meaning of what has happened to them."

Fay belongs to the future, as she makes clear; it's Laurel who belongs to the past--Welty's own chosen territory. In her fine memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, Welty described the way art could shine a light back "as when your train makes a curve, showing that there has been a mountain of meaning rising behind you on the way you've come." Here, in one of her most autobiographical works, the past joins seamlessly with the present in a masterful evocation of grief, memory, loss, and love. Beautifully written, moving but never mawkish, The Optimist's Daughter is Eudora Welty's greatest achievement--which is high praise indeed. --Mary Park

Book Description

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations.

Customer Reviews:

Going home, again.......2007-05-04

"The Optimist's Daughter" bears two of the great hallmarks of Eudora Welty's writing: meticulously recorded conversation and an emphasis on how "stories" shape our lives. Laurel, a young woman who left the South many years ago to pursue a life in Chicago, returns when her father is suddenly taken ill and requires an operation in New Orleans. There she waits out her father's long attempt at recovery in the company of her stepmother, a self-absorbed woman younger than herself with whom she has nothing in common. After her father dies, the two women accompany the body of her father, the Judge, back to her childhood home in a small town in Mississippi. Prior to the funeral a visitation takes place, and here we hear the authentic voices of all the townspeople as well as those of the Texas clan of the stepmother Fay who has claimed that all her relatives are dead. As each of these visitors pays condolences to Laurel the entire town becomes fleshed out in the words that each uses to describe his or her relationship with the Judge. Whole characters come fully to life in a single line of dialog. On the day after the funeral, some of the neighborwomen get together with Laurel to review the funeral (and discuss the stepmother). Everyone feels dissatisfied with how the funeral came off--all feel slightly uncomfortable with their own performance and those of the other mourners--demonstrating the awkwardness and stress of all funerals and the inadequacy of most people to express their true feelings of loss in these circumstances.

Throughout the book, we see the importance of the "stories" that we tell about ourselves. Already at the funeral the townspeople begin to tell stories about the Judge, exaggerating his courage and turning him into a community hero. Laurel objects to the town rewriting her father's history, but is powerless to stop them, as her father ceases to be an individual and becomes a story. Fay has worked hard to convince herself and the rest of the world that she comes from better origins than is the actual case. She is a difficult character to care about with her selfishness, distance, anger, and envy, but, as we see and hear the stories of the members of the family she has tried to distance herself from, we begin at least to understand better why she is the way she is. On her last night in her childhood home, Laurel looks through the letters and papers of her long-dead mother, who was beloved by the town, her husband, and her daughter. Through these stories (based on Welty's own memories of her mother's childhood home in West Virginia and on her mother's stories of growing up there) Laurel comes to a deeper understanding of both of her parents, their marriage, and herself.

The final theme in this simple, but profound book is the deep isolation of individuals, even when surrounding by family and friends. Laurel's father appears to have been deeply isolated emotionally despite his marriages to two women to whom he was devoted, and he draws into himself again as death approaches. Laurel's mother became increasingly isolated as blindness and mental disintegration drew her into her own world of pain and anger. Fay is loved neither by her family or the town to which her husband has brought her. Her only connection was to her husband and her anger at his death, which she sees as his desertion of her, becomes understandable. Laurel, long a widow after a brief marriage, has chosen to continue living alone in the city to which her husband took her, isolated from the community of love in which she grew up. Ultimately, however, Laurel discovers that memories can bind us to the past and prevent our moving forward. Before leaving her childhood home forever, Laurel burns all of her mother's papers. Having thus broken the hold of the past, she is now free to create a life of her own. Home will now be wherever she is.

Families and communities.......2006-01-12

Judge McKelva, Laurel's father, had a slipped retina. The Judge, an optimist, felt Dr. Courtland, a former neighbor in Mount Salus, Mississippi, could do the operation. Dr. Courtland had had something to do with the care of Laurel's mother, who had died.

Afterwards the Judge showed unnatural patience, reticence, and silence while he had to keep his head still after the operation. Reading NICHOLAS NICKLEBY seemed endless to Laurel. In wordless communication, Laurel came to understand that her task was not to read the book aloud to her father, but to pass the time at his bedside by reading it to herself.

The Judge's new wife was probably younger than his daughter. Fay was from Texas and claimed that her family was deceased. She tried to rouse Judge McKelva and she was stopped from doing so by the private duty nurse. McKelva collapsed and died. Dr. Courtland said that the eye had been healing. The Judge had helped the doctor financially while he was in medical school he told Laurel.

Laurel's bride's maids met her at the train and filled the house with food. The old Garden Club members were present, too. Adele Courtland, the doctor's sister, helped. It was a surprise to Laurel that Fay's relatives appeared at the Judge's funeral. The Judge had had no use for theatrics. Laurel was confused. The mourners were saying her father was a crusader, an angel.

It came to Laurel that her father had liked Gibbon, not Dickens. Mount Salus Presbyterian Church had been built by the McKelvas. Fay decided to return to Texas with her family for a visit. Family members spoke her language. Laurel faced her father's library. Everything important was in there. (Fay was getting the house.)

Laurel had married Philip Hand, an Ohio country boy. She was a widow, too, and would return to work in her field of art in another state.

The Quiet Optimist.......2006-01-05

In Eudora Welty's book, The Optimist's Daughter, Laurel Hand, the main character, notices her father's clock has stopped. Her father has, of course, just died, and for Laurel this means that time has become an elastic proposition. If any 20th century author can be said to have the power to split a moment, it is Eudora Welty.

The Optimist's Daughter is a study in grief and in love that carefully avoids cliché. Arriving from Chicago, Laurel watches her father let go of life after a seemingly successful operation. Meanwhile, his second wife, a younger woman named Fay who lacks the capacity for any kind of introspection, stages a display of raw anger. When they return for the funeral, Laurel watches again as the eccentric town, and Fay's even more eccentric family, converge upon the coffin of Mount Salus's first citizen.

Welty, who spent most of her life in Mississippi, has an ear for small town vernacular, and dialogue plays an important part in the book. Yet she never permits the narrative to travel along familiar lines, and often the characters speak out into thin air, as if to themselves. Laurel's distinctive silence marks the minutes before she is able to confront the past, which she does once she is alone, examining the contents of the house.

A storm, a trapped bird, and the fading correspondence of her parents' bring about the catharsis that she requires. She begins to understand the fallibility, the depth, and the complex nature of their love. `"Why did I marry a coward?"' her mother asks while dying, and Welty, as Laurel, continues - `then had taken his hand to help him bear it.'

Of all the writer's precepts, perhaps the most difficult is simplicity, of knowing when to shut up. Welty walks a fine line between boredom and profundity at times, but as Laurel goes about erasing the traces of Fay's influence (the nail polish on the desk) and her own past (she burns her mother's letters and confronts her personal losses), we sense in her a woman of uncommon maturity. There are no literary flourishes in The Optimist's Daughter, which means that every word on the page is carefully used. Take your time with this book - it bears re-reading.

A Rewarding Experience.......2005-12-21

I tend to agree with most of the glowing reviews and I can understand some of the frustration with the few negative reviews.

The complaint that "not much happens" after the funeral is valid to a point. Today's readers want to see evil and ignorance vanquished, whether it's a genuine villian or just some hillbilly white trash grabbing up an old man's estate with both hands.
But this is an evil and ignorant world, and Welty does a wonderful job of telling a story that feels not so much like a story but real life itself.

To me, I was impressed with Welty's incredible economy to tell this story. Anyone assigned to read this for a class or trying it out on their own should keep that in mind while reading it.
It will make for a more rewarding reading experience.

Concise and clear.......2005-10-14

I picked up this book on a remainder table. I had heard of Eudora Welty, only because of this book, which won her the Pulitzer Prize.

I was not dissapointed for the following reasons:
1. The book is concise. Sometimes it is nice to get through a book in 3 hours rather than 3 weeks, or like some that really drag, 3 months.
2. The prose is wonderful, the descriptions colorful. The storyline is simple, I could summarize the storyline in 3 sentences or less, but what was remarkable was the beauty of the writing and the short, descriptive paragraphs which made me go back and reread a few which I thought were particularly poignant.
3. The storyline, although simple, is interesting. I could relate to Laurel; I could see the old house and recognize all the neighbors as they came to her father's wake. I am surprised it has not been made into a movie. (or has it?)
4. The storyline and writing style reminded me of 'A Summons to Memphis" by Peter Taylor, another Southern writer.

If you are looking for action packed, this book isn't it. Should you want to appreciate some of the finest American Literature of the 20th century, this is a good pick.

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A Book for Wanderers
Short Story collection mascarading as a novel
Beautiful, Subtle, Resonating Stories

The Golden Apples
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Delta Wedding
The Optimist's Daughter
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Losing Battles

ASIN: 015636090X

Book Description

Welty is on home ground in the state of Mississippi in this collection of seven stories. She portrays the MacLains, the Starks, the Moodys, and other families of the fictitious town of Morgana. “I doubt that a better book about ‘the South’-one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life and its special tone and pattern-has ever been written” (New Yorker).

Customer Reviews:

A Book for Wanderers.......2004-12-22

In The Golden Apples, Welty offers a cycle of subtle, complex and often hilarious stories/myths from the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi. Told from a variety of perspectives and voices, the cycle uses southern imagery, greek mythology (sometimes via the poetry of Yeats) and musings on art and music to narrate the history of a cast of characters either absorbed by or isolated from Morgana and the surrounding world. The reader, in assembling meaning from the flood of rich narrative becomes more than a casual observer, but a participant in the ongoing mythology of Morgana.

Like Winesberg or Yoknapatawpha or even Middle Earth, Welty creates a world so complete and convincing that we can't help but immerse ourselves. And what lies in the gaps between the stories and known chronology becomes just as captivating as the story we're given.

Golden Apples, in its complexity, can be a lot of work. But the payoff is huge.

Short Story collection mascarading as a novel.......2004-07-17

Golden Apples is a novel by Eudora Welty that reads like a series of bizarre short stories with the same recurring characters set in a fictional town in Mississippi. Some readers may find it difficult because of its use of language (...). Others may find it difficult just for it's odd prose. The chapters are not linear nor are obvious segues ever used to cue the reader in that a jump in time has taken place. There are also lots of characters with similar names making it easy to lose track of who has done what, when. If I were more drawn into the book I'd want to reread it to get the pieces I missed or misunderstood but frankly I'm just not captivated enough to want to do that right now.

Beautiful, Subtle, Resonating Stories.......1999-04-22

"The Golden Apples" is one of the five best short story collections I've read. Welty's description of character, and its transformation throughout life (it's almost like an episodic novel) is subtle, humorous, and moving. Her style is poetic yet lucid, perfect for the emotionally complex situations she describes. The citizens of Morgana, Mississippi, with all their virtues, flaws and perversities, reminded me of Anderson's "Winesberg, Ohio." But Welty's eye seems defter, deeper, less given to easy pay-off and caricature. Similarly, she is superior to Flannary O'Connor because her tales deal with the nuances of everyday events rather than thunder-and-lightning epiphanies.

Book Description

This complete collection includes all the published stories of Eudora Welty. There are forty-one stories in all, including the earlier collections A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen, as well as previously uncollected stories. With a Preface written by the Author especially for this edition.

Customer Reviews:

one of the best writers ever.......2006-04-21

Welty's stories are ultra compact and pack in history, sociology, and art all in one. She was really an all seeing type of transcendent person. Makes one interested in the deep deep South and see that nothing is worthless or too base, that stupidity and lack of morality unites us all.

"What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not myself.".......2005-10-07

This National Book Award winner and treasure trove contain all 41 of Eudora Welty's short stories, including: "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories," (1941); "The Wide Net and Other Stories ,"(1943); the seven interlocking narratives of "The Golden Apples," (1949), "The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories," 1955, as well as two previously uncollected works, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" (1963), and "The Demonstrators" (1966). Miss Welty also wrote a Preface especially for this edition, in which she says: "I have been told, both in approval and in accusation, that I seem to love all my characters. What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not myself."

The intricacies of human relationships is the primary theme in this collection of short fiction. Eudora Welty's works combine wonderful humor and an astute perception of human psychology. Her ear for dialogue is superb and her prose lyrical and nuanced.

Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi where she spent most of her life. From the moment of publication, her collections of stories won wide critical acclaim, as did her novels, "The Robber Bridegroom," "Delta Wedding," "The Ponder Heart," "Losing Battles," and "The Optimist's Daughter," which won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize. Her autobiography, One Writer's Beginnings, won both the American Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984. In 1996, Welty was given France's highest civilian honor, the French Legion of Honor Award.

This is a remarkable compilation of short fiction by one of the most gifted writers of our time. This volume enriches any library it graces. Highly recommended.
JANA

Buy This Book And A Large Highlighter.......2002-06-10

You will run out of highlighter ink reading this one, because there are so many passages you will surely want to reread and savor later.

This grand matriarch of Southern Writer Tradition was first discovered, praised and published by luminaries such as Robert Penn Warren when he was coeditor of The Southern Review, Edward Weeks when he was editor of The Atlantic Monthly, and Mary Louise Aswell, when she was fiction editor of Harper's Bazaar.

This collection of stories is truly worthy to be called a classic. It is sometimes tedious reading, because the stories and characters are complex. After a number of false starts over a period of years, I finally resolved to give this scholarly work the focused time and attention it deserves, and feel richly rewarded for the effort.

Ms. Welty joins the ranks of great writers who prove to us that a great writer does not have to live the experience to effectively write about it. She leaps with ease between characters as diverse as Aaron Burr, a deaf black servant boy, a traveling salesmen, eccentric Southern matrons, and countless others. She portrays them in all of their complexities as if she had lived the experiences of each. Her descriptions of scenes and settings are equally as lucid and believable as if she had first hand knowledge of each. This rare and precious gift is best described in her own words, "I have been told, both in approval and accusation, that I seem to love all of my characters. What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart, and skin of a human being who is not myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young, with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set most high."

A wonderful book.......2001-10-06

Ms. Welty is an example of not just southern writers but history as well. An reader would be smart to read her works.

Important Collection.......2001-09-29

Welty's recent death makes this collection more important, and brings all of her best work together in one pricey volume. It contains her masterful, southern short stories lived through the eyes of charming characters. This collection also contains what some say was her best piece: "June Recital." The reissue edition contains much more interesting cover art photography.

Eudora Welty : Complete Novels: The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, The Optimist's Daughter (Library of America)

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Mistress of Southern Fiction
Greatest living southern writer

Eudora Welty : Complete Novels: The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, The Optimist's Daughter (Library of America)
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102)
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty: A Biography
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter/Reflections in a Golden Eye/The Ballad of the Sad Cafe/The Member of the Wedding/The Clock Without Hands (Library of America)
William Faulkner : Novels 1936-1940 : Absalom, Absalom! / The Unvanquished / If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem / The Hamlet (Library of America)

ASIN: 188301154X

Amazon.com

This Library of America volume gathers all the long fiction published by the beloved Mississippi writer Eudora Welty. Throughout her long and storied career, Welty has been most famous, perhaps, for her short stories. But it's in her novels that she attempted some of her most ambitious and powerful creations: the idiosyncratic fable that is The Robber Bridegroom, drawing on legends, local history, folktale, and myth; the underrated, wickedly funny short novel The Ponder Heart; and Losing Battles, a familial epic 15 years in the making and begun in bits and pieces while Welty cared for her sick mother. In a strange inversion of the author's usual career trajectory, Welty's only attempt at a roman à clef came late in life, with the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Optimist's Daughter, the quiet, moving, largely autobiographical story of a woman coming to grips with her father's death. The novels alone earn Welty a place as one of the finest writers our century has produced; taken together with the Library of America companion volume, Stories, Essays, & Memoir, it's a body of work that William Maxwell calls "beyond human power of praising." Welty rarely strayed for long from the place of her birth, but her fiction is as capacious as the human heart itself. Like Faulkner, she has taken her own corner of Mississippi and made it encompass the world.

Customer Reviews:

Mistress of Southern Fiction.......2006-12-21

Each new volume from The Library of America, the non-profit publisher that has become the de facto literary hall of fame, is a cause for celebration. Its goal of preserving in an enduring format the best fiction and non-fiction is a significant bulwark against the encroaching tides of cultural relativism that attempts to render any value judgments meaningless, as well as a consumer society that insists that if it ain't new, it ain't good.

In the case of Eudora Welty, we're given two volumes: a collection of five novels ("The Robber Bridegroom," "Delta Wedding," "The Ponder Heart," "Losing Battles" and the Pulitzer-winning "The Optimist's Daughter"), and another of her essays, her memoir "One Writer's Beginnings" and her short stories. From her first published short stories, "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" in 1937, to her last novel in 1972, Welty captures with her highly readable style and sharp eye and ear the varieties and eccentricities of Southern life.

But while the South claims Welty as one of its own, she may not necessarily return the favor. Teh cause is both geographic and a matter of choice. Although she was born in Jackson, Miss., in 1909 and lived there all her life, her father was from Ohio and her mother from West Virginia, a state created by the Civil War that went for the Union. This isn't Margaret Mitchell we're talking about here.

Then, in her essay "Place in Fiction," she stresses that while it is important for a writer to capture the feeling of an area, it is not the paramount goal in fiction:

"It is through place that we put out roots ... but where those roots reach toward ... is the deep and running vein, eternal and consistent and everywhere purely itself, that feeds and is fed by the human understanding."

But what pedigree does not provide, her environment probably did, for her work contains those elements poularly associated with Southern fiction. "Delta Wedding" celebrates the Southern family through the sprawling Fairchild clan and its passel of sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, great-aunts, nieces and nephews, all involved in each others' lives to a degree rarely seen today.

Many of her stories revolve around characters marginalized by society, struggling to exist and reach out to others: the simple Lily Daw who tries to evade the determination of the town's ladies to either marry her off or send her to the asylum; the generous, slightly retarded Daniel Ponder who would give away everything he has at the drop of a hat; the demented Clytie in "A Curtain of Green," who rushes about looking in people's faces until, seeing her reflection in a barrel of rainwater, dives in and drowns.

Eudora Welty was a sharp, perceptive writer, and her enshrinement by the Library of America is most welcome.

Greatest living southern writer.......2001-06-15

I began my acquaintance with Eudora Welty's works in college with One Writer's Beginnings and fell in love with the lyrics of her writing. I moved on to her short stories where I believe Ms. Welty surely shines brightest, but her novels are almost as wonderful. Very few people have the depth of insight into the mind and motivations of southerners that Eudora Welty has. She is right up there with William Faulkner. She has the gift of seeing and conveying the universal experiences of her decidedly regional cast of characters.

Since this is a collection of all of Ms. Welty's novels it is difficult to give a concise review. Suffice it to say that for reading pleasure you will not spend better money. The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize, but Losing Battles may be even better (the novel centers on all of the family stories told at a huge family reunion--great framing device for so many wonderful tales). The Robber Bridegroom is a southern fairy tale.

Amazon.com

Among the most beloved of American writers, Eudora Welty's stories and novels have entertained us for over half a century. Here, in her memoirs, she writes with her usual candor and grace about how a writer's sensibilities are shaped. As compelling as her stories, as witty as her personality, as finely honed as her fiction, Welty's account of her life is a powerful and fulfilling read.

Book Description

Now available as an audio CD, in Eudora Welty's own voice, or as a book. </p>

Eudora Welty was born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. In a "continuous thread of revelation" she sketches her autobiography and tells us how her family and her surroundings contributed to the shaping not only of her personality but of her writing. Homely and commonplace sights, sounds, and objects resonate with the emotions of recollection: the striking clocks, the Victrola, her orphaned father's coverless little book saved since boyhood, the tall mountains of the West Virginia back country that become a metaphor for her mother's sturdy independence, Eudora's earliest box camera that suspended a moment forever and taught her that every feeling awaits a gesture. She has recreated this vanished world with the same subtlety and insight that mark her fiction. </p>

Even if Eudora Welty were not a major writer, her description of growing up in the South--of the interplay between black and white, between town and countryside, between dedicated schoolteachers and the public they taught--would he notable. That she is a splendid writer of fiction gives her own experience a family likeness to others in the generation of young Southerners that produced a literary renaissance. Until publication of this book, she had discouraged biographical investigations. It undoubtedly was not easy for this shy and reticent lady to undertake her own literary biography, to relive her own memories (painful as well as pleasant), to go through letters and photographs of her parents and grandparents. But we are in her debt, for the distillation of experience she offers us is a rare pleasure for her admirers, a treat to everyone who loves good writing and anyone who is interested in the seeds of creativity. </p>

Customer Reviews:

To learn to listen for the stories.......2007-03-15

This is an outstanding memoir. In telling of her own development as a writer Welty devotes much time to telling the story of her parents, and their families. She writes of them with respect, understanding and appreciation. She also by telling the story of the families gives a picture of the American world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
While Welty does not devote most of her pages to describing her authorial practice she does provide insightful passages into her overall development. Here is a key one

" But it was not until I began to write, as I seriously did only when I reached my twenties, that I found the world out there revealing, because ( as with my father now)memory had become attached to seeing , love had added itself to discovery and because I recognized in my own continuing longing to keep going , the need I carried inside myself to know- the apprehension first, and then the passion, to connect myself to it. Through travel I first became aware of the outside world ; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way of becoming part of it."

Welty in the opening section of the work tells how she learned to listen not simply to, but for the stories which she would make literature out of. In the second section she speaks of 'Learning to See' .and the third is devoted to 'Finding a Voice'.
Again I was impressed by her ability to write even of minor characters in her life with perception and sympathy.
A fine work.

Inspirational for new student writers.......2006-07-13

Eudora Welty does an excellent job of understanding the importance of storytelling as it relates to becoming a writer. My students in the ENG101 Comp course have said this book was inspirational in jump starting their writing assignments for the course. They said she gave them many ideas; she presented herself as a "real" person - not an author they felt were "above them"...a great beginning for one writer's beginnings...in this case, my students!

Wonderful, warm story.......2006-05-25

What a lovely, warm and engaging little book! I have read many of Miss Welty's works, and wanted to know what makes such a talented writer "tick". I loved this book for the insight on growing up in the South, and for the kind way in which she wrote about her family. With so many people out there writing books about how terrible their upbringing was-this was truly refreshing. My house was a lot like hers in a way-every room was one in which books could be read. One of the most memorable lines in the book was "Learning stamps you with its moments". Miss Welty seemed very curious about the world around her and this was encouraged by her parents. This curiousity is what made her a wonderful writer. A lot of her memories of her childhood make appearances in her stories. I highly recommend "One Writer's Beginnings" to anyone who is curious about Miss Welty's work, or anyone who is already a fan and wants to know more about her.

Wonderful Book!.......2004-07-21

I pick this book up and read it over and over again. It's WONDERFUL! Ms. Welty does a great job explaining her life growing up in Jackson, Mississippi in the first half of the 20th Century and how it influenced her writing. Her descriptions of her school prinicipal and the town librarian are priceless as are her descriptions of sunday school at the Methodist Church. Originally delivered as a part of the Massey Lectures on American Civilization at Harvard University, she did a wonderful job spinning these into a super little book. After reading the book I had to visit her home in Jackson and see Jefferson Davis School across the street.

The Art Of Writing.......2004-03-01

Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings is an excellently composed book about the writer's personal life, and her personal style of writing. Welty is a very eminent writer, whose many honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award for fiction, and the Gold Medal for the Novel given for her entire work in fiction. Thus her book about her own personal development as a writer is extremely important, since it provides essential clues to her success. One Writer's Beginnings is mainly focused on Welty's life, commencing with her childhood, and how it had a significant effect on her writing. Mainly the book is composed of three main topics: listening, learning to see, and finding a voice. These topics explain Welty's personal development as a writer, and one should definitely read and consider each one of them. One Writer's Beginnins is an interesting book, containing potent intellectual and emotional qualities, and also educational themes.

One Writer's Beginnings' main themes are very elucidating, since they provide important clues to Welty's success as a writer. The book commences with Welty's early life and the description of her family. In this she starts her first main topic- "listening". She describes her interest in listening to others, and she learned to be an observer. As she states, "A conscious act grew out of this by the time I began to write stories: getting my distance... is the way I begin work." This enchantment of listening helped Welty develop a clear idea on how to compose stories, and how to describe different personalities. The next main topic is "learning to see", which describes her impressions of every place she visited. As Welty explains, every trip her family made helped her later to write her stories, since somewhere in the back of her head those stories were already composed and all she had to do is put them down on paper. Each trip changed Welty's life, making a sort of metamorphosis deep within her character, "They changed something in my life: each trip made its particular revelation." Finally the last main topic of her bibliography is "finding a voice". This part of the book is possibly the most important, since it contains information about the author's personal writing evolution. Here, one can learn about the character development and creation. All of these topics were colorfully described, and each had an essential piece of information which revealed Welty's development as a writer. Therefore, anyone who wishes to improve his writing abilities should read this book and learn more about these educational main themes in Welty's book.

Another powerful asset in One Writer's Beginnings is its intellectual qualities. The book is written in a simplistic way, and it retains high clarity. Even though the language is quite colorful, it is very easy to follow Welty's story. As for instance she writes, "When I did begin to write, the short story was a shape that had already formed itself and stood waiting in the back of my mind." The sentence is easy to read, and it still pertains important information about the author's writing years. Thus this positive quality gives this book a big plus, since it is much easier to learn new things from a book that is written in an understandable language.

The emotional qualities of the book provide a powerful effect on the reader's mind. Welty has an excellent writing style that is both poignant and interesting. She explains a number of emotional moments in her life, which touch the reader. As for instance, she describes the death of her older brother who died before she was born. Yet she still seems to be happy with her life, and all of her misfortunes seem to be just part of her life, and they do not change her love of life. Thus she is very optimistic, and this quality of the book makes it very interesting, since it teaches others not to despair but to enjoy our lives as they are. Also she describes her parent's infinite love for her. The book's emotional qualities help the reader feel closer to the writer, and this makes the book even more interesting.

One Writer's Beginnings is a resplendently composed book on Eudora Welty's life, which contains a simplicity of a parable, and educational themes of a novel. The book is mainly divided into three main pars, Listening, Learning To See, and Finding A Voice. Each of these main topics explain Welty's evolution as a writer, and provide important clues to her writing style. Everyone should definitely consider reading this book, and learning more about such an eminent writer as Eudora Welty. In the end, One Writer's Beginnings is an easy reading book, that can teach its readers many essential ideas and themes about writing. Thus everyone who has not read this book should consider reading this powerful work of literature.

Essential Welty CD: Why I Live at the P.O., A Memory, Powerhouse and Petrified Man
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Truly An Amazing, Spectacular Find!!!

Eudora Welty Outstanding Writer, Outstanding Performer

Essential Welty CD: Why I Live at the P.O., A Memory, Powerhouse and Petrified Man
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Caedmon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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Eudora Welty Photographs

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

One Time One Place: Mississippi in the Depression : A Snapshot Album

Country Churchyards

The William Faulkner Audio Collection

ASIN: 0061124192
Release Date: 2006-06-27

Book Description

In 1956, Caedmon had the great fortune to record Eudora Welty reading some of her finest stories. In her sweetly vibrant Mississippi drawl, Ms. Welty deftly draws the listener in to the uproariously multilayered "Why I Live at the P.O.," the spontaneous "Powerhouse" and the insightful voice of women's truths in "Petrified Man." Ms. Welty's reading brings immediacy and resonance to these wonderful tales. </p>

Customer Reviews:

Truly An Amazing, Spectacular Find!!!.......2007-01-10

I have loved, adored and admired Miss Eudora Welty's magnificent writing since I read "Why I Live at the P. O." in high school. Stella-Rondo and Sister's fights just tickled my funny bone to the max, especially because I have two sisters and we were always fighting about something, so I related, totally.

The characters of Mama, Papa-Daddy, Sister, Stella-Rondo and Uncle Rondo are like no other characters you will ever encounter in literature, I can promise you. There has never, ever been another writer like Miss Welty with her unique, quintessential Mississippi outlook on life. When Uncle Rondo puts on Stella-Rondo's flesh-colored kimono (after drinking a bottle of a prescription---which he does every 4th of July), and saunters around the back yard, I was in stitches.

But to find this CD of her reading her own work (ALL of my favorites!) was like finding a hidden treasure. I've just about worn the poor CD out from playing it.

If you're a fan of Miss Welty, this is a must have. If you haven't read her stories yet, DO IT NOW! To misuse a quote by Faulkner, Miss Welty's 'Why I Live at the P. O.' is worth any number of old men. LOL!

Eudora Welty Outstanding Writer, Outstanding Performer.......2006-12-22

This legendary writer does full justice to her classic short stories with thoroughly delightful readings!! This lady is not only a supremely gifted comic writer, she is a fabulous comedienne performer, giving delicious readings no veteran Hollywood or stage actress could match. She will have you on the floor with WHY I LIVE AT THE P.O. and especially THE PETRIFIED MAN. This is one book on tape you will play over and over. This one should have won a Grammy for Best Spoken Recording. Miss Welty is a laugh riot! This old gal is funnier than Lucille Ball!!!

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See What Welty Saw
A Fascinating Look at Pre-war Mississippi
A Fascinating Look at Pre-war Mississippi
The Other Public Side of Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty Photographs
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

One Time One Place: Mississippi in the Depression : A Snapshot Album
Country Churchyards
Essential Welty CD: Why I Live at the P.O., A Memory, Powerhouse and Petrified Man
Eudora Welty: A Biography
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

ASIN: 0878055290

Customer Reviews:

See What Welty Saw.......2005-10-07

Welty's tallent with the unspoken is clear as one turns each page. This book is as beautiful as it is haunting. I am originally from the delta, which makes these pages seem like a part of me. It is wonderful to see what Welty saw -- the folks who inspired her stories.

A Fascinating Look at Pre-war Mississippi.......2001-09-28

This collection of photographs vibrantly brings to life a bygone era in Mississippi. As a former resident of the state Ms. Welty photographed, I found this book to be an indispensible document of a life now gone (for better and worse). The simplicity and beauty of the featured photographs move me almost as much as the author's fiction. While we do not remember Eudora Welty for her photographs, I find it hard to be disappointed with them; alas, I can only find fault with the volume's brevity. This book would be a wonderful addition to any collection.

A Fascinating Look at Pre-war Mississippi.......2001-09-28

This collection of photographs vibrantly brings to life a bygone era in Mississippi. As a former resident of the state Ms. Welty photographed, I found this book to be an indispensible document of a life now gone (for better and worse). The simplicity and beauty of the featured photographs move me almost as much as the author's fiction. While we do not remember Eudora Welty for her photographs, I find it hard to be disappointed with them. I can only find fault with the volume's brevity. This book would be a wonderful addition to any collection.

The Other Public Side of Eudora Welty.......2000-05-17

Most of us know Eudora Welty as a writer of Southern fiction, marked by regional dialect, mysterious characters, and absorbing stories. Ms. Welty's photography is another reflection of her sensitive, intuitive nature. She captures in images the essence of life in Mississippi just as she captured it later in her writings. The reproduction is not superlative, but one does get an adequate representation of her work and its intent. Those who know photography intimately and those with a passing interest will all find this book immensely satisfying.

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Delta Wedding
Southern Lit at its Best
We are most hospitably invited to the festivites.
Forgetting Delta Wedding
Alienation in a large family

Delta Wedding (A Harvest/Hbj Book)
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Optimist's Daughter
The Ponder Heart
The Robber Bridegroom
The Golden Apples
Losing Battles

ASIN: 0156252805

Book Description

A vivid and charming portrait of a large southern family, the Fairchilds, who live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta. The story, set in 1923, is exquisitely woven from the ordinary events of family life, centered around the visit of a young relative, Laura McRaven, and the family’s preparations for her cousin Dabney’s wedding.

Customer Reviews:

Delta Wedding.......2006-11-10

I had always wanted to read something by Eudora Welty, and this book cured me of that. What a confusing bunch of characters--one didn't know if they were white or black--young or old. The one bright spot in the book was her very descriptive language.

Southern Lit at its Best.......2006-10-31

Welty has a way with words that is unlike any other American author. Delta Wedding is one of those "typical" Welty books that delivers passages that you have to reread several times because they are so evocative of time, place or spirituality.

DW is set at Shellmound, the Fairchild's plantation in the Mississippi Delta, aka cotton country. Laura McRaven, a cousin to the Fairchilds' travels by train from Jackson to Fairchild and is both overwhelmed by her huge family of cousins, aunts and uncles, and lured to be accepted by them. Laura's mother had recently passed away, and she expects to be treated special as a result. Other than her first greeting by her Aunt Ellen (the matriarch of this enormous family) she is pretty much left to fend for herself. Sometimes this proves too much for her, but by the end of the novel it seems that Laura fits right in with the rest of the Fairchilds.

One theme in particular that I liked about the book is that of the view of the outsider. Laura is an outsider who both wants to be inside and remain outside. She likes her "special-ness" by being an orphan and not being part of the Fairchild clan, but she desperately wants to be part of something grand, and the Fairchilds seem like a good place to start. Ellen, who married Battle Fairchild, is from Virginia and is seen as snooty even though she is thoroughly in love with the people around her. Welty does such a wonderful job of showing someone who is so overwhelmed by her life that she can't seem to react with enthusiasm--it's as if she's a piece of drift wood in the Yazoo River. Then there is Troy Flavin who is the bride groom of the story. Not only is he from another part of Mississippi where there are hills, but he is the overseer for the plantation--he is doubly outside. He looks different than everyone else, too. Unfortunately, we don't get to see the world from Troy's perspective other than in the few statements he makes about his mother and her quilting.

I enjoyed reading DW, though I have to admit I wished it were a little shorter. I felt myself being overwhelmed by the huge cast of characters. I still don't know how many children Battle and Ellen have, and I found myself wondering who some minor characters were upon their reintroduction to the story. That said, Welty has such a talent for a turn of phrase or for the absurd, that I found myself laughing out loud and thoroughly enjoying this book.

We are most hospitably invited to the festivites........2005-08-09

Eudora Welty, winner of the National Medal for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize, paints a haunting, lyrical portrait of the enormous Fairchild clan at Shellmound - their rustically feudal cotton plantation in the 1920's Mississippi Delta.

The family has gathered for the wedding of Dabney, the second and prettiest daughter, (in her particular generation), and Troy Flavin, Shellmound's overseer, a ruddy-haired man who is totally unsuitable, in the eyes of various family members. However, nothing is expressed verbally to indicate their displeasure. Their attitudes, the way they live and treat each other, say it all.

It is late summer, and the festivities are underway in the semi-tropical heat which hangs heavy over the river and bayou. Nine year-old Laura McRaven, a cousin whose mother just died, arrives for the celebrations on a trial visit, of sorts, that will decide whether she is to become a permanent member of the clan, or be sent back to her non-Fairchild father in Jackson. The plot is a simple one, however, the novel's pattern of relationships are most complex. The characters' reveal themselves through their actions, conversations, soliloquies, and sometimes through the perceptions of young Laura, as they all deal with the issues which unite and divide them.

Welty's sensitive story vividly portrays the charm and customs of old Southern family gatherings of yesteryear, and explores the complexities and chaos associated with close-knit families. The author literally invites the reader, most hospitably, into Shellmound and beckons us to join the festivities.

"Delta Wedding" was Ms. Welty's first novel, published in 1946. While I thoroughly enjoyed "Delta Wedding," I do prefer Ms Welty's short stories to her novels.
JANA

Forgetting Delta Wedding.......2005-08-03

The only reason I completed this silly, disappointing novel was because I had just finished all of Welty's remarkable short stories and her flawless novella, "The Optimist's Daughter." It's as if a completely different author had written this superficial, fatuous novel. If you desire to read about 20 forgettable people in a seriously inbred family speaking at the same time about the impending wedding of one of their own, then this novel is for you. The only explanation for this work is that it came very early in Welty's career. I realize that others have defended this novel as revealing quintessential Southern dialogue and acute psychological tension in the characters. While the dialogue is clearly of the South, it is senseless, repetitive and tedious, and the characters dash madly in and out of the novel, without making any lasting impression on this reader. Instead, read Welty's short stories and "The Optimist's Daughter" and you will discover a totally different Welty: one whose fully realized characters and profound psychological insights will leave you with the enduring belief in her genius.

Alienation in a large family.......2005-05-14

When you see the title "Delta Wedding," please don't assume that Eudora Welty's novel is either a gaudy supermarket romance or a pollyanna tribute to nuptial celebration and Southern domesticity. It is about the events leading up to a wedding, and of course there is plenty of talk about dresses and cooking and dancing, but Welty, almost like Virginia Woolf's American counterpart, suffuses the atmosphere with mysterious psychological undercurrents and the foreboding aura of secrecy. We get the sense that there is more to these people's personalities than the text can convey, and we read on patiently and attentively, hoping to unravel the complexities.

The setting is the area of central Mississippi through which the Yazoo River flows, not far from Faulkner country geographically or literarily; much of the land in this particular locality is owned by a family named the Fairchilds, the dynastic centerpiece of the story. The prevalent symbol in the novel is a train called the Yellow Dog, the principal means of mass transportation that connects this part of Mississippi to the rest of the state. This is the train that brings nine-year-old Laura McRaven from Jackson to visit the Fairchilds, her cousins, on their plantation, where Dabney (that's a girl) Fairchild is engaged to be married within the week to a man twice her age named Troy Flavin.

It is also the train that, not long before the novel begins, nearly ran over Laura's uncle George as he tried to rescue his addled niece Maureen who had caught her foot in a trestle. George's wife Robbie had witnessed this near-accident and now is using it as an excuse to leave him--how could he be so selfish as to risk his life and widow her? Although this does not speak well of Robbie's character, the source of her discontent is really alienation. She knows that she is beneath George's station, and every instance in which he bonds with another Fairchild only affirms that the Fairchild mystique is a closed circle, impenetrable to her.

For a novel concerned about a wedding in the immediate present, it is deeply immersed in its characters' pasts. Laura is an only child whose mother has recently passed away, so this large house where she is surrounded by myriad cousins, aunts, and uncles, like legendary creatures whose fantastic world she has suddenly entered, is an awesome environment with a rich and intricate history. The Fairchilds are such a regional monument that the entire town cemetery is practically their very own mausoleum; Dr. Murdoch, the insensitive local physician, picks out future burial plots for Fairchilds as though he were deciding where to plant flowers in a garden.

One interesting characteristic of "Delta Wedding" is that, true to impressionistic storytelling, there is no traditional protagonist that I could identify. Laura receives much of the focus, but this is not really her story, nor is it narrated in her voice. Dabney is too shallow and spoiled to be a heroine; her older sister Shelley, a smarter and more serious girl, is not interested in being a heroine, and good for her. "Delta Wedding" does well without a hero because it is realistic fiction at its most crystalline; a sincere, authentic depiction of life in the rural deep South of the 1920s which shows a part of the country modernizing to the twentieth century even while clinging to the shadows of the past.

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A Rare, Neglected Masterpiece
Cupid and Psyche meets the American Tall Tale
A warped fairy tale
"The sun shone down of all our possessions. "
Astonishing

The Robber Bridegroom
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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The Ponder Heart
Delta Wedding
The Robber Bridegroom (1976 Original Broadway Cast)
The Optimist's Daughter
The Golden Apples

ASIN: 0156768070

Book Description

Legendary figures of Mississippi’s past-flatboatman Mike Fink and the dreaded Harp brothers-mingle with characters from Eudora Welty’s own imagination in an exuberant fantasy set along the Natchez Trace. Berry-stained bandit of the woods Jamie Lockhart steals Rosamond, the beautiful daughter of pioneer planter Clement Musgrove, to set in motion this frontier fairy tale. “For all her wild, rich fancy, Welty writes prose that is as disciplined as it is beautiful” (New Yorker).

Customer Reviews:

A Rare, Neglected Masterpiece.......2005-08-07

Eudora Welty's second book, "The Robber Bridegroom," is an inspired synthesis of traditional American and European folktale recast in the deep south at the start of the 19th century. That this book handles such a challenge without sounding strained, pretentious, or self conscious is remarkable; that the prose is at once lush and fueled by a fast-paced narrative is even better. As with her other fiction, Welty's humor here never condescends, though it often exposes a darker, more violent reality than readers of "A Curtain of Green" might expect. The story is rife with familial betrayals, incidents of physical and sexual violence, and overt expressions of racism among the early settlers. Miraculously, these issues never burden the pace and joy of the narrative. Like Voltaire's "Candide," Welty's "The Robber Bridegroom" is a gentle satire that touches upon the more disturbing aspects of humanity while celebrating the same characters it satirizes. A one-of-a-kind book, and a must read for serious readers of American literature and world mythology.

Cupid and Psyche meets the American Tall Tale.......2004-05-17

Welty's first published novel is a retelling of Psyche and Cupid, with a decidedly American twist. Instead of turning the Greek myth into a fairy tale, she's created a delightfully unbelievable, far-fetched and bizarre "tall tale".

Many of the elements of a fairy tale are there--the wicked stepmother, the beautiful heroine, the naive and loving father, the handsome hero--but these are overshadowed by tall tale traits such as the superb stretching-of-the-truth skills by nearly everyone encountered from the mail rider who was swallowed by a crocodile to our heroine, Rosamond, who can't tell a truth to save her life.

The story takes place along the Natchez Trace in Mississippi with "Red Indians", robbers and a few famous American tall tale characters filling up the bad guy roster--with the hero, Jamie, switching sides regularly. Rosamond's father Clement Musgrove is a wealthy planter who meets Jamie at an inn and unwittingly brings his disruptive presence into Musgrove family.

Many deaths, lies, misunderstandings and berry stains later, Rosamond and Jamie do live happily ever after. . . and Rosamond even starts telling the truth. . . well mostly the truth, "it was all true but the blue canopy".

This fanciful tale is a well-executed, superbly written, pleasant read and it's only afterwards that one realizes that Welty added a bit of acid to this pleasurable brew.

A warped fairy tale.......2004-04-13

Eudora Welty borrowed from the old Brothers Grimm fairy tale 'The Robber Bridegroom' to create this story that is part fairy tale, part historical fantasy, and very strange. Instead of old Europe, the action takes place in the southern United States. The old characters are all there: the innocent daughter, the merchant father, the irascible thief who becomes the 'bridegroom', and some new people have been added. A wicked stepmother, a boy named Goat, and an Indian tribe are just a few of the extras.

Apparently some of the characters, like Mike Fink and the Harp brothers, were real people, or at least were part of American folklore. Welty combines old world and new world fairy tales to create something completely unique. If you know the story of the Robber Bridgroom, you'll see how Welty has slyly snuck in very subtle similarities (the bird in the cage), and you'll be astonished at how much the ending was changed from the original story.

The book moves with rapid speed through larger than life situations. The Indians cooked and ate the merchant's family and he and his daughter escaped, THEN he married the evil Salome, THEN some guy tried to kill him while he slept with his bag of gold, THEN Lockhart carried his daughter away naked, THEN... It becomes almost too frantic, and you might need to go back a few pages now and again to make sure you didn't miss something. It's probably not the best introduction to Welty, but it's one of her most colorful works. For an elegantly written, surrealist fairy tale, you can't do much better than this.

"The sun shone down of all our possessions. ".......2004-02-16

In Eudora Welty's tale "The Robber Bridegroom" wealthy planter Clement Musgrove has a tragic past. When captured by Indians years before, Musgrove lost his wife and son, but his precious daughter, Rosamond, survived. After this terrible incident, Musgrove's wealth grew, it seems, with amazingly good luck. But his greatest treasure is Rosamond. She's beautiful but she's also known to stretch the truth at times. One day she returns home naked with a tale that a disguised bandit took all of her clothes.

This Welty novel reads like a fairy tale. There's a wicked, ugly stepmother, and a creature named Goat she uses for her dirty work. I could say that this is a fairy tale for adults, but that has an unpleasant connotation.

I was absolutely delighted with the first half of the novel, but then it lost interest for me. I loved the planter and his family life, and the novel had a very strong moral point about the true worth of wealth and possessions. The wicked stepmother was great fun, and I laughed when she ordered Rosamond out to the wood hoping that something bad would happen to the poor girl. After Jamie Lockhart stole Rosamond, the novel seemed to lose its focus and control. The novel began very strongly with Musgrove's story of his capture by the Indians, but once the plot left the Musgrove family and moved onto the robber's lair, I found it not at all to my liking. There was a fresh, child-like innocence and purity to the first part of the story, but the second dark half of the novel did not match its promising beginning--displacedhuman

Astonishing.......2002-03-03

This lovely novella introduced Eudora Welty to the world. Now it can introduce you to Eudora Welty. A raucous, genre-bending mixture of historical fiction, romance novel, and tall tale -- all shot through with the compassion and psychological subtlety for which Welty would become famous -- _The Robber Bridegroom_ still holds a place of honor in Southern literature.

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